System Center Assemble! Create your team of heroes with System Center 2012 SP1

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When System Center 2012 released, it was done so for the first time as one product.  Everything that had been a separate product before was now a component of System Center 2012. No more separate purchases, you got everything together!

In my experience as a Senior Support Escalation Engineer I have seen that IT groups within Enterprises often reflected the separation of products or processes.  This totally makes sense, and I get it, the specialization helps many organizations.  Unfortunately, I have also seen where this specialization leads to each group being in their own "castle" where communication and collaboration only happens if absolutely necessary.  The integration of System Center 2012/2012 SP1 components and connection to other technologies in your environment means its time to form a new team!

Think about it...Superman and Batman together are the "World's Finest"!  Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk are all great on their own, but together they form "The Avengers!" Form your own team of IT Super Heroes with System Center 2012.

 

Now, the obvious place to start forming your team is one member for each component of System Center 2012.  That's good, now think more strategically. Think deeper.  System Center 2012 SP1 does waaaaayy more than it ever it did in previous versions. Let's look at Virtual Machine Manager just for example:

 

VMM 2008 VMM 2012 SP1
  • Create and Manage Virtual Machines
  • Create VM Templates
  • Add Hosts
  • Manage Clusters
  • Migrate Virtual Machines
  • Self-Service Portal
  • Everything from VMM 2008, plus
  • Logical and Virtualized Networks
  • SQL Dacpacs
  • Application Packaging
  • Bare Metal Installations
  • Private Clouds
  • Service Templates

 It looks like right away our team could use a few more members.  The networking capabilities of SCVMM 2012 on top of Hyper-V 3.0 are amazingly powerful and complex.  Let's get a Networking specialist on our team!

SQL? Everything in System Center 2012 SP1 touches SQL at least once.  We'll need someone with SQL powers!

Application packaging and deployment with Server App-V?  Oh yeah, let's get someone who really knows the right way to install and deploy software so it is packaged up correctly.

Service Templates? That depends on your Enterprise since creating them can be very complex or very easy depending on if you have the three team members above.  They might be their own team within a team.

With just one component there are potentially 3-4 more members needed for your IT department's team.  What about the other System Center 2012 SP1 components?  System Center Configuration Manager is another huge product and depending on your Enterprise it may often team-up for adventures with App-V.  Each new component has new functionality that reaches out to other technologies like Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint, and more.  Your team should reflect the capabilities and integration of these products as well.

These links will help you discover the new capabilities of System Center 2012.  The "Planning" sections will provide insight into assembling your new team of System Center Heroes!

What's New in System Center 2012 https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj649385.aspx

App Controller Deployment Checklist https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh709025.aspx

Configuration Manager 2012 https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg682041.aspx

Data Protection Manager https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh758173.aspx

Key Concepts for Operations Manager https://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh230741.aspx

Orchestrator Architecture https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh420377.aspx

Planning for Service Manager 2012 https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh495542.aspx

Virtual Machine Manager Overview https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg671827.aspx