What's New in System Center 2012 R2

System Center 2012 R2, released in Oct. 2013, adds support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2, enhances virtualization management, adds better monitoring of applications, and allows backup to Windows Azure. Most System Center products were updated and improved, and all will run on Windows Server 2012 R2. Customers using or planning to use new features in Windows Server 2012 R2 (for example, the live cloning of virtual machines) will want to use System Center 2012 R2.

Most Products Received Updates and Improvements

In addition to adding support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2, most—but not all—System Center products received their own updates and improvements in System Center 2012 R2. Many of the improvements were made to manage new features in Windows Server 2012 R2, such as dynamic virtual machine (VM) memory resizing and live VM cloning. (For a description of System Center, see the sidebar “System Center Products“.)

Microsoft has announced that it will update System Center in conjunction with new releases of Windows Server; both are likely to get more frequent releases than in the past.