First released in 2008, Microsoft System Center is a suite of products which simplify the deployment, configuration and management of IT infrastructure for both on-premises and hybrid cloud environments. System Center products assist with infrastructure monitoring, infrastructure provisioning, software deployment and patching, automation, backup and IT service management.
Since 2008 there has often been rumors that System Center will be discontinued (some even started by Microsoft!), but 16 years on and System Center is still going strong and is set to be around for a lot longer with the recent release of System Center 2025.
System Center 2025 Released 6th November 2024
Microsoft have announced System Center 2025, the next release of their Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) was GA (General Availability) 6th November 2024. All the System Center products were released for 2025:
- Operations Manager (SCOM)
- Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)
- Orchestrator
- Data Protection Manger (DPM)
- Service Manager
This aligned with the Windows Server 2025 release, so that there is management support for the latest Windows Server version right from Day 0.
What’s new in System Center 2025
New capabilities announced include:
- Management & monitoring of Azure Stack HCI 23H2 clusters with VMM & SCOM 2025.
- Enhanced conversion of VMware VMs to Windows Server through SCVMM.
- Support for the latest versions of Linux distros will be available with the General Availability of SCVMM 2025.
- DPM adds the capability to exclude specific disks from backups in Hyper-V environments.
The 2025 release also focuses on security enhancements across the System Center suite:
- Significantly reduced the number of scenarios which use CredSSP and NTLM as the authentication mechanism.
- Support for Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.3, ensuring that all data transmissions are protected by the latest security standards.
- DPM 2025 introduces the capability to securely store passphrase in Azure Key Vault, and support for OLEDB 19.
What’s new in Orchestrator 2025
For Orchestrator 2025 the new features are:
Support for OLEDB19 Orchestrator 2025 supports OLEDB19 which encrypts SQL Connection by default. Ensure to have Trusted Server certificate for successful SQL connection. Learn more.
Support for .NET 8 System Center Orchestrator 2025 supports the latest and most secure .NET8 (LTSC). Learn more.
Support for Transport Security Layer (TLS) protocol version 1.3 System Center Orchestrator 2025 supports Transport Security Layer (TLS) protocol version 1.3.
Support for Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSA) System Center Orchestrator now supports Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSA). Learn more.
There have also been several fixes and security improvements in this release:
- Send platform event activity is persisted to the database and is visible in Events tab of the Runbook Designer.
- Run SSH activity is fixed. Latest (at the time of release) plink.exe is included.
- Query database activity error Failed to load extension is fixed.
- Activities persist custom separators while you configure Run behavior for the activity.
- GET api/ActivityInstances returns the expected value instead of empty result.
- Activity names are correctly displayed on the Runbook Tester canvas and log view area instead of identifiers.
- Jobs in active state are visible in Active Jobs in Web Console.
Full release notes can be found on the Microsoft System Center 2025 documentation site.
What does System Center 2025 mean for Orchestrator Users
The first thing System Center 2025 means for Orchestrator users is that there is a long-term future for your existing investments, as with the new release of 2025, Microsoft support for Orchestrator is extended out to 2035 (standard support 2030 + extended support to 2035).
We can also confirm that Kelverion will support our Integration Packs for Orchestrator 2025, we planned to have our products supported by early 2025.
This announcement from Microsoft does have implications for customers running Orchestrator 2019 and older versions. With this release you will now be running a version that is at least current -2 (i.e. at least 2 releases old), and you can therefore expect that all of Microsoft’s development focus will be on the latest version. So, whilst 2019 and 2016 are still under extended support from Microsoft, they are going to be firmly in the security updates only category going forward.
So, if you haven’t already started the process, now is a very good time to start looking at a migration to Orchestrator 2022 or even direct to 2025.
For more information on migrating to Orchestrator 2022:
About Kelverion
Kelverion are experts in Microsoft Automation with over a decade of experience in System Center Orchestrator, Azure Automation, Power Automate and Logic Apps. Kelverion provides a complete automation platform hosted in Microsoft Azure to simplify customers’ automation journey.
For more information, to arrange a discovery call or to see a demonstration please contact our helpful team today via info@kelverion.com.
