As I write this post flying back from TechEd, North America ( check out Day 1 keynote ), it never ceases to amaze me how technology has really changed our lives!!! Speaking of which, what an honor that all of you voted System Center 2012 as best Microsoft Product at TechEd . Thank you for your support! We here have worked incredibly hard over the past few years to develop System Center to meet your needs and having this award means a lot to us. Below is a picture of the award; not the best picture I admit. It’s going to find a home in building 44 at the Microsoft Campus .
And now for what we all have been waiting for... YES, it is here!! We are super excited to announce the availability of CTP2 of System Center 2012 SP1 . With the recent release of Windows Server 2012, Release Candidate , this release of System Center is targeted at supporting that. While at TechEd, the buzz about Windows Server 2012 was evident and we are thrilled to be able to release CTP2 which supports this incredible release of Windows Server. Given the plethora of capabilities in Windows Server 2012 , this release of System Center has significant investments to provide you a management solution based on a rich platform.
While at TechEd, we had a session which talks about what’s coming in System Center 2012 SP1. Given the breadth of capabilities in SP1, I was able to cover only a few key things, but it’s a good place to start your journey with CTP2. The recording was not up as I write this, but should be available by early next week. In addition there were deeper dive sessions on each of the System Center components which you should check out at the TechEd site .
This release contains updates to all the System Center components. See below for more information and stay tuned for additional posts describing the component updates.
Upgrade : CTP1 cannot be upgraded to CTP2 and CTP2 will not be upgradable to Beta.
Production Use : This release is not intended for production deployments. It’s targeted at giving you an early preview of some of what’s coming in this SP1 release.
Scenarios: We specifically focused on a key set of scenarios documented here for this release.
FEEDBACK, FEEDBACK, FEEDBACK – Please give us your feedback on use of Windows Server 2012, Release Candidate and CTP2 of System Center 2012 SP1 by visiting http://connect.Microsoft.com/SC
What’s New
All components now support Windows Server 2012 RC and SQL Server 2012.
Component |
What’s New |
More Info |
App Controller |
· Ability to migrate a VM from VMM to Azure · Support for using Service Provider Foundation to create and operate VMs in VMM · Azure IaaS enhancements: Ability to deploy VMs from an image or disk, start and stop VMs, and add VMs to a service |
More Info |
Configuration Manager |
· Support for Windows 8, including deploying Windows 8 applications and the ability to detect 3G and 4G network connections to prevent delivering software at a time when data charges may apply. · Additional operating support to extend manageability to Mac OS X and Unix/Linux servers. |
|
Data Protection Manager |
· Improved backup performance of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V over CSV 2.0 deployments · Protect Hyper-V over remote SMB share · Protect Windows 8 de-duplicated volumes · VM Live Migration: Uninterrupted data protection |
More Info |
Operations Manager |
APM enhancements, including: · Support for IIS8 · Monitoring of WCF, MVC and .NET NT services · Azure SDK support |
More Info |
Orchestrator & Service Provider Foundation |
· Supports existing System Center and 3 rd -Party Integration Packs · Service Provider Foundation, which provides a rich set of web services that manage VMM: o Create, change, and operate VMs o Manage VMM Self-service User Roles o Manage multiple VMM stamps and aggregate results from multiple stamps o Integration with App Controller to use hosted capacity |
More Info |
Service Manager |
· Ability to apply price sheets to VMM Clouds · Create VM chargeback reports · Ability to pivot by Cost Center, VMM Clouds, and Price sheets |
More Info |
Server App-V |
· Support for applications that create scheduled tasks during the packaging process · Ability to create virtual application packages from applications installed natively on a remote server |
|
Virtual Machine Manager |
· Improved support for network virtualization · Ability to convert VHD to VHDX and to use VHDX as a base operating system image · Support for the Windows Standards-Based Storage Management Service, thin provisioning of logical units, and discovery of SAS storage · You can now create Add-Ins that extend the VMM console. |
More Info |
There is a lot that still has to come after CPT2!! Enjoy!!!
Vijay Tewari
Group Program Manager, System Center
Download the CTP2 release here:
Download |
Location |
Installation packages for all components |
|
Documentation for all components |
You must be a registered user to add a comment. If you've already registered, sign in. Otherwise, register and sign in.