Microsoft hosted a hands-on workshop on System Center 2012 and the Private Cloud in mid-January. Windows IT Pro staffers Jeff James, Michael Otey, and Sean Deuby attended. They discuss their impressions of the licensing changes for System Center; the ability to create private clouds with Virtual Machine Manager (VMM); and new features and components such as App Controller for rolling out applications, Service Manager to create service requests, and Orchestrator for automating workflows.