System Center 2012 SP1 - General Availability

System Center 2012 SP1 Final release was made available to public (General Availability) on 15th Jan. System Center SP1 delivers many enhanced capabilities across both desktop management and datacenter management.

Some of the key changes with SP1 for Datacenter Management

  • Support for Windows Server 2012 and SQL Server 2012
  • Software Defined Networking (Network Virtualization)
  • Global Service Monitor with Windows Azure / Visual Studio & Operations Manager
  • Hybrid Cloud Management (Integration of Off-premises Resources in to your own Datacenter)
  • Cloud-based Pricing and Chargeback
  • Copy an On-premises Virtual Machine to Windows Azure
  • Windows Azure Online Backup integration with Data Protection Manager

More information –

http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2013/01/15/transform-your-datacenter-with-system-center-2012-sp1.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/b/stbnewsbytes/archive/2013/01/15/the-cloud-os-new-solutions-available-today-advance-microsoft-s-vision.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj649385.aspx

Client Management features with SP1

– General Availability for Intune along with SC 2012 SP1

  • Providing Management & Software Distribution for Windows RT, Windows Phone 8, Android and iOS
  • Manage both corporate & personally owned devices using a single console
  • Self-service portal for selecting and installing company apps

– Configuration Manager SP1

  • Support for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, including delivery of Windows 8 applications, the ability to limit downloads on 3G and 4G network connections to prevent unwanted data charges, and support for Windows To Go
  • Native management of Windows Embedded devices
  • Support for PowerShell for administrative tasks
  • Windows Azure-based Distribution Points
  • Support for Mac OS X devices and Linux and Unix servers

– Endpoint Protection 2012 SP1

  • Ability to automatically deploy definition update three times per day
  • Real-time administrative actions to update definitions, scan, and remediate issues quickly
  • Client-side merge of antimalware policies

More Information

http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsintune/archive/2013/01/15/delivering-unified-device-management-with-windows-intune-and-system-center-2012-configuration-manager-sp1.aspx

Nirmal Thewarathanthri

Nirmal Thewarathanthri