What’s coming in SCCM 2012 R2 and Windows Intune

Microsoft TechEd North America 2013 in New Orleans has kicked off, and the sessions has started to show up on Channel 9, where most sessions and PowerPoint slides will be available 24 hours after the presentation.

I’ve just watched the WCA-B328 Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1 – Configuration Manager Overview session by Jason Adams and Dilip Radhakrishnan. And even if it the session title says SCCM 2012 SP1, lots of the new R2 stuff was covered. Truly a great overview session.

View online session: http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2013/WCA-B328

Download PowerPoint: http://video.ch9.ms/sessions/teched/na/2013/WCA-B328.pptx

Here are my notes from the session:
(The R2 screenshots are from the recording available on Channel 9, so the quality is not perfect).

Update #1: This post has been updates with content from the “WCA-B348 Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1 – Configuration Manager Infrastructure Improvements and Hierarchy Design” session.

Cloud Services

In SCCM 2012 SP1, the Windows Intune Subscriptions and Cloud (Cloud Distribution Point) was directly under the Hierarchy Configuration node.

In SCCM 2012 R2 we have a new group where these cloud services are now located.

The Windows Intune connector is been updated with some nice branding options

Company Name
URL to company privacy documentation
Color scheme for the Company Portal (RBG)
Company Logo (400 x 100 pixels)
IT department information:

Contact Name
Phone Number
E-mail address
Support Website (and friendly name)
Additional Information

The Windows Intune Connector supports the following mobile platforms:

Andriod
iOS
Windows RT
Windows Phone 8

Self Service Portals

With the release of SCCM 2012 R2, Microsoft will release a native “Self Service Portal” app for the following platforms:

Windows x86
iOS
Andriod

Support for Work folders in Windows 8.1

Configure sync of work folders
Access the work folders from the Windows 8.1 Self Service Portal

Windows Portal:

iPad Portal:

Managing Windows platform with SCCM 2012 R2

The following will be supported by SCCM 2012 R2 and the next major Windows Intune release:

Support for Windows 8.1
Support for the “Lightweight Management Agent” (built-in to the operating system)
Enhanced features in the lightweight Management Agent:

Push Software Distribution
Selective Wipe

Support for “Workplace join” (New feature in Windows Server 2012 R2 Active Directory)

Can register with both Azure Active Directory and “On-Premise Active Directory”
Feature supported by Windows 8.1 and iOS.

Resource Access

Many of the following features can be configured by Group Policies, by as a ConfigMgr Guy I’m really excited about these new configuration options.

Configuration of VPN Profiles

(Supports Microsoft, Cisco, Jniper, SonicWall, F5 and CheckPoint)

App triggered VPN (VPN on demand)
WiFi Profiles
Certificate Management

Supported platform for these new features are:

Windows 8.1
Windows RT 8.1
iOS
Andriod

Selective Wipe

Not all features are supported by all platforms, but here is some of the supported features:

Email
Apps
Profiles (VPN/WiFi)
Certificates
Corp App Data
+ more…

Supported Platforms:

Windows 8.1
Windows RT 8.1
iOS
Android

Mac OS X

Support for 10.8 Mountain Lion (up to 10.8.3 with CU1)
User Enrollment in the client UI

Infrastructure Enhancement

SQL Server Flexibility In Setup

Specify locations for database and transaction log
Restore to a different SQL Server instance

Requires same SQL Server version

Multiple Network Access Accounts

Scenario: multiple untrusted domains
Supports backward compatibility for SP1 clients

Flexible hierarchy management (Easy Client Mobility)

Client can now be reassigned to other site in the hierarchy
Supports single or multi-select client reassignment
Note: This will not work for disaster recovery scenarios.

Content distribution changes

Improved In-console monitoring

Pull DP on par with standard DP
Clearer and more detailed messages
Cancel/Redistribute

General content improvements

Content download optimizations (client side) for superseded applications
Content distribution optimizations (priority, send requests in SQL, versioning auto-cancel)
New report: Distribution Point Usage

Replication Traffic Reports

PowerShell

64-bit native PowerShell module

Operating System Deployment

Support for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2
Import WinPE 3.1 boot images
VHD actions

Create
Modify
Upload to VMM

Integrate key MDT ZTI tasks to native ConfigMgr OS Deployment

Run PowerShell Script
Set Dynamic Variables
Check Readiness

Prestage media
– Bulk USB media creation from ISO

Role Based Administration

With SCCM 2012 R2, all reports updated to use RBA configuration
Control access to specific reports
Enabled by default in R2 via registry/WMI setting

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\SRSRP
“EnableRbacReporting”

More details on many of these new features will be covered by other session during the week.

Enjoy.

+Ronni Pedersen