Several important changes introduced with System Center 2012 CONFIGURATION Manager prevent an in-place upgrade; however, System Center 2012 Configuration Manager does support migration from Configuration Manager 2007 with a side-by-side deployment. For example, System Center 2012 Configuration Manager is native 64 bit application with a database that is optimized for Unicode and that is shared between all sites. Additionally, site types and site relationships have changed. These changes, and others, mean that many existing HIERARCHY STRUCTURES cannot be upgraded.

Several important changes introduced with System Center 2012 Configuration Manager prevent an in-place upgrade; however, System Center 2012 Configuration Manager does support migration from Configuration Manager 2007 with a side-by-side deployment. For example, System Center 2012 Configuration Manager is native 64 bit application with a database that is optimized for Unicode and that is shared between all sites. Additionally, site types and site relationships have changed. These changes, and others, mean that many existing hierarchy structures cannot be upgraded.