System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 General Availability

Article
01/18/2013

Tuesday, January 15 marks a major milestone for Hosting Service Providers who leverage the Microsoft Platform. Microsoft broadly announced the availability of System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) as well as new Windows Server hosting technologies – Web Sites, Virtual Machine Hosting, and Service Management Portal. These releases include technologies specifically built for Hosting Service Providers that are designed to reduce infrastructure costs as well as enable new business opportunities. Have you seen how this release can benefit your customers? We have gathered some helpful resources to get you started below.

Step 1: Learn more about System Center 2012 SP1 and Windows Server 2012:

Read the press release and an accompanying executive blog post outlining Microsoft’s Cloud OS vision. Then review the following information to learn more.

System Center 2012 SP1

Overview of System Center 2012 SP1 on Microsoft.com/hosting.
Discover what is new in System Center 2012 SP1 on TechNet
Web Sites and Virtual Machines capabilities download
Free System Center 2012 training at Microsoft Virtual Academy

Review the key features enabled in System Center 2012 SP1:

- Enables full management of Windows Server 2012 with System Center as well as Service Provider Foundation (SPF) API for easier integration, management and automation with System Center
- System Center 2012 App Controller provides a common self-service experience across private, hosted, and public clouds that can help you empower application owners to easily build, configure, deploy, and manage new services.
- System Center 2012 Configuration Manager provides comprehensive configuration management for the Microsoft platform that can help you empower users with the devices and applications they need to be productive while maintaining corporate compliance and control
- System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager provides unified data protection for Windows servers and clients that can help you deliver scalable, manageable, and cost-effective protection and restore scenarios from disk, tape, and Windows Azure.
- System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection, built on System Center Configuration Manager, provides industry-leading threat detection of malware and exploits as part of a unified infrastructure for managing client security and compliance that can help you simplify and improve endpoint protection.
- System Center 2012 Operations Manager provides deep application diagnostics and infrastructure monitoring that can help you ensure the predictable performance and availability of vital applications and offers a comprehensive view of your datacenter, private cloud, and public clouds.
- System Center 2012 Orchestrator provides orchestration, integration, and automation of IT processes through the creation of runbooks that can help you to define and standardize best practices and improve operational efficiency.
- System Center 2012 Service Manager provides flexible self-service experiences and standardized datacenter processes that can help you integrate people, workflows, and knowledge across enterprise infrastructure and applications. This now includes bill back and ticketing management features to simplify integration with your systems.
- System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager provides virtual machine management and services deployment with support for multi-hypervisor environments that can help you deliver a flexible and cost effective private cloud environment.
- In this release features made available in Windows Server 2012 such as: network virtualization, Hyper-V Replica, multi-tenancy, resource throttling, high-availability, storage virtualization, automation and other features are fully managed.

- Web Sites and VM Hosting based on Windows Azure services for Windows Server: New high-density websites and virtual machine hosting platform and a new service management portal.

Windows Server 2012

Overview of Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012 Technical Content on TechNet.
Free Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V training at Microsoft Virtual Academy

Step 2: Start a Proof of Concept with System Center 2012 SP1.

Download System Center 2012 SP1 from Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center or from Microsoft TechNet now andbegin a proof of concept withSystem Center 2012 SP1, Windows Server 2012, Web Sites, and Virtual Machines (formerly “Antares” and “Katal”).

Step 3: Determine if you need a control panel ISV.

You may choose to develop your own control panel using SPF or you may choose to buy a third party solution. ExtendASP (www.extendasp.com) supports System Center 2012 SP1 and Windows Server 2012 in their EPS control panel including support for Virtual Machine Manager, Private VLAN creation, Service Templates, automation via System Center Orchestrator runbooks and additional features from Windows Server 2012 and System Center. ExtendASP's EPS beta will be available by end of January will a RTM release by end of Q1 2013. Parallels, Citrix, inTy, and Ensim have also announced plans to support Windows Server 2012 and/or System Center 2012.

Step 4: Review Hosting Service Provider Case Studies.

Learn more about how your industry partners are leveraging Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 by clicking on any of the dozen case studies in the right hand pane.

Step 5: Contact your account team for assistance.