Updated: November 28, 2023 (February 22, 2021)

Azure Is Increasingly Microsoft's Server Management Hub

Jim leads the Directions on Microsoft editorial team and has been writing about technology since the early 1990s. Most recently... more

Server management capabilities will increasingly require Azure services in the future.
Azure Arc extends the Azure Resource Manager framework to on-premises servers, but it does not yet offer complete server management.
Customers with Windows Server on-premises should keep deploying long-term servicing releases of System Center software and avoid the frequent updates of hosted services.

Although the System Center data-center management suite continues to be supported, with multiple updates released during 2020, Microsoft is increasingly investing more in Azure services to provide system management capabilities for Windows Server and Linux VMs and hosts.

Azure-Based Server Management

Microsoft offers several stand-alone hosted services that can provide some of the capabilities offered by System Center. (For a review of System Center components and functions, see the sidebar “System Center Overview.”) The services are as follows:

Azure Arc enabled servers (Azure-based hybrid management)

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