System Center 2012 Operations Manager Unleashed

Kerrie Meyler, System Center MVP for Cloud and Datacenter Management, is the lead author of numerous System Center books in the Unleashed series. This includes System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed (2008), System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Unleashed (2009), System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Unleashed (2010), System Center Opalis Integration Server 6.3 Unleashed (2011), System Center Service Manager 2010 Unleashed (2011), and System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Unleashed (2012). She is an independent consultant and trainer with more than 15 years of Information Technology experience. Kerrie was responsible for evangelizing SMS while a Sr. Technology Specialist at Microsoft and has presented on System Center technologies at TechEd and MMS. Cameron Fuller, System Center MVP for Cloud and Datacenter Management, is a principal consultant for Catapult Systems and serves as their Corporate Practice Lead for System Center. With 20 years of infrastructure experience, he focuses on management solutions. Cameron coauthored Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Unleashed (Sams, 2006), System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed (Sams, 2008), and System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Unleashed (Sams, 2010), and was a contributor to System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Unleashed (Sams, 2009). Cameron has written for Windows IT Professional and TechNet magazines and blogs on System Center related topics. Cameron has presented at numerous Microsoft conferences, including TechEd and MMS. John Joyner, System Center MVP for Cloud and Datacenter Management, is Director of Product Development at ClearPointe, a provider of remote network management and cloud-based Network Operations Center (NOC) services to customers and partners around the world since 2001. John is a coauthor of System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed (Sams, 2008) and System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Unleashed (Sams, 2010). He is also a syndicated technology columnist for CBS-Interactive, covering the Enterprise Cloud and Datacenter beats weekly for TechRepublic since April 2011. John has taught at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock as an adjunct professor for an IT course on cloud infrastructure management. Contributing Authors: Jonathan Almquist , Alex Fedotyev, Scott Moss , Oskar Landman, Marnix Wolf, and Pete Zerger

