In the last part of the series we are going to focus on Configuration Manager 2012. The guys in the Configuration Manager side of the house have been busy working on addition features for Service Pack 1. When Configuration Manager 2012 was originally released back in April 2012 there were rumblings of the new Windows 8 platform but support was not originally available. Since then the up-take of Windows 8 has increased and BYOD has become the latest must have feature of any IT department. Allowing Configuration Manager to support the changes in Intune licensing is going to assist greatly in the BYOD sphere.
Some of the new features of Configuration Manager SP1 are:
- 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
- Management of Windows 8 Phone and Windows RT devices
- Support for Windows Intune Licensing Changes
- Support for Windows Embedded Devices – Embedded thin clients, Point-of-Sale (POS) terminals, digital signage, kiosks, and ThinPC
- Real-time administrative actions for Endpoint Protection related tasks
Now that service pack 1 is available for System Center we believe that the growth of both System Center, Server 2012 and Windows 8 will begin to increase. A lot of administrators and decision makers will normally wait until a service pack has been released on a Microsoft product before make the move. We can see great growth over the coming year for Microsoft, and it will be really interesting to see what will happen in the virtualization sphere with Hyper-V as it now takes the battle to VMware. Will 2013 be Microsoft’s year?
Virtual Notions 