System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 CTP Update

I wish I was across at TechEd North America right now as there is some nice information starting to come out around some of the new features that Service Pack 1 for System Center 2012 will be bringing.

From the information I'm seeing on other blogs and the twitter feeds it looks like we'll be seeing an updated CTP (Community Technical Preview) of SP1 arriving within the week with some of the following new features and changes for Configuration Manager:

• Windows 8/Server 2012 Deployment Support
• Ability to deploy Windows 8 To Go
• Linux Support
• Unix Support
• Mac OSX Support including EndPoint Protection Support
• The ability to add a CAS to an existing Primary Site
• New Deployment Types for Metro Apps and OSX Software
• The ability to migrate from one 2012 site to another
• Further e-mail notification support/options
• Software Update changes, including the ability to fall back to Windows Update for content
• Powershell cmdlets!!!

There has also been talk about some new User Profile and Data Management features such as Roaming User Profiles and Folder Redirection support, but I don't have enough information about what this means to explain any further but it could be interesting.

So I can't wait for SP1 now!  Linux/Mac OSX support is huge and a long awaited feature but the announcement of being able to add a CAS at a later date is also greatly welcomed as it makes my life so much more simplified when designing ConfigMgr implementations for customers.


There's also going to be an Update 1 for MDT 2012 soon which will bring the expected Windows 8 support, but it's also been announced it will have Orchestrator integration allowing running of runbooks during an OSD deployment.  How cool will that be!!