Introduction 1

Fast Track: A Quick Look at What's New 2

Part I: Operations Management Overview and Concepts 2

Part II: Planning and Installation 3

Part III: Moving Toward Application-Centered Management 3

Part IV: Administering System Center 2012 Operations Manager 4

Part V: Service-Oriented Monitoring 4

Part VI: Beyond Operations Manager 5

Part VII: Appendixes 6

Disclaimers and Fine Print 6

Part I Operations Management Overview and Concepts 7

1 Operations Management Basics 9

Ten Reasons to Use Operations Manager 10

The Problem with Today's Systems 11

Why Do Systems Go Down? 12

No System Is an Island 13

Lack of Notification 14

Lack of Historical Information 15

Lack of Expertise 15

Lack of Methodology 16

Missing Information 16

False Alarms 17

Proliferation of Virtualization and Cloud Computing 17

The Bottom Line 17

Operations Management Defined 18

Microsoft's Strategy for Operations Management 20

Microsoft's Dynamic Systems Initiative 21

IT Infrastructure Library and Microsoft Operations Framework 24

ISO 20000 30

Optimizing Your Infrastructure 30

Managing System Health 34

Bridging the Operations Management Gap 35

Connecting Systems. 37

Notification: Errors and Availability 38

Historical Information 43

Built-in Expertise 45

Using a Methodology 47

Catching Missed Information 48

Reducing False Alarms 48

Managing Virtualization and the Cloud 49

Overview of Microsoft System Center 51

Reporting in System Center 52

Service Management 53

Protecting Data 53

Virtual Machine Management 54

Deploy and Manage in the Cloud 55

Orchestration and Automation 55

Cloud-Based Configuration Monitoring 55

Configuration Management. 55

Endpoint Protection 56

The Value Proposition of Operations Manager 56

Summary 57

2 What's New in System Center 2012 Operations Manager 59

The History of Operations Manager 59

The Early Years: MOM 2000 and MOM 2005 59

Operations Manager 2007 60

Operations Manager 2007 R2 and Beyond 61

Introducing System Center 2012 Operations Manager 62

Supported Configurations 64

Root Management Server and Root Management

Server Emulator 65

High Availability with Resource Pools 67

Network Monitoring Enhancements 70

Monitoring .NET Applications 71

Using PowerShell 72

Saving Overrides 72

Using the Console 73

Web Console Updates 73

Maintenance Mode on Management Servers 75

Dashboards 75

What's New in Security 75

Connector Functionality Replaced by System Center 2012

Orchestrator 76

Changes in Capacity 76

Terminology and Concepts 77

AEM: Capturing Application Crash Information 77

Operations Manager Agent 77

Audit Collection 77

Classes: Templates for Objects 77

Features Versus Components 77

Gateways 78

Heartbeats: Checking the Health of the Agent 78

Management Group 78

Management Pack 78

Management Server 79

Models 79

Resource Pool 79

RMS Emulator 79

Run As Account 79

Run As Profile 79

User Role 80

Summary 80

3 Looking Inside OpsMgr 81

Architectural Overview 82

System Center 2012 Integration 82

Management Group Defined 85

Server Features 87

Windows Services 95

System Center Management Service 96

System Center Data Access Service 97

System Center Management Configuration Service 97

OpsMgrVSSWriter Service 97

System Center Audit Forwarding Service 97

Audit Collection Service Collector Service 98

Application Performance Monitoring Service. 98

OpsMgr Communications Channels 98

How Does OpsMgr Do It? 101

Management Group Mechanics 101

Service Modeling 103

How Health Models Work 107

About State-Based Monitoring 109

Management Pack Schema 109

Populating the Health Model with Monitors 112

How Rules Differ from Monitors 119

OpsMgr as a Workflow Engine 120

Presentation Layer Scenarios 126

Using the Operations Console 127

Improvements to the Web Console 129

Portals into APM 129

OpsMgr Reporting 131

PowerShell as a Presentation Layer 131

Notification Channels 132

Fast Track 133

Summary 134

Part II Planning and Installation 135

4 Planning an Operations Manager Deployment 137

Envisioning Operations Manager 139

Understanding History, Requirements, and Goals 139

Vision 141

Scope 141

Risks 141

Planning Operations Manager 142

Designing 142

Planning for Licensing 171

Creating the Plan 175

Sample Designs 179

All-In-One Operations Manager 179

Small Organization 179

Midsized Organization 182

Geographically Dispersed Organization 183

Fast Track 185

Summary 186

5 Installing System Center 2012 Operations Manager 187

Planning Your Implementation 188

Installation Prerequisites. 189

