Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 RC released

Two days ago Microsoft released the Release Candidate of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012. First thing, you can now Upgrade from SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1 to the Release Candidate and you will be able to upgrade to the RTM version from SCVMM 2012 RC or SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1.

Download: EXE
Download: VHD

The Release Candidate brings a lot of changes and new features.

Feature Summary:

• Fabric Management
  • Setup Upgrade
    • *New in RC -Upgrade- Setup will support the following upgrade paths:
      • VMM 2008 R2 SP1 –SC VMM 2012 RC — SC VMM 2012 RTM
      • SC VMM 2012 RC — SC VMM 2012 RTM
  • Hyper-V and Cluster Lifecycle Management – Deploy Hyper-V to bare metal
    server, create Hyper-V clusters, orchestrate patching of a Hyper-V Cluster
    • *New in RC:
      • ISO or CD-based OSD for environments with DHCP without WDS
      • OSD will now convert dynamic to fixed type of VHD destination
      • All network adapters on host can be configured during
        provisioning
    • *New in RC:
      • Ability to bypass cluster validation during cluster creation
      • Run cluster validation reports on-demand
      • New Cluster status tab to view an aggregated status and a cluster validation
        report
      • Ability to see current CSV owner in the properties of the
        cluster
  • Third Party Virtualization Platforms – Add and Manage Citrix XenServer and
    VMware ESX Hosts and Clusters
  • Network Management – Manage IP Address Pools, MAC Address Pools and Load
    Balancers
    • *New in RC:
      • Simplification of the logical networks in the Fabric workspace
      • Ability to see IP addresses that are in use from a IP pool
      • Added support for Microsoft Network Load Balancer
      • Gateway and DNS are no longer mandatory fields for logical networks
      • Load balancer can now support affinity to logical
        networks
  • Storage Management – Classify Storage, Manage Storage Pools and LUNs
    • *New in RC
      • Create persistent sessions to iSCSI array and logon initiator to array
      • Better scalability of storage operations – LUN create, snapshot, clone,
        masking, and unmasking
      • Option to create storage groups per cluster (BETA only supported creation of
        storage group per node in a cluster)
      • Enablement of MPIO feature when provisioning a new Hyper-V server
      • Automatic MPIO device claim
      • Support for arrays that implement OnePortPerView
  • Update Management- Keep your VMM Fabric Servers (VMM roles, hosts, and
    clusters) up-to-date with patches.
    • *New in RC:
      • Share a WSUS root server between System Center Configuration Manager 2007
        R2/ System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Beta
      • Hyper-V Cluster Orchestration- Nodes put into VMM Maintenance Mode can be
        set to trigger Maintenance Mode in Operations Manager.
  • Resource Optimization
    • Dynamic Optimization – proactively balance the load of VMs across a
      cluster
    • Power Optimization – schedule power savings to use the right number of hosts
      to run your workloads – power the rest off until they are needed.
      • *New in RC:
        • Set Operations Manager Mode for powered down hosts
    • PRO – integrate with System Center Operations Manager to respond to
      application-level performance monitors.
      • *New in RC:
        • Support added for System Center Operations Manager 2012 Beta
        • VMM will ship two sample PRO Packs: Cluster scale out and Service scale out
          MPs
• Cloud Management
  • Abstract server, network and storage resources into private clouds
  • Delegate access to private clouds with control of capacity, capabilities and
    user quotas
  • Enable self-service usage for application administrator to author, deploy,
    manage and decommission applications in the private cloud
• Service Lifecycle Management
• Define service templates to create sets of connected virtual machines, OS
  images and application packages
  • *New in RC:
    • Service Designer and Specialization UI enhancements
    • Added ability to use Service Template Patterns
• Compose operating system images and applications during service deployment
  • *New in RC:
    • IP-based provisioning
    • New application instance view
• Scale out the number of virtual machines in a service
• Service performance and health monitoring integrated with System Center
  Operations Manager
• Decouple OS image and application updates through image-based servicing
  • *New in RC:
    • Streamlined ability to enable OS VHD updates to a Service Template
    • Publish updated Service Templates in order to update Service
      Instances
• Leverage powerful application virtualization technologies such as Server
  App-V