Yes, it is finally here and the major “thing” is that it fully supports Dynamic Memory and RemoteFX (included in SP1 for Windows Server 2008 R2). In most cases you download the Service Pack, apply it and you are done, but that is NOT the case this time. What you do is to download the complete ISO image and install that. There are reasons, one being that once you have installed SP1 you cannot go back to RTM, since the database has been modified and Microsoft would like to be sure that you have the complete package (the ISO) so that you can perform a disaster recovery operation. Well, ok, but still I think it would have been better if they did release it as a SP trough WSUS, but that is me. Anyway, here are the steps:

Download System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 SP1 (read more about different locations and different licensed version here)

• Perform a backup of the SCVMM Database (just to be safe)
• Mount the ISO on the server
• Install SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1 (It will detect that you are running RTM and upgrade itself)
• Stop the SCVMM service
• Uninstall the Console
• Install the SP1 Console
• Start the SCVMM Service
• Done

To be honest, not sure that you need to uninstall/re-install the console, but if I did not do that I could not use/see the new features. When I did, it worked like a charm.

List of features in SCVMM 2008 R2 SP1

• Dynamic Memory
• RemoteFX
• Live migration
• Clustered Shared Volume (CSV) support that enables multiple Highly Available Virtual Machines (HAVM) per LUN.
• Hot add of storage
• Support for VMware vSphere 4 (VMware VI3 feature parity only)
• SAN Migration into and out of clustered hosts
• Processor flexibility
• Network optimization
• Quick storage migration
• Maintenance mode for hosts
• Support for third party cluster file system, Sanbolic Melio FS
• Support for third party storage class resource, Veritas Storage Foundation for Windows
• Expanded support for iSCSI SANs
• Support for VMware port groups for virtual switches
• Support for Virtual Machine permissions assigned in Hyper-V
• Dynamic policy based load balancing

Read more:

• http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/virtual-machine-manager/vmm-whats-new-r2.aspx
• http://blogs.technet.com/b/gavinmcshera/archive/2011/03/30/3417218.aspx
• http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9189bbce-d970-4c6c-9dd3-9e65798ecd70

/mike