Windows Domain Prerequisites 190

Windows Security Accounts 190

Software Requirements 191

Recommended Order of Installation 196

Single Server Deployment 197

Single Server Deployment: High-level Order of Installation 197

Two Server Deployment 198

Multiple Server Deployment 199

SQL Server 200

First Management Server 200

Additional Management Servers and Consoles 212

Reporting Server 217

Web Console 223

Gateway Server 230

Installing Audit Collection Services 235

Installing ACS on a Secondary Management Server 236

Deploying ACS Reporting to an SSRS Instance 239

Installing Agents on Servers 241

Discovering Windows Computers in a Trusted Domain 241

Manually Installing Agent in an Untrusted Domain or Workgroup 243

Configuring ACS Forwarder for Certificate Operation 246

Enabling ACS Forwarders. 246

Check Online for Update Rollups 247

Importing Windows Server Management Packs 247

Removing OpsMgr 248

Troubleshooting Your Installation 248

Summary 249

6 Upgrading to System Center 2012 Operations Manager 251

Planning Your Upgrade 251

Update OpsMgr 2007 R2 to Cumulative Update 4 or Later 251

Strategic Upgrade Decisions 252

In-Place Upgrade Versus Multi-Homed Migration 254

RMS and Gateway Upgrade Challenges 255

RMS Strategies 256

Gateway Strategies 257

Using the Upgrade Helper Management Pack 258

Performing an In-Place Upgrade 261

Upgrading the Single Server Management Group 262

Upgrading the Distributed Management Group 271

Upgrading from a Secondary Management Server 289

Performing a Multi-Homed Upgrade 297

Deploy OpsMgr 2012 Management Group 298

Multi-Home All Agents 299

Retire the OpsMgr 2007 R2 Management Group 302

Case Studies 304

Small Network: In-place OS, SQL Upgrades 304

Medium Enterprise: Preserve Database 306

Large Enterprise: Multi-Home Strategy 310

Summary 312

Part III Moving Toward Application-Centered Management 313

7 Configuring and Using System Center 2012 Operations Manager 315

Introducing the Operations Console 315

Connecting to the Operations Console 316

Confirming Management Group Health 319

A Quick Tour of the Operations Console 320

Configuring the Operations Console 323

Using the Monitoring Pane 324

Using the Authoring Pane 342

About the Reporting Pane 352

Administration Pane 355

My Workspace 368

Using Operations Manager: Beyond the Consoles 370

Using the Operations Console 371

Adding Management Packs 371

Deploying Agents 372

Fast Track 372

Summary 373

8 Installing and Configuring Agents 375

Understanding Core Concepts 375

How Discovery Works 376

Scheduling Discovery 378

Approval Process 378

Agent-Managed Systems 379

Agentless Managed Systems 382

Systems in an Unknown State 384

Network Devices 384

UNIX/Linux Systems 384

Discovering and Deploying Agents 384

Agent Supported Platforms 385

Agent Requirements 387

Management Pack Requirements for Operating System

Monitoring 388

Using the Discovery Wizard 389

Manual Agent Installation 398

Active Directory Integration 401

Group Policy Deployment 406

Configuration Manager Agent Deployment 408

Image-Based Deployment 410

OpsMgr Agent Port Requirements 411

Converting Agentless-Managed to Agent-Managed 411

Coexisting OpsMgr Agents with MOM 2005 412

Multi-Homed Agents 412

Managing Agents 413

Validating Agent Functionality 413

Converting Manually Installed Agents and Applying

Update Rollups 414

Event Log Sizes and Configurations 415

Pending Actions 416

Agent Settings 416

Agent Failover 416

Agent Internals 417

Removing or Renaming Agents 418

New User Interface on Windows Agents 419

AEM Versus Agent-Monitored and Agentless Monitoring. 420

Troubleshooting Tips 420

Troubleshooting Windows Agents 420

Troubleshooting UNIX/Linux Agents. 420

Fast Track 421

Summary 421

9 Complex Configurations 423

Implementing High Availability 424

Microsoft Failover Clustering for SQL Server 426

Using Log Shipping 429

Network Load Balancing the Data Access Service 432

Network Load Balancing the Web Console. 433

ACS High Availability 433

High Availability with Resource Pools 436

Modifying the Default Resource Pools Membership Behavior 436

About Gateway Server Resource Pools and Redundancy 439

Creating Resource Pools 441

Managing the RMS Emulator Role 442

Confirming the RMS Emulator Role 442

Moving the RMS Emulator Role 443

Removing the RMS Emulator Role 444

WAN Links and Gateways 445

Multi-Homing Agents 447

Connected Management Groups 450

Designing for Distributed Environments 451

High-Level Steps 451

Potential Pitfalls 453

Fast Track 454

