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Microsoft announced the availability of CTP2 of System Center 2012 SP1.

With support for Windows 2012 and SQL 2012 introduced in CTP1, here are what’s more :

. Network Virtualization: Introduced in CTP1, this release adds support for using DHCP to assign customer addresses and for using either the IP rewrite or IP encapsulation mechanism to virtualize the IP address of a virtual machine.

· VHDX support: Introduced in CTP1, you can now convert from .vhd to .vhdx. In addition, placement determines the format of a VHD based on the OS of the destination host (when you create a virtual machine with a blank virtual hard disk), and the provisioning of a physical computer as a Hyper-V host supports the use of a .vhdx file as the base operating system image.

· Storage Enhancements: Support for the new Windows Standards-Based Storage Management service, which enables you to discover storage by using multiple provider types. In addition, this release adds support for the thin provisioning of logical units, and for the discovery of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) storage.

· Provisioning a Hyper-V Host Enhancements: Support for performing deep discovery to retrieve detailed information about physical network adapters.

· Support for VMM Console Add-Ins: You can now create Add-Ins and extend the VMM console. Add-Ins allow you to enable new actions or additional configuration for VMM objects by writing an application that uses context passed about the selected VMM objects. You can also embed custom WPF UI or web portals directly into the console’s main views to provide a more fully-integrated experience.

In App Controller, you can deploy and manage in a single console, applications running in Windows Azure PaaS, IaaS, on premises VMM clouds, and clouds provided by hosting providers. In addition, there are the following new features:

· Windows Azure Virtual Machine support: In addition to supporting Windows Azure PaaS workloads, App Controller adds support to the newly announced IaaS virtual machines in CTP2. You can easily deploy, manage, and operate Windows Azure Virtual Machines.

· Copy VMs from private cloud to public cloud: In CTP2, you can select a VMM private cloud VM and copy it to Windows Azure. App Controller makes upload disk, convert settings, and deploying a new virtual machine into an easy migrate flow!

· Hosting Provider support: In addition to on premises VMM private cloud and Windows Azure public cloud, App Controller supports connecting to VMM clouds at a hosting provider. You can connect to a hosting provider and manage user access to these clouds. You can also deploy, manage, and operate virtual machines at the hosting provider.

Also, check the the Project code-named “Service Provider Foundation” for System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) provides a rich set of web services that manages Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) for System Center 2012 SP1. The infrastructure of Virtual Machine Manager is exposed through “Service Provider Foundation” as a web service. Because of this, you can manage this System Center component through the web services; for example, you can create or delete virtual machines.

“Service Provider Foundation” provides a web service that acts as an intermediary between web-based administration client and server applications. The web service supports REST-based requests using the OData protocol. The web service handles these requests through Windows PowerShell scripts to communicate and manage server applications.