Microsoft System Center 2012 Unleashed

Book excerpt: This is the definitive real-world guide to Microsoft System Center 2012, Microsoft's newest and most powerful version of System Center. Authored by consultants who've deployed System Center in hundreds of enterprises and innovative smaller businesses, this book brings together up-to-the-minute tips, tricks, and techniques you just won't find anywhere else. You'll learn how to use System Center's powerful capabilities to build highly-efficient managed environments that encompass datacenters, cloud environments, client computers, mobile devices, and more. The authors address planning, design, implementation, integration, and administration, and cover every component, including Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, Data Protection Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, Service Manager, and Orchestrator. Use Configuration Manager 2012 to deliver software and updates in highly-distributed environments including datacenters, clouds, and mobile devices Reliably manage and report on assets with Configuration Manager 2012 Perform monitoring, alerting, operations, and security reporting with Operations Manager 2012 Use Data Protection Manager 2012to protect file systems, SQL, Microsoft Exchange, and SharePoint Leverage Data Protection Manager 2012's improved central monitoring and remote recovery Run Hyper-V virtualized environments with VMM 2012--including new private clouds and mixed private/public fabrics Use Service Manager 2012 to provide top-down integration, and use Orchestrator 2012 for bottom-up process automation and integration "glue" Give users an efficient self-service portal for creating service and incident requests and browsing service catalogs Manage service offerings and implement enterprise-wide change control with Service Manager 2012 Ensure compliance by creating, executing, and repeating auditable, documented processes with Orchestrator 2012