I was really happy a while back when ConfigMGR SP1 was announced, the fact that Microsoft made it possible to install the ConfigMGR client on OSX was really nice, albeit there are other nice features this one made me happy.
But ConfigMGR 2012 SP1 doesn’t stop there it has support for Linux and Unix to. The following distributions are supported;
- AIX Version 7.1 (Power)
- AIX Version 6.1 (Power)
- AIX Version 5.3 (Power)
- HP-UX Version 11iv3 (IA64 & PA-RISC)
- HP-UX Version 11iv2 (IA64 & PA-RISC)
- RHEL Version 6 (x86 & x64)
- RHEL Version 5 (x86 & x64)
- RHEL Version 4 (x86 & x64)
- Solaris Version 10 (x86 & SPARC)
- Solaris Version 9 (SPARC)
- SLES Version 11 (x86 & x64)
- SLES Version 10 SP1 (x86 & x64)
- SLES Version 9 (x86)
And according to the download page the following scenarios are supported on Linux and Unix clients;
- Hardware Inventory – Hardware inventory can be viewed through Resource Explorer and can be used to create collections of UNIX and Linux computers.
- Software Inventory – Through hardware inventory the list of natively installed software can be gathered from the UNIX and Linux computers – similar to add/remove programs for Windows systems.
- Software Distribution – Deploy new software, update existing software and apply OS patches to collections of UNIX/Linux computers (using a package and program). Run arbitrary maintenance scripts on a collection of UNIX/Linux servers.
- Secure and Authenticated Communications
- Consolidated Reports
What this means for most customers is that they can manage their whole desktop and server infrastructure from one management console! This is great news for anyone running an heterogeneous environment, which most of us are.
You can download the beta version of the client here, http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34609
Add to this the ability to manage Windows Phone 8 devices and BYOD’s through Windows InTune at a reduced price and start making calculations how much Configuration Manager 2012 can save in management costs in your organization.
