It’s been a long time coming and the System Center product suite has seen many changes. It’s interesting…I sat through the beginnings of the 2016 edition at Ignite last year in Chicago with Microsoft delivering early demos of the Operations Management Suite (OMS) which is quickly becoming the linchpin of the entire product grouping.
So, it’s not surprising that Microsoft will deliver the official version of System Center 2016 at Ignite in September in Atlanta this year.
Here’s what System Center 2016 will deliver:
- Support for new Windows Server 2016 technologies, including lifecycle management for Nano server-based hosts and virtual machines, Storage Spaces Direct, and shielded virtual machines
- Performance and usability improvements, including all the update rollups since System Center 2012 R2, improved UNIX and Linux monitoring, and ability to tune management packs and alerts
- Native integrations with Microsoft Operations Management Suite to give you expanded analytics, data correlation, orchestration, archival, and hybrid management capabilities
Once a mighty suite of products that included Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune, the System Center suite is now more closely aligned as a Hybrid cloud management tool, supplying a constant conduit between on-premises and Azure.
Earlier today, Microsoft also stated that it will use Ignite to also launch Windows Server 2016. Since System Center 2016 will support Windows Server 2016, the timing of the official launch of both makes a lot of sense.
Ignite, of course, is the 30,000 plus attendee mega-conference that Microsoft created when it shut down its more popular events and merged them into a single, week-long messaging affair. Microsoft officials deliver announcements during the keynotes and then hand off to vetted speakers to deliver product overviews during sessions for the rest of the week. Since Ignite streams live and on-demand, every single keynote and session, many opt to stream the pertinent information
Events like IT/Dev Connections 2016 in October, however, provide the finishing touches that is difficult for a messaging event like Ignite to touch on. The majority of the Ignite keynotes and sessions can be streamed at a desk, while the technical deep-dives at IT/Dev Connections fill in the gaps, allowing IT Pros, developers, and DevOps to come away with a more rounded education on the products Microsoft highlights during Ignite, including Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016, but also for those products the majority of companies are still working with now. IT/Dev Connections is also “right-sized,” capped at 1500, so attendees don’t have to throw elbows to get a seat in a session.
IT/Dev Connections 2016 runs October 10-13, 2016 at the ARIA Resort in Las Vegas (http://www.itdevconnections.com).
