Systems Management, Security, and Identity Management

The entire System Center line was updated in Oct. 2013 with the release of System Center 2012 R2. The 2012 R2 version of System Center allows the products to be used with Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2, among other improvements. A major release, System Center 2016, will probably arrive at the same time as the next version of Windows Server in the third quarter of 2016. A technical preview of System Center 2016 became available in Oct. 2014 and was updated in May 2015 and Aug. 2015.

Most System Center products are not available separately but only as components of licensing bundles. (See the sidebar “System Center Products“.) Configuration Manager is part of System Center but currently receives updates on a different schedule. This will continue with the next release, and updates will be much more frequent than in the past.

For client management, the Desktop Optimization Pack 2015, released in Aug. 2015, has support for Windows 10, better virtualization tools, improvements to the BitLocker Administration and Monitoring tool, and minor updates to other components. Updates to Microsoft Intune (previously called Windows Intune), Microsoft’s online PC and mobile device management service, arrive approximately monthly; Intune has support for Windows 10.