Going down the IT rabbit hole

For all of us that started playing with Windows Server 2019 at the end of last year, we also wanted to start playing with System Center 2019 ASAP. That day has come – Microsoft just started releasing System Center 2019 products.

On Microsoft Download Center you can find System Center 2019 Evaluation VHDs:

•  System Center Orchestrator 2019 – Evaluation (VHD)
•  System Center Service Manager 2019 – Evaluation (VHD)
•  System Center Operations Manager 2019 – Evaluation (VHD)
•  System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2019 – Evaluation (VHD)
•  System Center Data Protection Manager 2019 – Evaluation (VHD)

and

•  System Center Service Manager Authoring Tool 2019

Downloads for the installers are also available on Microsoft Evaluation Center.

If you have MSDN subscription or if you are active MCT, you can also download all the DVDs for System Center 2019 Products at https://my.visualstudio.com.

If you have access to Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC), you can find new System Center 2019 product DVDs available for download at https://www.microsoft.com/Licensing/servicecenter/.

For those of you that just want to check out System Center 2019 products, downloading pre-build environment is a good option – fast and easy way to test the product without deploying it into your environment. Here you can find short PowerShell script that will help you automate the download part of this endeavor (Download SC2019 GA VHD Eval.ps1).

I’ve also put together PowerShell script that can download all System Center 2019 evaluation EXEs from Microsoft Evaluation Center: Download SC2019 GA Eval.ps1.

If you ponder about System Center 2019 products and can’t really put your finger on why you might want them, you can check this blog for short overview ( Windows Server Blog  – Now available: Microsoft System Center 2019!).

One big news that came with System Center 2019 is that Microsoft will no longer release SAC (Semi-Annual Channel) versions of System Center products. They decided to go back to the “old” model of “LTSC” (Long-Term Servicing Channel) that provides five years of mainstream support and five years of extended support (with Update Rollups providing the incremental fixes and updates).

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) is not impacted by the 2019 release change and will continue current branch release cadence of three times per year as noted in the documentation, “Support for Configuration Manager current branch versions”.