Does anyone know if Windows Intune be available for Windows Servers? Unless Intune works on Servers, i see this as a huge failure in the product and I can't look at using it and imagine will be the same for most businesses.

I had setup the trial and was loving it until i went to install on a server and found out that it doesn't work. Almost all business with more than 10 pc's surely have some sort of centralised server/s.

Currently Windows Intune is not available on Servers .
 
Thank you for your feedback. We will keep your feedback in mind as we explore features for future versions.
 
Thanks,
Karuna

• Marked as answer by David Wolters Thursday, March 31, 2011 7:16 PM

I agree with Tarran.  This product will bring true value to me and my clients when I have one place to manage ALL machines.  If I am unable to use InTune to manage my client servers then it has limited value to me.

Thanks,

Ken

it is my understanding that Intune is supposed to be the replacement for ROM.  however if it does not work with servers, it is basicly worthless for a managed service provider who's primary concern is servers.  is there any insight on a product that will allow remote monitoring and management for servers?

 

Sean

I agree.  I'm looking for a solution to manage the security/updates of all our computers here at the office and also out in the field.  Right now the computers out in the field aren't being monitored in a centralized location.  I was really excited about trying out InTune but when I found out about it not supporting the servers I was really disapointed.  If we're monitoring the security/updates of the entire company it would be much more helpful to have both servers and workstations/laptops monitored by the same software.  Please consider making InTune available for servers as well.

The only other major concern of mine is bandwidth.  We have about 40-50 computers here at the office and currently use SCE 2010/WSUS for Windows Updates.  If we go to InTune it looks like all the computers would be downloading the updates directly from the Internet.  As I understand it the only workaround right now is to setup a proxy server.  It would be nice if there was a way to specify one InTune agent running on a server on-site to download the updates to and distribute them to all the computers on-site but if any of the laptops go off-site it would be nice if they would still be able to get the updates from the cloud.

• Proposed as answer by Steve_integ Tuesday, November 22, 2011 5:07 PM
• Unproposed as answer by Steve_integ Tuesday, November 22, 2011 5:08 PM

I too would like to see this support networks in which there is a server, whether it be SBS or an Enterprise level server. While SBS provides much of the Intune service and organisations can implement systems to reproduce Intune it becomes cumbersome when some systems are managed in the cloud and other in-house. When we can get reports of clients being infected or updates that are not installed you have no viability in to the servers we have nothing and have to rely on other methods.

Please consider providing a Server client that we can use to get this needed visibility in to networks.

I'd like to add my voice to those above. We've recently deployed Intune to several of our end client in the hopes of greater ease of management, but now We find ourselves having to rely on two RMM systems instead of one in order to maintain visibility to our servers. Given that the alerts screen on Intune already offers alerts for both 2k3 and 2k8, it seems strange that you can't install it on either. Please work to add server functionality to this product, it would make it infinitely more usable for MSP and businesses.

I would also like to see Windows Server support. I'm looking for an all in one solution that's lite on resources. I'm a one man show at my company and need something simple and efficient that is all in one place.

+1 for me.  I agree that this product has limited value without server support.

I'm going to jump on the bandwagon here too.  Until the product can support servers it is only of use on companies without servers.  The typical environment has at least a domain controller/file server that may be SBS.  It would be great to manage clients and servers in Intune and not have to setup local update services.  But, at this point, without server support, I have to setup a local instance of an update manager/virus protection anyway.  I'm not going to setup two.

Regards,

Nate

 

Agreed!  I'm really liking Intune with the single exception that it lacks server support.  Even our smallest clients usually have one server.  I too need to utilize two solutions in order to manage everything.

+1 - you need this on servers.

wow almost a year and still no server support.  Listen we have been looking at managed server services since CA Unicenter back in 2006..  I'm surprised that Microsoft didn't think this through.  What I've come to notice is that the product and marketability features always end up in release 1 but its always the wait and see for release two that starts to gain traction.  

