I expect many of you have tried out the new version of VMM 2012 that will be generally available before long. It is an incredible piece of software that I have blogged about several times just after the first general beta since it arrived about one year ago. But there is one thing it cannot do: manage Windows Server ‘8’.

Now that the bits of Windows Server 8 are available to everyone, it is very good news that Microsoft has released the Community Technology Preview (CTP) of System Center 2012 for Windows Server ‘8’ Beta support. The focus of this CTP is on VMM and DPM in combination with Hyper-V and is therefore not aimed to work with all the other System Center 2012 modules. It essentially focuses on managing the fabric of your private cloud including Windows Server ‘8’.

These are the capabilities you can try out:

  • Hyper-V Network virtualization
  • Hyper-V VM’s on an SMB2.2 file share (on a Windows 8 file server or scale out file cluster)
  • VHDX format
  • Live Storage Migration
  • Live Migration without shared storage
  • VM protection on CSV 2.0 volumes
  • VM protection on remote SMB2.2 file shares
  • Protection of de-dup enabled file share volumes

System Center 2012 CTP for Windows Server ‘8’ Beta Support can be downloaded here:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=29099

Documentation:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29094&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MicrosoftDownloadCenter+%28Microsoft+Download+Center%29#tm

Remember that this CTP is not even beta so only run this in a test environment!