Clouds
Microsoft Private Cloud:
Evaluation Guide
Table of Contents
Copyright Information ... 3
Introduction: The Microsoft Private Cloud ... 4
Part 1 – Configure and Deploy Your Private Cloud Infrastructure ... 7
Chapter 1: Explanation of Private Cloud Components ... 8
Chapter 2: The Private Cloud Evaluation Guide Scenario & Architectural Overview ... 13
Chapter 3: Installing the Private Cloud through the Unified Installer ... 33
Chapter 4: Connecting the System Center Components ... 50
Chapter 5: Configuring Your Private Cloud Infrastructure ... 102
Chapter 6: Building Clouds ... 128
Part 2 – Application Performance Management and Service Delivery & Automation .... 144
(Note: Part 2 will be in this same document, added at a later date) ...
Appendix A ... 146
Appendix B ... 151
Appendix C ... 156
Copyright Information
© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is provided "as-is." Information and views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, may change without notice. You bear the risk of using it. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product. You may copy and use this document for your internal, reference purposes. You may modify this document for your internal, reference purposes.
Introduction: The Microsoft Private Cloud
Overview
This Private Cloud Evaluation Guide is built to give you the necessary information to evaluate the private cloud. In this evaluation guide, you will go through an entire scenario that you can use to evaluate the private cloud on your own premises in a proof of concept environment. This guide is split into two parts. The first part will walk you through deploying and configuring the infrastructure for the private cloud. The second part will go through the service model and application performance management as well as how to gain operational benefits through service delivery and automation. The second part will be included in this document at a later date. Please refer back
to the download link for updates to this guide. This guide is intentionally built so that you can run it on -lower-level
hardware for the purpose of evaluation. It is also possible to follow this guide and change the scenario to your own environment and parameters. This introduction will walk you through the content of this guide as well as give you some background on the Microsoft private cloud and the components that help you build it. We advise you to read this section if you are not familiar with the concept of the Microsoft private cloud.
Chapters
This evaluation guide consists of two parts:
Part 1 – Configure and Deploy Your Private Cloud Infrastructure
Chapter 1: Explanation of the Private Cloud Components
Chapter 2: The Private Cloud Evaluation Guide Scenario and Architectural Overview Chapter 3: Installing the Components of System Center 2012 through the Unified Installer. Chapter 4: Connecting the Components of System Center 2012
Chapter 5: Configuring Your Private Cloud Infrastructure Chapter 6: Building Clouds and Delegating Access
Part 2 – Application Performance Management and Service Delivery & Automation Note: Part 2 will be in this same document, added at a later date
Chapter 7: Creating Services
Chapter 8: Monitoring Your Newly Deployed Service
Chapter 9: Automation as a Key Foundation of Your Private Cloud
Chapter 10: Creating a Self-Service Catalog and Automate Offering to Your Customers or End-users Chapter 11: Hybrid Cloud Management
Chapter 12: Protecting Your Data in the Private Cloud
A Private Cloud – Today’s Datacenter . . . Optimized
The architecture and functionality of most modern datacenters reflect the growth of the parent organization it serves. Whether this has been by steady organic growth or by rapid expansion through mergers and acquisitions, the result is typically a very heterogeneous environment that includes some best-of-breed point solutions, levels of standardization and isolated environments tailored to fit the demands of specific business groups. This makes for an environment that can be both difficult to manage, and impairs the agility of its various business units. Each time a request is submitted for a new application or service, the centralized IT function needs to hand-craft and
deliver that request in a made-to-order fashion. Applications are built to accommodate peak usage, dedicating infrastructure which often lies underutilized much of the time. IT is a challenging place to be; internal customers expect the ease and reliability of the sorts of consumer apps they use every day, such as Hotmail, Xbox Live, and so forth, but often they don’t grasp the true scale at which these services run. Private cloud technologies allow any business a better ability to achieve the types of efficiencies in datacenter operation and application provisioning that has, to date, been the hallmark of much larger organizations.
The concept of IT as a Service has been discussed in various forms for decades. For many businesses today, this opportunity for on demand IT manifests itself through the idea of a private cloud. Modeled around the success of public cloud offerings such as Microsoft Windows Azure and Amazon Web Services the private cloud is about automatically and efficiently delivering necessary services on request and dynamically scaling those services to meet demand. The private cloud computing model simplifies the ability of IT to deliver IT services. A private cloud shares many of the characteristics of public cloud computing such as resource pooling, self-service, elasticity and usage-based charge models but does so with dedicated physical resources that allow an organization to maintain complete control over their data and processes. A key to the success of private cloud deployments will be the tools and technologies that allow businesses to approach the levels of operational efficiency and high availability that are the hallmark of public cloud offerings; the set of private cloud enabling tools from Microsoft System Center 2012 help you to achieve just that.
