A few weeks ago, during TechEd North America, we shared exciting information about the upcoming releases of Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager, and Windows Intune. These products deliver our People-centric IT solution to help organizations embrace consumerization of IT, and will be available by the end of this year. To summarize, People-centric IT enables you to:
- Empower users by allowing users to work on the device(s) of their choice and providing consistent access to corporate resources from those devices.
- Unify your environment by letting IT extend its System Center Configuration Manager infrastructure with Windows Intune to support cloud management of mobile devices.
- Protect your data by restricting access to corporate resources based on user, device, and location.
This week, at TechEd Europe, we’re pleased to announce the availability of System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager Preview and Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview.
Management of devices running Windows RT, iOS and Android require the combination of System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager and the next release of Windows Intune, which is not available for public preview. You can explore the configuration settings available for those devices from with the Configuration Manager console, but the functionality is not available at this time.
System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager has several significant enhancements to PC management which you can test now, including:
- Deployment and management of Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. If you download the previews of these operating systems, you can use this preview of Configuration Manager as part of your testing.
- Provisioning of certificates, VPN and Wi-Fi profiles to enable users to access resources more seamlessly.
- Maintenance window for software updates installation lets you configure a specific time you want software updates to be installed.
- Distribution point usage summaries provide details about how each distribution point is utilized, including how many clients access it and how much data is being transferred from it.
- Deployment of web applications lets you deploy a shortcut to web-based applications onto users’ devices.
- Role-based reporting filters reports based on the permissions the administrator has.
Management of devices running Windows RT, iOS and Android require the combination of System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager and the next release of Windows Intune, which is not available for public preview. You can explore the configuration settings available for those devices from with the Configuration Manager console, but the end-to-end functionality is not available at this time.
You can read more about Configuration Manager in the What’s New Guide.
To see People-centric IT -- including System Center 2012 R2 Configuration Manager, Windows Intune, and Windows Server 2012 R2 -- in action, you can watch a complete presentation and end-to-end demonstration from the TechEd North America Foundational Session. You can also learn more about People-centric IT by downloading the People-centric IT Preview Guide.
Be sure to download System Center 2012 R2 Preview Configuration Manager and Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview today!