Systems Management, Security, and Identity Management

The entire System Center line was updated in Oct. 2013 with the release of System Center 2012 R2. Most System Center products are not available separately but only as components of two System Center licensing bundles: System Center 2012 R2 Standard and System Center 2012 R2 Datacenter, each containing licenses for eight System Center 2012 R2 products. (See the sidebar “System Center Product Names“.) The R2 version allows the products to be used with Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2, among other improvements. A technical preview of the next release became available in Oct. 2014.

For client management, the Desktop Optimization Pack 2014, released in Apr. 2014, has major 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 management service, were released in Oct. 2013 with support for Windows 8.1, and further updates in Feb., Apr., and Aug. 2014 improved management features for mobile devices. The service name was changed in Oct. 2014.