The notion of pooled resources means that all compute, network, and storage assets are aggregated into a common grouping that can then be delegated within the organization. This is a shift from today’s model in which an Application Owner will likely know (and probably fund) the exact hardware on which his application is
physically deployed. In a cloud environment, this owner will only care that adequate capacity to run his application has been delegated to him. This, in turn, frees up the Datacenter Administrator to better optimize resource utilization; to move and shed loads as required and focus on activities that enable greater business value. There needs to be a true self-service interface to which services are published from central IT and consumed by the business units; even where explicit cross charge accounting is not put in place. Application Owners and customers need to be able to easily ‘purchase’ and provision their resources when they want and at the level of service and cost they choose. This common understanding of available ‘off the shelf’ service offerings is fundamental to the notion of cloud computing. It doesn’t mean that custom requests aren’t possible; indeed a key benefit of the private cloud over public cloud is that it maintains a greater degree of flexibility, but commodity
accommodate any potential spikes in load. Finally it’s important to deploy a usage based environment that allows the Datacenter Administrator and Application Owner to view resource utilization and, ideally set up the right economic incentives to efficiently run their applications and know cost and usage through appropriate chargeback models.
A private cloud deployment captures all of these characteristics, but above and beyond the public cloud, it also allows organizations to maintain total control over their applications and data as well as offering an ability to
customize deployed resources; both common blockers for businesses looking at public cloud solutions.
Ultimately, most customers will find portions of their organization that live best in a private deployment and portions that live best in a public deployment. The world will exist in a hybrid state for the foreseeable future and it’s important for companies to evaluate their particular needs to determine the best combination for them. As a leader in both public and private cloud technology Microsoft is well positioned to help organizations realize this vision of cloud computing.
Part 1 – Configure and Deploy Your Private
Cloud Infrastructure
Chapter 1: Explanation of the Private Cloud
Components
Overview
Highly virtualized computing gives you the benefits of increased utilization of your servers, power savings, and reduced server footprint. We are familiar with these as they are in datacenters today. However, this does not equal the private cloud.
A private cloud provides all of those benefits plus highly integrated and automated management, scalable and elastic platforms, and self-service IT infrastructure.
Through a highly automated infrastructure, an organization can reduce operational costs by automating many
tasks that previously required manual intervention. Through the service catalog an organization can provide a self-service IT infrastructure to business units and departments with an SLA. This forces service-level discussion
and removes the burden to procure, provision, and manage infrastructure on a per-application, ad-hoc basis. With a scalable and elastic infrastructure, an organization can enable faster delivery of capacity as resource needs change. By utilizing a Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 infrastructure along with System Center 2012, the Microsoft private cloud allows you to deploy a flexible and responsive infrastructure, designed to simplify day-to-day tasks and enable management of applications at the service level, rather than that of individual servers.
The following table highlights private cloud capabilities, aligned by industry and to Windows Server 2008 R2 and the components of System Center 2012 that we are going to discuss in this chapter.
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 is the operating system that runs your private cloud. In this evaluation guide it will run as the host hypervisor, the OS for the different infrastructure components, and for the application that we will deploy, manage, and monitor.
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 evaluation can be downloaded from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd459137.aspx
Hyper-V
Hyper-V is the server virtualization technology within Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. It allows you to run virtual machines on top of the host Operating System when your hardware is capable of running virtualized loads.
System Center Orchestrator
System Center Orchestrator is a workflow engine that allows you to automate the creation, deployment and monitoring of resources in your private cloud. Better said, Orchestrator provides you with orchestration, integration and automation of IT processes. Orchestrator works in conjunction with all the System Center components and can also be used to automate components from 3rd party applications like HP ILO and OA,
VMware vSphere and many others (for a full list of Orchestrator 2012 integration packs see
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh295851.aspx ). Orchestrator consists of the following:
Components Description
Management Server The management server is the communication layer between the Runbook Designer and the orchestration database
Runbook Server A runbook server is where an instance of a runbook runs. A runbook is a collection of actions bundled together that Orchestrator will run performing various automated actions. Runbook servers communicate directly with the orchestration database. You can deploy multiple runbook servers per Orchestrator installation to increase capacity and redundancy.
