New functionality in ConfigMgr 2012 B2 (part3)

This blog will dive deeper in Site roles. Beneath "Servers and Site System Roles" all Site servers and Site roles will be seen. Default the following roles will be seen on the Site server: Component server, Distribution point,  Management point, Site database server, Site server and Site system.

They are the same Site roles that will be seen on a ConfigMgr 2007 server. New roles that can be added in ConfigMgr 2012 B2 are:

• Mobile device and AMT enrollment point
• Mobile device enrollment properties
• Application Catalog Web Service Point
• Application Catalog Web Site point 

This because Mobile Device Manager is included in ConfigMgr now, and a new Application Catalog will be available on desktops with the ConfigMgr client installed. With this Application Catalog, users can "order" software, and after approval the application will be automatically installed!

I have added roles for Application Catalog, Reporting Services, Server Locator, and Software Updates here. The Reporting Services role is mandatory when reporting is needed. This because the default Reporting role is not available in ConfigMgr 2012 anymore. Now Reporting Services is the way for watching reports. The advantage here is that this role can run on the SQL Server. This to devide the server load on multiple machines.

One role missing here is the PXE Services point. This role doesn't exist anymore in ConfigMgr 2012. Now PXE must be configured in the Distribution point role. So when searching for PXE functionality, check the DP role!

Last thing to show is the Server drive priority for putting Software packages. Default ConfigMgr 2012 B2 will decide where to put Software packages. This will be decide on the lowest priority order. At this moment it's not possible to change this priority on multiple drives. Maybe in a later release?

In the next blog Patch management will be explained, which is way different (read: better) then in ConfigMgr 2007.