Microsoft reveals enhancements and performance improvements in System Center and Windows Server 2025

Microsoft Unveils System Center 2025 Features Alongside Windows Server 2025

This month, Microsoft has announced the general availability of System Center 2025, coinciding with the launch of Windows Server 2025. Despite facing some challenges at its debut, the new System Center promises robust enhancements for data center management and server deployment.

What is System Center?

For those unfamiliar, System Center is a comprehensive suite designed to streamline the deployment, management, and monitoring of servers and data centers. Its key components include:

Configuration Manager (SCCM)
Operations Manager (SCOM)
Data Protection Manager (SCDPM)
Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)
Service Manager (SCSM)
System Center Orchestrator (SCO)

Microsoft emphasizes the synergy between System Center 2025 and Windows Server 2025, stating:

“By delivering System Center 2025 (SCVMM, SCDPM, SCOM, SCSM & SCO) concurrently with Windows Server 2025, you receive management at-scale for the latest Windows Server version right from Day 0, allowing you to plan upgrades and make the most out of new capabilities to optimize the infrastructure and virtualized software-defined datacenters.”

Enhancements in Security Features

A significant focus of System Center 2025 is its security improvements. Notably, Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2025 now employs Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.3, moving away from older protocols like CredSSP and NTLM. Also, all virtual machines created with VMM 2025 will default to Generation 2, which utilizes UEFI firmware, a more secure alternative compared to the older BIOS-based Generation 1 VMs.

Support for Latest Technologies and Platforms

In addition to security enhancements, VMM 2025 is compatible with the latest Azure Stack HCI (23H2) and supports a range of Linux distributions, including:

Ubuntu Linux 24.04
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9
Debian 12 and 13
SUSE Linux 15
Oracle Linux 9
Rocky Linux 8 and 9

Further enhancing security, Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2025 and SCO 2025 now support OLE DB version 19, specifically the driver 19.3.5 for SQL Server, which addresses the CVE-2024-37334 remote code execution vulnerability.

Additional Improvements and Resources

Enhanced functionality also includes securely storing passphrases in Azure Key Vault and supporting VMware’s virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) within DPM 2025. Moreover, SCO 2025 incorporates support for the latest .NET 8 (LTSC release).

For further information on System Center 2025, you can explore the official blog post here.

Impressive Enhancements in Windows Server 2025

In conjunction with System Center 2025, Microsoft has also released significant performance upgrades for Windows Server 2025. Key improvements boast of better input/output operations per second (IOPS) and enhanced CPU/RAM utilization for virtual machines.

“Windows Server 2025 delivers up to 60% more storage IOPs performance compared to Windows Server 2022 on identical systems.”

Advanced Performance Metrics:

Maximum memory per VM: 240 Terabytes* (10x previous)

Maximum virtual processors per VM: 2048 VPs* (~8.5x previous)

For a deeper look into these Windows Server improvements, you can read the comprehensive blog post here.

Conclusion

In summary, the launch of System Center 2025 and the updates to Windows Server 2025 exemplify Microsoft’s commitment to enhancing security, performance, and management capabilities in the ever-evolving landscape of technology. To aid in these transitions, Microsoft has also made available a free downloadable PDF containing security guidelines.

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