But seriously, with operating systems on the client becoming less important in todays world, and the management of the server OS in the SME space still quite important, I'm actually surprised Microsoft didn't do the release the other way around... I mean how many of us in the space they're targeting, do we need workstation before server first and foremost?  I don't understand why this wouldn't have been tabled in meetings where servers would have been the most important part of getting this off the ground... am I missing something here?  Maybe they thought we could all depend on the reactive management of the reporting functions within SBE / SBS??

It would be really good to hear of some type of announcement or roadmap that lets the market know when this is going to become available, because me like most others on this thread, its almost unequivocally unanimous that server support really needs to be there for this to gain momentum..

There are also a trillion other products out there that do both these days and do them marginally well, but in-tune IMHO seems really impressive and will really shake up the managed PC/Server market place.

0.002 ;)

Hurry up Micr

0% value without server support.  Absolutely worthless and a waste of my time.  Microsoft, please remove the people that thought it was a good idea to exclude servers for a support product.  They are clearly in the wrong industry and should "have a long and prosperous career teaching typewriter maintenance at the Rocko Club School for Women."

Another vote for server support, this is ridiculous as it is now. Currently a user of FCS (FEP with its SCCM/SCOM requirements is too big for us) looking for a new AV solution. Come on Microsoft!

In My Humble Opinion,

My small point-of-sale (POS) company is working hard to sell more servers in the small business space, which is quite difficult in itself.  There is an undeniable gap in the solution choices for the small burinesses like grocery stores when choosing malware protection for their servers.  Most malware protection solutions are too expensive for a single server with just four POS terminals and two desktops.  It is this one shortcoming that henders my ability to sell more Microsoft Server operating systems.  By not having Intune for servers I have been hampered in my efforts to sell more Windows Small Business Servers in small businesses. If Microsoft will simply look at their own numbers on the Partner Meeting slides and add Intune Server next to SBS 2011 it becomes obivious that the dollars justify having Intune Server version.

Rex Roper

President

Systems & Supplies, Inc.

It would be great if we could use intune on servers.

Our company currently manages over 400 servers that we would be willing to move to intune.

Is there an ETA on when it will be supported by windows 2008r2?

OK, so here's a dissenting view.

Actually I agree that servers would be kind of nice, but last year everybody wanted software installation so that's what Microsoft did first.

If you look at the issue of managing servers, you are really talking about implementing the entire System Center suite in the cloud.  Have you seen that thing?  It's immense and all it does is manage servers.  Server management can be really complicated.  Especially SBS which has Exchange, SQL, SharePoint, Active Directory and god knows what else.

When you ask for "manage servers" you may be thinking of Exchange antivirus while the next guy who asks is just thinking of tracking updates while the third guy really wants server software installation.  All of these (and more) are part of System Center so Microsoft may do a bunch of work to add "server management" and still not do the piece that you of course assumed would be done first because it's the piece you want.

Besides, all the complex server stuff is moving to the cloud - Microsoft seems to be discontinuing SBS after this version because small businesses can get most of the SBS functionality from Office 365, although bare servers are still useful as file servers (well at least until the next release of Skydrive).  I would hate to see Microsoft devote a huge amount of resources to implementing System Center in the cloud as "server Intune" just in time for users to not need it anymore because "nobody runs their own servers anymore".

I would agree that it would be nice to at least manage server updates and antivirus but even these are complicated.  I've seen antivirus products "quarantine" your entire company-wide Exchange email database because one user had one old email that contained a virus, and since the entire database is stored in a single .edb file it got whisked away to quarantine.  My point is that even simple things like antivirus and updates are a lot more complicated on servers than on PC's and it's not clear to me that just allowing people to install the existing Intune product on servers would be doing anybody any favors.

Do we really want Microsoft to feel that existing Intune is good enough so they can devote all their resources to a huge "put System Center in the cloud" effort?  I'd rather see things like the ability to connect in remotely to a managed PC without a user sitting there, and I don't want to see that put off for 5 years while Microsoft implements a server-type super-Intune product.

