System Center 2012 SP1 Beta is built for compatibility with Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 and other enhancements including support for Azure VM and capabilities for Hosted Service Providers. Each System Center 2012 components can be downloaded separately for evaluation purpose, which includes: -
Supported operating systems:
Related resources:
Useful downloads:
Ken Sim, Technical Evangelist, Microsoft Corporation
Unlike its predecessor, System Center 2012 now comes with the complete suite of datacenter and cloud management tools. You will get the complete set of components in both Standard and Datacenter editions:
Endpoint Protection and App Controller are new components introduced with System Center 2012. To learn more about System Center 2012 licensing, visit the below TechNet site which showcases a video in explaining the licensing in System Center 2012.
System Center 2012 Licensing - Microsoft TechNet Home Page
Additional resources:
System Center 2012 is intended for datacenter administrators who are responsible for monitoring and protecting the private cloud infrastructure. It is also intended for solution architects who are responsible for designing private cloud architectures and extending existing private cloud solutions.
Service Manager in the System Center 2012 solution helps administrators who create service requests seamlessly and effortlessly. This module works and operates based on the ITIL practice and the MOF (Microsoft Operation Framework) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc506049.aspx.
System Center 2012 also helps datacenter administrators who are responsible for providing provisioning for applications including configuring and deploying those applications—application/service business owners, and administrators who implement service requests.
Literally you can use System Center 2012 to:
Related resources
Related downloads
The System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager can help you to manage your Virtual Environment and create multiple Business Unit Clouds. You can build and configure network resources and security for a business unit cloud.
You can deploy pre-packaged applications and create a new service template to deploy a service into the cloud. This is done by using the Service Template Designer.
Using System Center Operations Manager, you can monitor the various services that underpin the private cloud. You can deploy agents to key service components running within the private cloud. Custom monitoring is then applied to these components which include the creation of a distributed application model to give a holistic view of the health of the private cloud infrastructure. Architecture of Operations Manager includes databases, management servers, management server pools, consoles, gateways, and reporting.
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) is a feature of Operations Manager. Administrators can configure APM to monitor the performance and availability of applications. Operations Manager can detect any breaks of an application and reports this with the Alerting and Diagnostics tools that are built into Operations Manager.
Service Manager is used to create and manage change requests, incidents, and release records. The security model behind Service Manager can be customized so that administrators can extend the integral functionality of the service.
Problem management within a service management framework can be implemented as a manual feature of Service Manager. Administrators can create a custom event monitor in Operations Manager and then use it to identify and route incidents and problems to Service Manager.
Automation of self-service provisioning can be configured by using the System Center Cloud Service Process Pack, which includes the configuration items that are created and the request items that are contained in the System Center Cloud Service Process Pack.
The process includes installing and configure the System Center Cloud Services Process Pack followed by defining the various Cloud Services configuration items that make up the System Center Cloud Service Process Pack. You also need to define various Cloud Services request items that are included in it.
Data Protection Manager allows you to protect and recover your data in the Private Cloud. Literally you can implement a recovery action by using Orchestrator to recover a database. 2 types of protections are configurable, namely the manual VS the automatic protection and recovery of key service data. The status of the protection can also be monitored.
Finally, administrators can implement IT Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC) in a private cloud environment by using System Center 2012. Administrators can also implement Software Update Compliance in Virtual Machine Manager to verify whether key private cloud infrastructure is correctly updated with the latest software updates. For instance, you can implement the IT GRC Management Pack in Service Manager to check for compliance across key Service Components and remediate non-compliant items. This can be done by VMM Security Baselines and System Center Advisor.
When it comes to reporting, there are various methods for surfacing service and performance-related data from Operations Manager and Service Manager to SharePoint and Microsoft Excel.
Additional resources
Microsoft Virtualization, Private Cloud and Windows Server 2012
This video demonstrates switching a Windows Server 2012 computer from Server Core mode (no UI) to Server with a GUI mode.
Watch it here Convert Windows Server 2012 Core mode to Server with a GUI mode | TechNet Video
Related Content:
Visit www.MicrosoftVirtualAcademy.com
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Virtual Labs
This video demonstrates switching a Windows Server 2012 computer from Server with a GUI to the Minimal Server Interface and then to Server Core.
Watch it here Convert Windows 2012 Server with a GUI mode to Minimal Server Interface and to Server Core Mode | TechNet Video
All the System Center products are excellent products as standalone products… But the magic really happens when you combine them! Watch this video to find out the true power of joining the forces of the different products to give you even more insight in your environment. We’ll go over the different options to integrate the different products and find out how the different products are related to each other.
Watch it here at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/system-center-products-better-together
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Learn how to license your private cloud; including server management and virtualization, as well as migrating servers to third party hosting companies. Products covered include Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012. Watch it here at Licensing the Private Cloud | TechNet Video
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This video recording covers Windows 8 licensing, identifies the type of user for each edition, and reviews the channels through which these editions can be purchased. At the end of the presentation we will review licensing Windows 8 for specific customer scenarios. Watch it here Licensing Windows 8 | TechNet Video
This video explains real-world guidelines, expert tips, and guidance to get the most out of your SQL Server 2012 implementation. Watch it here at SQL Server 2012 Best Practices | TechNet Video
This talk covers the new columnstore feature in SQL Server 2012, which drastically improves performance for data warehouse queries. I’ll take the feature apart to not only discuss the layout of these indexes, but also their optimization with batch mode processing inside the query itself. I’ll also discuss additional query plan improvements and new query iterators and query plan warnings in SQL Server 2012.
