What's coming in SCMDM SP1

Like all engineering groups at Microsoft, after shipping a version of a product, we move on to building the next version. And like all other product groups, the SCMDM team is committed to delivering product updates that improve the quality and experience for our customers and partners. We continually focus on enhancing security, increasing reliability, and simplifying administration. MDM is no exception. Since shipping SCMDM 2008 we have been working on new features and fixes or Mobile Device Manager. We thought you’d like to hear the latest, so here is an update on what you will see coming with SP1.

System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 Service Pack 1 will deliver improved performance and scalability, increased reliability, and an expanded set of supported topologies.

The key new features of SP1 are support for multiple instance, PIN reset, and support for running with Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Domain Services. 

The SP1 update can be applied to all previously installed instances of System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 as well as new installations. The service pack consists of the following features:

Multiple-instance: allows large organizations with distributed IT control points to independently manage devices within the area of their control. This applies to instances within a single forest. Today when SCMDM is deployed at a company, that deployment will manage all devices in an organization; there is no ability to have multiple SCMDM installation. With SP1, if your company has offices or divisions that have their own IT departments, these offices will be able to install an instance of MDM that does allows devices to managed separately from other offices in the company. 

PIN reset. This feature is the same as what is currently available with Exchange 2007. It will allow device PIN reset either by the SCMDM administrator for a specific device or self-service via the MDM Self-Service portal. This feature requires an update to the client as well. Consequently, client support for this feature will be made available as a downloadable CAB file for WM 6.1 phones.

Windows Server 2008 support. Support for Windows Server 2008 including Domain functional mode, Forest functional mode. If you are running AD with functional levels raised to WinServer 2008, MDM SP1 will support that architecture. In addition, Hyper-V (virtualization) will be supported for using hosted Windows Server 2003 for testing purposes.

Performance and scalability enhancement. The release criteria for SP1 is to increase system coverage to 40,000 users in a single instance versus the 30,000 user single instance limitation in MDM 2008. If you require large scale, but want to keep your deployment within a single instance without acquiring additional hardware, this will be very helpful. (The numbers were adjusted from the original post to more accurately reflect what the test team's release criteria is. We will strive to get the supported number has high as possible, but our current goal for release is 40,000)

We’re currently in Beta and are soliciting feedback from customers with needs that match the SP1 feature set. We anticipate that SP1 will be available for download in mid-to-late December and will include the installable CAB file for supporting PIN reset on 6.1 devices and later.

We hope you are as excited as we are about the benefits MDM SP1 will bring to your mobile enterprise solutions. We’re seeing a great response to Mobile Device Manager in our trial programs—if you haven’t tried it yet you can get an evaluation copy here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc339027.aspx .

 UPDATE:   The point regarding support for Windows 2008 in MDM SP1 has raised some questions.  MDM SP1 will not support running on a Windows 2008 server.  MDM SP1 will only support running in a Windows 2008 Domain, and support running on Windows 2003 in a Windows 2008 Hyper-v configuration.  Support for running MDM on Windows 2008 will be a post SP1 release.