I would like Server support.   I do realize that server support can be complicated, and I would opt for the same support as clients for the present, with evolutionary updates toward more complete capabilities.   Frequent updates and one of the reasons to select a cloud service, after all.

To offset the cost of implementation, I would recommend some special pricing for server "clients" (okay, yes that is confusing, but you know what I mean ;) )

Another for server support.

Personally, not too worried about 'full' server support such as System Centre et al, but I would like a server antivirus client included. I'm looking to move all my customers client systems to Intune, but I still need a separate antivirus for their servers (yes even with Office 365 SMB's still need a local server for AD and file/print).

+1 for server support.

We no longer have a domain and have migrated all mail and data to 365 but still have a server for hyper v and a few specific files. To manage this with InTune would be great.

Let's define what we see as "Server Support"

Ability to install intune on server (2003+) Such that:

1. system shows in the list (like PC's do)
2. the 'inventory' of installed software is exposed in the Intune portal (Like PC's do)
3. monitoring of disk space (Like PC's do)
4. ability to 'deploy' software packages to the server (Like PC's do)
5. Ability to apply simple 'policies' (Like PC's do)
6. Simple file-system Anti-Virus (Like PC's do)

This gives us the basics, anything beyond this (on a server) we would remote in and use the standard GPO/ADUC/MMC tools.

The 'catch-22' that the marketing teams that dreamt this up missed:

When I buy a 'server' AV product (Norton, Sophos, McAfee etc etc) the 'server' product is charged 'per client' that uses the server.
That means for my 25-user system I have to buy 25 client licences + 1 for the server.. So that then means I have now paid for the AV for the clients (PC's).
No business owner will let me charge twice for AV (once for the server+clients and then once for the Intune+AV).
If I go this route and still deploy Intune on the clients (just for the management), the customer (quite rightly) asks;
  "But we bought Sophos [or other], why haven't you installed it on the PC's?"

The critical take-away Mr Microsoft (please)
   You CANNOT have an AV solution (intune) WITHOUT including servers.
   The existing AV sales model of most major AV vendors blocks this and renders it impossible to justify/use.

Regards

David (Nobby) Barnes

• Edited by David (Nobby) Barnes Tuesday, October 29, 2013 12:34 PM

Just wanted to say +1, since I have the same problem.

Our small company has about 20 PCs and 2 SBS servers. All of them were using a third party AV solution (TrendMicro) for a long time, but we've been trying to move to intune because of the added security monitoring and simplified off-site management.

And then when we were just about to make the move to full intune we discover it doesn't support our servers. End of the story, we are not ready to pay twice for the AV solution, so we will stop Intune deployment until Microsoft fixes this mess. Back to the contract table with TrendMicro...

As a point of interest, as I too see this as a shortcoming, we deploy F-Secure AV for Servers to the server, and use InTune for everything else. You can license one server without having to do everything.

The obvious downside is that it's not reported in the InTune console if it catches anything or fails to update, but we do our best to work with it. Just wanted to let you know what we do.

+1 for us. The SMB market is screaming for additional management capabilities without the cost of added on premise infrastructure (Gear). A customer with a single on premise server and 10 workstations would benefit from this product being administered by their partner of choice.

Nobby hits the nail on the head here.  This type of Intune support for server OS would be very, very helpful for us, particularly as a monitored anti-malware.  The next best thing would be to see Intune anti-malware climb up the detection rankings.

Just installed Intune, been very impressed until I tried the obvious and install it on and server. Thinking it's ok it must coming soon, found this thread, good I'm not the only one. SHOCK HORROR when I noticed the date 3 YEAR and Microsoft have not sorted this gaping hole. Unfortunately it is the same with many of there products lately "1/2 a job", all looks good on paper but when you go to use it you find it is full of short comings that should have been sorted in the Alpha let alone 1 or 2 versions later.  I do wonder if there is anyone from the real world left at Microsoft anymore :(

I have come across what looks to be working version of Intune, Centrastage seems to tick all the boxes and is next on my testing list hopefully not vendor / product that look good on paper. finger crossed