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.

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 Windows Intune, Microsoft’s online PC management service, were released in Oct. 2013 with support for Windows 8.1, and further updates in Feb. and Apr. 2014 improved management features for mobile devices.

The Forefront line of security products protects Windows PCs, servers, and the network edge from viruses, spyware, and other malware. Many Forefront products were discontinued in 2012, while Endpoint Protection 2012, released in Apr. 2012 and updated to Service Pack 1 in Dec. 2012 and R2 in Oct. 2013, dropped the Forefront branding and joined System Center. In Dec. 2013, Microsoft announced that the Forefront Unified Access Gateway would be discontinued in July 2014 and that the next major update to Forefront Identity Manager will be named Identity Manager and released in the first half of 2015.