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The vNext Big Thing From SCCM

Kevin Proctor

2 min read

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There have been several announcements over the past week regarding the future of System Center Configuration Manager vNext. The most important thing to take away from these posts is that your decision to use this as a deployment technology was a sound one. Microsoft is not abandoning Configuration Manager. Rather, it is actively improving it and is doing so at a more rapid pace than it has in the past.

Secondly, you want to be in a position to take advantage of the service pack-like upgrade in order to benefit from these features. Take a look at your current Configuration Manager environment and see where you stand. Ask yourself these two important questions: “What is my current version?” and “What is my current SQL version?” If you have been keeping up-to-date (which is, by the way, a great idea, and which 95% of us have been doing, according to Microsoft) you are probably all set. Make sure, however, to also check the operating system of the site server. If you have installed SCCM 2012 on Server 2008/2008 R2, you have limited future support (RTM +12). Additionally, check which version of SQL you’re on. You’ll have to upgrade if you are on SQL 2008.

Microsoft plans to release SCCM updates according to a more service-like model to keep pace with Windows 10. There will be two names for the same product. The first and more familiar one be will called System Center Configuration Manager. The second name for the same product will have versions based on a year and month format. For example, a release of System Center Configuration Manager in February of 2016 will be known as v0216 for February 2016 System Center.

Microsoft’s new focus appears to provide us with a faster update cycle, more feature support, and, more importantly, requires people to get the latest version of SCCM so that Windows 10’s update cycle is better supported.

Armed with this information you can begin to make a plan for how to get there.