SC2012 SP1 Is General Available!

Even though SC2012 SP1 RTM was available for some weeks to TechNet/MSDN subscribers and volume licensing customers, it wasn’t General Available (GA).

Yesterday Microsoft announced the general availability of System Center 2012 SP1. As the System Center Team states on their blog: ‘…The System Center 2012 SP1 release is chock full of new features to light up the new functionality found in Windows Server 2012.  The combination of System Center 2012 SP1 with Windows Server 2012 provides the foundation of what we call the ‘Cloud OS’…’

Want to know more about the Cloud OS and how System Center fits into the solution? Read these articles written by Microsoft:

• What is the Cloud OS?
• Transform Your Datacenter with System Center 2012 SP1
• Official System Center 2012 SP1 Release Announcement
• Cloud OS Vision

Want to know more about SC2012 SP1 and download trials? Go here.

And yes, VHDs are also downloadable for evaluation:

• System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 - Configuration Manager – Evaluation (VHD)
• System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 – Service Manager – Evaluation (VHD)
• System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 – Service Manager (Data Warehouse) – Evaluation (VHD)
• System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 – Operations Manager – Evaluation (VHD)
• System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 – Orchestrator – Evaluation (VHD)
• System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 – Data Protection Manager – Evaluation (VHD)
• System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 – Virtual Machine Manager – Evaluation (VHD)

The SC2012 SP1 bits can be used to install the SC2012 SP1 components from scratch, or to upgrade existing SC2012 RTM installations. For information how to upgrade to SC2012 SP1, go here.

Want to know what’s new in SC2012 SP1? Read this TechNet article.

One last thing. With SC2012 RTM there were way too many different hard- and software requirements per SC 2012 RTM component. Which broke down the (marketing) message SC2012 being ONE product…

Microsoft has worked hard with SP1 in order to address that issue. So now with SP1 the hard- and software requirements are much more unified, mainly focused at the Server Operation System and SQL Server. Which makes me very happy. Read this TechNet article about those new and UNIFIED requirements.

Advice
When you have SC 2012 licenses, FORGET about the RTM bits and go for the SP1 bits instead. They’re covered by the same SC2012 licenses, and save you a lot of hassle.