Tag: System Center Configuration Manager

Several new downloads after System Center 2012 SP1 beta was released

A couple of hours after beta of SP1 for System Center 2012 was released some additional related downloads were released:

Changes in SCCM 2012 SP1 and Windows Intune

For those who will use SCCM 2012 and those who already use Windows Intune there are big changes planned for these solutions. Microsoft released announcement for these changes and you can read it here.

System Center 2012 SP1 BETA is now available

Great news we now have beta version that we can test and provide feedback. From what I hear is that RTM could be available before end of the year or early next year. The downloads are located here. Some of the new features are:

  • 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

Creating Queries in SCCM 2012

Peter Jane wrote a small guide on how to create queries in System Center Configuration Manager 2012. This guide is perfect for beginners in SCCM 2012 or 2007.

Runbook Commander 2.0 ‘Beta’

The free tool developed by Neil Peterson that allows you to execute Orchestrator runbooks from Configuration Manager ha reached version 2.0 although still in beta. Here are the changes compared to version 1.0:

  • In addition to supporting console extensions for the Device, and Collections node, 2.0 now supports the program node as well.
  • For Configuration Manager 2012 Device Console extensions are now added to both the Devices node and also the ‘View Members of Collection’ collection node.
  • New XML Generator Application – friendlier layout, ability to generate and also save .XML files.
  • Ability to create drop down lists on the Runbook Commander program.

You can start testing the tool by downloading it here.

Do not forget send any useful feedback to Neil.

Thank you Neil for sharing this tool with the community.