System Center

System Center delivers a simplified datacenter management experience to keep you in control of your IT while increasing agility and performance.

System Center site

About System Center

System Center delivers a simplified datacenter management experience to keep you in control of your IT—whether on-premises, in the cloud, or across platforms. It builds on the experience and depth of the previous versions, and you can take your management capabilities even farther with Azure security and management capabilities, giving you visibility and control of data and applications that live across multiple systems from a single solution.

How to Buy

System Center can be used to manage server Operating System Environments (OSEs) and/or client OSEs. Server management licensing maximizes your private cloud value while simplifying purchasing. All server management licenses (server MLs) include the same components and the ability to manage any workload.

Server and Client Management Licenses

System Center server MLs are available in two editions, which are differentiated by virtualization rights only:

System Center Datacenter: Ideal for managing highly virtualized servers and licensed under the Management servers* (core-based) licensing model.
System Center Standard: Ideal for managing lightly virtualized or non-virtualized servers and licensed under the Management servers* (core-based) licensing model.

^{*All physical cores on the server must be licensed, subject to a minimum of 8 core licenses per physical processor and a minimum of 16 core licenses per server.}

There are three types of Client Management Licenses:

Per User ML: A User Management License permits management of any OSE accessed by one user.
Per OSE ML: An OSE Management License permits management of one OSE accessed by any user.
Device ML: A device Management License (Core CAL or Enterprise CAL Suite) permits management of any OSE on one device.

Feature comparison

Server management features

Server management licenses (server MLs) are required for managing server operating system environments (OSEs), including virtual machines (VMs), Hyper-V isolation, and Windows Server containers. The following table compares the two System Center server ML editions:

Feature/Right	Datacenter edition	Standard edition
Number of managed OSEs/Hyper-V isolation	Unlimited	2*
Number of managed Windows Server containers	Unlimited	Unlimited
Configuration Manager	✓	✓
Data Protection Manager	✓	✓
Operations Manager	✓	✓
Service Manager	✓	✓
Virtual Machine Manager	✓	✓
SQL Technology: right to run management server software and supporting SQL Server Runtime (SQL Server Standard edition)	✓	✓
Manage any type of supported workload	✓	✓

^{*Standard edition permits management of the physical OSE on the licensed server (in addition to two virtual OSEs), if the physical OSE is used solely to host and manage virtual OSEs.}

^{Note: Components included in the server MLs are not available separately.}

Client management features

Client management licenses (client MLs) are required for managing devices that run non-server operating system environments (OSEs). The following table compares the three System Center client ML offerings:

Feature/Right	Configuration Manager	Endpoint Protection	Other Management products
Component included	Configuration Manager Virtual Machine Manager	Endpoint Protection	Service Manager Operations Manager Data Protection Manager Orchestrator
License requirements	Client ML* (per user/OSE)	Subscription* (per user/device)	Client ML* (per user/OSE)
Included in Core CAL Suite	✓	✓
Included in Enterprise CAL Suite	✓	✓

^{*Client MLs are required for management of non-server OSEs.}

^{Note: Components included in the client MLs are not available separately.}

Resources

System Center website

System Center Licensing FAQs

Introduction to Microsoft Core Licensing