Q: What are the major new features in System Center 2012 SP1?

Improved Support for Network Virtualization

Extend the VMM console with Add-ins

Support for Windows Standards-Based Storage Management Service, thin provisioning of logical units and discovery of SAS storage

Ability to convert VHD to VHDX, use VHDX as base Operating System image

Support for Windows 8

Ability to deploy Windows 8 (Metro) applications

Support for Mac OS clients

Support for Linux and Unix servers

Endpoint Protection Client for Mac and Linux (anti-malware)

Improved backup performance of Hyper-V over CSV 2.0

Protection for Hyper-V over remote SMB share

Protection for Windows Server 2012 de-duplicated volumes

Uninterrupted protection for VM live migration

Service Provider Foundation API to create and operate Virtual Machines

Support for Azure VM; migrate VHDs from VMM to Windows Azure, manage from on-premise System Center

Support for IIS 8

Monitoring of WCF, MVC and .NET NT services

Azure SDK support

Additional support for Integration Packs, including 3rd party

Manage VMM self-service User Roles

Manage multiple VMM ‘stamps’ (scale units), aggregate results from multiple stamps

Integration with App Controller to consume Hosted clouds

Apply price sheets to VMM clouds

Create chargeback reports

Pivot by cost center, VMM clouds, Price sheets

Support for applications that create scheduled tasks during packaging

Create virtual application packages from applications installed remotely on native server