System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 Beta Now Available for Download

[System-Center-Team]

First published on TECHNET on Sep 11, 2012

The Beta of System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (“SP1”) enables System Center customers to jointly evaluate System Center 2012 with Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8. The Beta is for evaluation purposes only and not to be used in production as described in the EULAs associated with the product. No license keys are required to do this evaluation. The Beta includes updates and enhancements to the following System Center 2012 components:

NOTE (9-25-12) : The list of updates and enhancements to the beat has been updated. Please see this link for the most current information.

• Virtual Machine Manager
  
  
  
  • Improved Support for Network Virtualization
  
  
  • Extend the VMM console with Add-ins
  
  
  • Support for Windows Standards-Based Storage Management Service, thin provisioning of logical units and discovery of SAS storage
  
  
  • Ability to convert VHD to VHDX, use VHDX as base Operating System image
  
  
  
  


• Configuration Manager
  
  
  
  • Deployment and management of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
  
  
  • Distribution point for Windows Azure to help reduce infrastructure costs
  
  
  • Automation of administrative tasks through PowerShell support
  
  
  • Management of Mac OS X clients and Linux and UNIX servers
  
  
  • Real-time administrative actions for Endpoint Protection related tasks
  
  
  
  


• Data Protection Manager
  
  
  
  • Improved backup performance of Hyper-V over CSV 2.0
  
  
  • Protection for Hyper-V over remote SMB share
  
  
  • Protection for Windows Server 2012 de-duplicated volumes
  
  
  • Uninterrupted protection for VM live migration
  
  
  
  


• App Controller
  
  
  
  • Service Provider Foundation API to create and operate Virtual Machines
  
  
  • Support for Azure VM; migrate VHDs from VMM to Windows Azure, manage from on-premise System Center
  
  
  
  


• Operations Manager
  
  
  
  • Support for IIS 8
  
  
  • Monitoring of WCF, MVC and .NET NT services
  
  
  • Azure SDK support
  
  
  
  


• Orchestrator
  
  
  
  • Support for Integration Packs, including 3rd party
  
  
  • Manage VMM self-service User Roles
  
  
  • Manage multiple VMM ‘stamps’ (scale units), aggregate results from multiple stamps
  
  
  • Integration with App Controller to consume Hosted clouds
  
  
  
  


• Service Manager
  
  
  
  • Apply price sheets to VMM clouds
  
  
  • Create chargeback reports
  
  
  • Pivot by cost center, VMM clouds, Pricesheets
  
  
  
  


• Server App-V
  
  
  
  • Support for applications that create scheduled tasks during packaging
  
  
  • Create virtual application packages from applications installed remotely on native server
  
  
  
  

For all the details and a download link please see the following: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34607

NOTE: The MPs for monitoring Windows Server 2012 will be coming out from mid to end of September.

J.C. Hornbeck | Knowledge Engineer | Management and Security Division

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App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/
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Orchestrator Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/
Operations Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/
SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm
Server App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv
Service Manager Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager
System Center Essentials Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials
WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/

The Forefront Server Protection blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/fss/
The Forefront Endpoint Security blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/clientsecurity/
The Forefront Identity Manager blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ms-identity- support/
The Forefront TMG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/isablog/
The Forefront UAG blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/edgeaccessblog/