System Center

The System Center software suite supports numerous management and monitoring tasks. System Center includes the following applications:

• Data Protection Manager enables network backup to tape- and disk-based storage, including direct-attached and storage area network drives, and it can be used with off-site storage in Azure.
• Operations Manager enables central health and performance monitoring.
• Orchestrator enables IT process automation software that allows most System Center products to operate with other popular infrastructure software from BMC, CA, HP, IBM, and others.
• Service Manager provides trouble ticketing and problem resolution and integrates with Operations Manager and Configuration Manager.
• Virtual Machine Manager is for managing VMs and their physical hosts running the Hyper-V virtualization technology.

Configuration Manager and Endpoint Protection are released and serviced on a separate cadence from the System Center suite.

Servicing and Support

System Center follows a Fixed lifecycle policy. Major versions are released every few years, with each version of the suite offering five years of Mainstream support and five years of Extended support. New features and other servicing updates are periodically offered in the form of update rollups; however, update rollups are not released on a fixed service cadence.