Watch it here at Performance and Query Optimizations in SQL Server 2012 | TechNet Video
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Together, the Tabular Model and Power View are the latest new Business Intelligence features in SQL Server 2012. Together, they mark a paradigm shift in Business Intelligence towards self-service Business Intelligence. Provisioning self-service Business Intelligence is more than pretty graphs, however. How can you use optimise the Tabular Model, so that the users have the best support for ‘self-service’ business intelligence? Using demos, we will see how the Tabular Model and Power View can work best together, in order to provide the best service to the users.
Watch it here at Visualizing the Tabular Model with Power View | TechNet Video
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The 2012 sees Analysis Services splitting into two: the Multidimensional model, which is basically the Analysis Services of cubes and dimensions that we’re all familiar with, and the new Tabular model which is very similar to PowerPivot. This session will cover what’s new in Analysis Services 2012 Multidimensional, provide a brief overview of the Tabular model, discuss their relative strengths and weaknesses and help you decide which one is appropriate for your project.
Watch it at What’s new in Analysis Services 2012? | TechNet Video
Join us for a tour of the features that make up the new Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks offerings. Using demonstrations throughout, we will explain the Virtual Machine storage architecture and show how to provision and customize virtual machines, configure network connectivity between virtual machines, and configure site-to-site networks that enable true applications that span from on-premises to Windows Azure. We'll focus specifically on features that enable you to create highly available Virtual Machine-based services and how to connect Virtual Machines with Cloud Services.
Watch it at Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks | TechNet Video
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Windows Azure Web Sites is a simple and powerful hosting platform that allows developers to easily build and rapidly deploy web applications on Windows Azure using their favorite languages, frameworks, and tools. This video demonstratea how you can use this new technology to build, deploy, and run everything from classic ASP sites to modern ASP.NET MVC 4 web applications using both new and familiar tools including Visual Studio 2010, Visual Studio 2012, and WebMatrix.
Watch it at Web sites on Windows Azure | TechNet Video
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This video covers the significant investments that Microsoft is making in our Windows Azure Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) strategy. The video discusses the details about how the platform works when you provision, deploy, and manage Virtual Machines and Applications in Windows Azure.
Watch it here Windows Azure IaaS: how it works | TechNet Video
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Today’s organizations simply cannot afford system failures or maintenance to cause downtime in any area. That’s why Windows Server 2012 includes enhancements that maximize availability from the fundamental layers (compute, storage, network) all the way up to the application. Whether your organization is small or large, whether your environment is heterogeneous or not, Windows Server 2012 capabilities can help you lead your organization down the path towards continuous availability. Discover how to minimize downtime using technologies like Failover Clustering, Scale-Out File Server, Hyper-V Replica, network teaming.
Watch it at The Road to Continuous Availability with Windows Server 2012 | TechNet Video
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As an IT Pro, Cloud Computing in general, is a great opportunity to do more strategic things in your job. To be strategic, you need to know what Windows Azure is and you need to know about your new role in the application lifecyle. At the same time, there are new skills to learn, new technologies and new approaches to building, deployment and maintaining applications. This video covers all these things, showing you how to do some ITPro tasks and really focus in specifically on those area that you need to master.
Watch it here at Windows Azure Insights for the Enterprise IT-pro | TechNet Video
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This video covers the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V support for remote file storage using SMB 3.0. This introduces a new first-class storage option for Hyper-V that is a flexible, easy to use and cost-effective alternative to block storage. The video details the basic requirements for Hyper-V over SMB and outline the specific enhancements to SMB 3.0 to support server application storage, including SMB Transparent Failover, SMB Scale-Out, SMB Multichannel, SMB Direct (SMB over RDMA), SMB Encryption, SMB PowerShell, SMB performance counters and VSS for SMB File Shares. It concludes with a few suggested configurations for Hyper-V over SMB, including both standalone and clustered options.
Download a free trial version of Windows Server 2012.
Watch it here Hyper-V over SMB: Remote File Storage Support in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V | TechNet Video
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With Windows Server 2012, customers receive the capabilities they need to meet today's transforming IT. This 30-minute video covers how to license Windows Server 2012, and will assist you in understanding which edition is the right solution for your organization and how to migrate from earlier editions of Windows Server.
Watch it at Licensing Windows Server 2012 | TechNet Video
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This video is part of a Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) module on VDI. This module is part of the Windows Server 2012: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure course and shows the new User Experience Virtualization (UE-V) tool, and how UE-V provides a consistent user experience across different desktop sessions.
Watch it at Microsoft Virtual Academy: User Experience Virtualization (UE-V) | TechNet Video
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For more courses and other resources on Windows Server 2012 visit the Microsoft Virtual Academy Windows Server 2012 Resources Page
This video is part of a Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) module on VDI. This module is part of the Windows Server 2012: Virtual Desktop Infrastructure course and shows the new Application Virtualization (App-V) 5.0 tool, and how App-V 5.0, and how Application Connection Groups are used to deploy connected applications such as Microsoft Outlook 2010 and Microsoft Lync 2010.
Watch it at Microsoft Virtual Academy: Application Virtualization (App-V) 5.0 | TechNet Video
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This video is part of the Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) on Windows Azure Virtual Machines. In this module you will learn how to connect Virtual Machines in Windows Azure. This module includes cross-premise connectivity, an overview of the Windows Azure Virtual Network feature and related scenarios, Virtual Machine Names and DNS, and coverage of protocols, endpoints, load balanced sets and custom probes used to monitor the health of Windows Azure Virtual Machines.
Watch it at Microsoft Virtual Academy: Windows Azure Virtual Networks | TechNet Video
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This video gives a quick demonstration for creating an install image with SysPrep in Windows Server 2012.
Watch it at Creating an install image with SysPrep in Windows Server 2012 | TechNet Video
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This video gives a quick demonstration of creating media that installs an image in Windows Deployment Services in Windows Server 2012.
Watch it at Installing an Image in Windows Deployment Services in Windows Server 2012 | TechNet Video