Summary 454

10 Security and Compliance 455

Securing Operations Manager 455

About Role-Based Security 456

Operations on the Data Access Service 457

User Roles and Profiles 459

Run As Profiles and Run As Accounts 469

Required Accounts 473

Database Security. 483

Mutual Authentication 484

Agent Proxying 488

Using SSL to Connect to a Reporting Server 489

Using the Health Service Lockdown Tool 489

About Cross Platform Security 490

Firewall Considerations and Communications Security 491

Using Audit Collection Services 497

Planning for ACS 499

Deploying ACS 508

Administering ACS 512

Fast Track 525

Summary 525

11 Dashboards, Trending, and Forecasting 527

Built-in Dashboard Functionality 527

Using Templates 529

Using the Summary Dashboard 530

Using the Service Level Dashboard 531

Using Widgets 532

Using Widgets in SharePoint 538

What Built-in Dashboard Functionality Does Not Do 539

Prebuilt Dashboards 539

Network Monitoring Dashboards 539

Operations Manager Dashboards 541

APM Dashboards 544

Additional Dashboard Options 545

Visio Integration 546

Savision Live Maps 547

Silect Software 549

Bay Dynamics 549

InFront Consulting System Center Dashboard 549

Dundas Dashboards 549

SharePoint 2007 Dashboards 550

SQL Queries 551

Prebuilt Gadgets 551

Custom Gadgets 551

PerformancePoint 552

Power View 553

Reports, Trending, Forecasting, and Capacity Planning 553

Reporting in OpsMgr 554

Existing Reports and Trending 557

Forecasting and Capacity Planning with OpsMgr 560

Fast Track 562

Additional Reference Links 562

Summary 563

Part IV Administering System Center 2012 Operations Manager 565

12 Backup and Recovery 567

Roles of Key OpsMgr Files and Databases 568

Establishing a Backup Schedule 570

Database Grooming and Maintenance 572

Grooming the Operational Database 572

Grooming the Data Warehouse Database 573

Grooming the Audit Database 582

Grooming APM Data 582

Database Maintenance 585

Backing Up and Restoring the SQL Server Databases 589

Operations Manager Database Backups 590

Performing Operations Manager Database Restores 595

Moving the OpsMgr Databases to a Different Database Server 597

Backing Up Key Files 602

Backing Up Management Packs 603

Backing Up Reports 607

Backing Up SSRS Encryption Keys 609

Backing Up the IIS Metabase 610

Using Data Protection Manager 611

Installing DPM Agents on Untrusted Computers 611

Installing DPM Agents on Trusted Computers 612

Creating a DPM Protection Group for OpsMgr 613

Monitoring the DPM Status of the OpsMgr Protection Group 614

OpsMgr Recovery Scenarios Using DPM 615

Disaster Recovery Planning 617

Recovering from a Total Loss 617

Using Log Shipping 618

Other Approaches for Database Disaster Recovery 619

Recovering from a Downed Management Server 620

Fast Track 621

Summary 621

13 Administering Management Packs 623

Management Packs Defined 623

Model-Based Management 624

Management Pack Structure and Functionality 624

About Objects 628

Performing Diagnostics and Recovery 629

About Workflows 630

Understanding Data Types 633

Management Pack Elements. 633

ClassType 634

RelationshipType 635

DataType 635

SchemaType 635

Module Types 635

UnitMonitorType 636

Understanding Overrides 636

Management Pack Templates 640

Presentation Types 641

ConsoleTask 641

View 641

Folder 641

Report 642

ReportParameterControl 642

Run As Profiles 642

Sealing Management Packs 642

Finding Management Pack Information 644

Management Pack Updates 644

Determining Management Pack Versions 645

Checking the Version of an Installed Management Pack 646

Importing Management Packs through the Operations

Console 647

Management Pack Bundles 649

Planning for Deployment 650

Determine an Order to Implement Management Packs 650

Initial Tuning: Tuning by Function 651

Troubleshooting Recap 658

Exporting Management Packs 659

Importing Management Packs. 661

Managing Management Packs 666

System Center Internal Library 666

System Center Core Monitoring Agent Management 666

Viewing Management Pack Content and Overrides 667

Listing All Management Packs Associated with a Server 667

Fast Track 667

Summary 668

14 Monitoring with System Center 2012 Operations Manager 669

The Importance of Monitoring 670

About Rules 671

Alert-Generating Rules 672

Collection Rules 678

Using Monitors 686

Unit Monitors 687

Dependency Rollup and Aggregate Rollup Monitors 706

About Alerts 706

Generating Alerts 708

The Life Cycle of an Alert 709

Adding Knowledge 724

Using Company Knowledge 725

Integration with