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What's new in System Center 2025?
The key management tool for enterprises with a heavy investment in on-premises infrastructure is set for its next major release to coincide with the arrival of Windows Server 2025.
System Center and Windows Server are closely connected due to their longstanding history as Microsoft's flagship products for on-premises management and critical workloads.
When Microsoft releases Windows Server 2025, it also plans to deliver System Center 2025 to take advantage of the new capabilities and features in the new server OS. This simultaneous release will ensure administrators can roll out Windows Server 2025 to their environment to take advantage of upcoming improvements. For its System Center management tool, Microsoft is touting improvements in security and other areas, particularly its integration with Azure services.
What is System Center?
System Center is a suite of Microsoft tools designed to manage and maintain on-premises infrastructure in the data center. System Center supports Linux and Unix systems, but Microsoft tailored it for admins who work with Windows Server deployments.
The tools that make up Microsoft System Center include the following:
- Operations Manager monitors the infrastructure and issues alerts to IT when necessary.
- Virtual Machine Manager gives a unified management experience for large Hyper-V deployments and monitors workloads.
- Orchestrator automates the execution of IT tasks, such as user account management and server provisioning.
- Data Protection Manager handles backup and recovery of Microsoft environments.
- Service Manager is an IT service management tool with a wide range of capabilities, including reporting and analytics, change control and incident resolution.
- Configuration Manager manages desktop and server systems and deploys OSes, applications and updates.
System Center vs. other Microsoft management tools
System Center differs from Microsoft's other management tools because it is designed specifically for the management and monitoring of on-premises resources. The System Center tools provide additional capabilities beyond those that natively exist in the Windows OS, rather than presenting a new interface for managing your resources.
Azure Arc vs. System Center
Azure Arc uses the Azure portal to manage resources outside of the Azure cloud. While System Center 2025 will add Azure Arc integration to introduce some cloud-based features to on-premises workloads, such as Azure Monitor, Azure Arc is designed for enterprises that want the flexibility to introduce more cloud services.
Windows Admin Center vs. System Center
Windows Admin Center is a web-based interface for managing Windows systems. Admins who work with a large-scale infrastructure footprint will gravitate toward the centralized management of System Center. Windows Admin Center is suitable for smaller environments with a nominal amount of Windows Server use and clusters that do not run highly specialized workloads.
What's new in System Center 2025?
Microsoft plans to introduce several new features and capabilities in System Center 2025 that are primarily designed to modernize the management tool with support for newer OSes, protocols and IT standards and to improve security. Some of the more significant new features and capabilities are the following.
Improvements coming for mixed infrastructure management
Microsoft said it has improved support for heterogeneous environments in this release. Early on, the company designed System Center solely for managing Microsoft environments. Over time, Microsoft has added some level of support for administering competing products, such as Linux OSes and VMware hypervisors. However, this support for third-party products has always seemed like an afterthought.
One of System Center 2025's main improvements is the management of diverse systems. Microsoft said System Center Virtual Machine Manager does a better job to convert VMware VMs to run with fewer compatibility issues when switching to a Hyper-V platform.
Microsoft also plans to add support for virtual Trusted Platform Module within VMware environments in Data Protection Manager 2025 to add a layer of hardware-based security for organizations that deal with sensitive data.
Microsoft will update System Center Virtual Machine Manager to support the latest Linux distributions. For organizations that use Microsoft's Azure Stack HCI platform, System Center Virtual Machine Manager and Operations Manager will get updates to manage that system starting with version 23H2. This will help admins get a better vantage point of deployments both on premises and in a hybrid cloud arrangement.
Lastly, System Center Data Protection Manager will be compatible with SharePoint Server Subscription Edition. Admins who use this tool with Hyper-V will gain the ability to exclude specific disks from the backup for added flexibility.
Microsoft folding in multiple security enhancements
Much of Microsoft's work in System Center 2025 centers on security. Microsoft has all but eliminated the outdated and insecure Credential Security Support Provider and New Technology LAN Manager authentication mechanisms. The new version of System Center will support TLS version 1.3 and the latest encryption standards to protect data sent between System Center components.
Microsoft updated System Center Data Protection Manager to store passphrases in Azure Key Vault, a cloud-based feature designed to store cryptographic keys and secrets. This helps avoid a single point of failure if a threat actor or a malicious administrator gains access to the passphrases to decrypt the organization's backups.
In System Center 2025, creating a new Hyper-V VM with System Center Virtual Machine Manager will default to a Generation 2 VM, which aligns with Microsoft's decision to make Generation 2 the default option in Windows Server 2025 Hyper-V. This update indicates the company's shift to increase security in the virtualization environment. Generation 2 VMs use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface for a protected boot process and virtual SCSI controllers for faster performance and flexibility due to support for bigger boot volumes.
Microsoft binds System Center closer to Azure
In November 2023, Microsoft introduced an Azure Arc-enabled version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager. The company removed support for Azure Profiles from System Center Virtual Machine Manager and from System Center Service Provider Foundation by integrating its features into this Azure Arc version.
Microsoft designed the Azure Arc-enabled version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager to give admins a consistent experience via the Azure portal for basic VM management, even with hybrid setups. Admins who use the current Virtual Machine Manager for VM management can onboard to Azure and use the Azure portal to start, stop, pause and delete VMs. VM resources, such as templates, virtual networks and storage, are also visible through the Azure portal.
Brien Posey is a former 22-time Microsoft MVP and a commercial astronaut candidate. In his more than 30 years in IT, he has served as a lead network engineer for the U.S. Department of Defense and a network administrator for some of the largest insurance companies in America.
