Aidan Finn, IT Pro

I’ve got 4 blog posts for you to read.

As I was commuting yesterday, Mary Jo Foley blogged about a Microsoft announcement on how System Center Service Pack (SP) 1 – Configuration Manager (SCCM/ConfigMgr) and Windows Intune will be changing in the near future.  Some highlights:

• System Center 2012 SP1 Beta is out
• A new version of Windows Intune with WP8 and Windows 8 support is coming in early 2013
• You will be able to integrate ConfigMgr with Windows Intune for unified device management, both company and BYOD – or use ConfigMgr and Intune separately
• Windows Intune will switch to per-user licensing from per-device. The new per-user license covers 5 devices.  ConfigMgr client ML owners will also get a discount.
• Windows Intune will (at last!!!) be sold without Windows 7/8 Enterprise; currently anyone with SA on the desktop OS gets a 50% discount because they already own Windows 7 Enterprise

A follow up blog entry was posted by Microsoft, discussing the support changes in ConfigMgr and Endpoint Protection for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012:

ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 will support:

• Windows 8 Pro/Enterprise and Windows Server Std/DC as clients
• All site roles on WS2012 Std/DC

ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 will support Windows 8 Pro/Enterprise and WS2012 Standard/Datacenter as clients only.

System Center 2012 SP1 Endpoint Protection (SCEP) will protect:

• Windows 8 Pro/Enterprise and Windows Server Std/DC as clients
• WS2012 Std/DC

You can also protect those OSs with Forefront Endpoint Protection 2012 with Update Rollup 1.  Note that this 2010 version won’t support WS2012 as a management server.

Make sure you read the following to get more info and to fill in the gaps:

• The original announcement
• The news post by Mary Jo Foley
• The supplemental support post by Microsoft

EDIT#1

Let’s not stop there.  You might want to learn about the cross-platform support that’s being added to ConfigMgr 2012 SP1

• Mac OS will be added as a supported client: h/w discovery, software inventory, policy settings management, and software/patch distribution
• Linux and UNIX will also be added: h/w discovery, software inventory, policy settings management, and software/patch distribution

SCEP 2012 will also support Mac OS – please don’t say that there is no malware on Mac OS because you’re living in a dreamland under a very dark rock if you think that’s the case.  If did not realise this but:

Endpoint Protection 2012 Client for Linux is also available now.

Copyright Warning

This blog post is the property of Aidan Finn (@joe_elway / http://www.aidanfinn.com) and may not be reused in any manner without prior consent of Aidan Finn. You may quote one paragraph from this blog post if you link to the original blog post.

Related posts:

1. Reminder: Re-Download Configuration Manager & Endpoint Protection 2012 SP1
2. Online Backup to Windows Azure Using System Center 2012 SP1 – Data Protection Manager
3. June 2012 Version of Windows Intune Goes Live Today
4. What’s New In Windows Intune
5. System Center Data Protection Manager CSV Serialization Tool