Orchestration Database The database is a Microsoft SQL Server database that contains all of the deployed runbooks, the status of running runbooks, log files, and configuration data for Orchestrator.
Runbook Designer The Runbook Designer is the tool used to build, edit, and manage
Orchestrator runbooks. One runbook or different runbooks together form your workflow(s).
Runbook Tester Runbook Tester is a run-time tool used to test runbooks developed in the Runbook Designer. This tool allows you to test your runbooks before taking them into production.
Orchestration Console The Orchestration console lets you start or stop runbooks and view real-time status on a web browser. This is a Silverlight-based web console.
Orchestrator Web Service The Orchestrator web service is a Representational State Transfer (REST)-based service that enables custom applications to connect to Orchestrator to start and stop runbooks, and retrieve information about operations by using custom applications or scripts. The Orchestration console uses this web service to interact with Orchestrator.
Deployment Manager Deployment Manager is a tool used to deploy integration packs (IPs), runbook servers, and Runbook Designers
integration pack (IP) An integration pack is a collection of custom activities specific to a product or technology. Microsoft and other companies provide integration packs with activities to interact with their product from an Orchestrator runbook.
Orchestrator Integration Toolkit
The Orchestrator Integration Toolkit lets you extend your library of activities beyond the collection of standard activities and integration packs. The Integration Toolkit has wizard-based tools to create new activities and integration packs for Orchestrator. Developers can also use the Integration Toolkit to create integration packs from custom activities that they build by using the Orchestrator SDK.
System Center App Controller
System Center App Controller is a Silverlight web-based interface that allows you to manage, build, configure and deploy services both on the private and the public cloud. With this interface, you will have a common self-service experience through your different clouds. This interface is mainly used to provide self-service capabilities for your application owners.
The ability to control and manage applications and services within the private cloud is critical. A key requirement, as organizations begin using hybrid apps, will be the ability to connect with services in other clouds and to manage them through a single management experience.
Component Name Description
App Controller Server The App Controller Server runs the web-based Silverlight application to manage, build, configure and deploy services both on your private cloud and the public cloud.
Database The database that contains the necessary information for the connection to your Azure subscriptions and your Virtual Machine Manager service(s).
PowerShell Module The App Controller PowerShell Module provides administrators with the ability to automate App Controller administration.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager
System Center Virtual Machine Manager is the component that provides you with virtual machine management AND service deployment. This component comes with support for multi-hypervisor environments and is the
Component Name Description
VMM Management Server The computer on which the Virtual Machine Manager service runs and which processes commands and controls communications with the VMM database, the library server, and virtual machine hosts.
VMM Console The Virtual Machine Manager Console is the graphical user interface to your VMM environment.
VMM Self-Service Portal A website used to deploy and request virtual machines.
VMM Database The VMM database stores all the Virtual Machine Manager configuration and information regarding the hosts and virtual guests.
VMM Library Server The VMM Library Server is a catalog of resources containing all the ISO files, virtual hard disks, templates and profiles used to deploy virtual machines and services.
System Center Operations Manager
System Center Operations Manager provides you with deep application diagnostics and infrastructure monitoring of your private cloud components. It can offer you a thorough overview of the performance and availability of applications deployed in your datacenter, private or public cloud.
Component Name Description
Management Server The Operations Manager Management Server is the focal point for
administering the management group and communicating with the database. When you open the Operations console and connect to a management group, you connect to a management server for that management group. Depending on the size of your computing environment, a management group can contain a single management server or multiple management servers.
Operations Console The Operations Manager is the graphical user interface that will give you the single pane of glass monitoring of your private cloud.
Operations Manager Database The OpsMgr database is where all the collected data like performance & event
data, alerts etc. are stored.
Operations Manager Data Warehouse
The OpsMgr data warehouse is used for long term reporting.
Operations Manager Web Console
The OpsMgr web console provides a browser-based alternative to the OpsMgr console.
Operations Manager Advisor Browser-based console to provide deep insight in your .Net applications
Gateway Server A gateway server is used to monitor untrusted environments like a DMZ
Audit Collection Server ACS is used for collecting and auditing security events.
System Center Service Manager
Service Manager provides an integrated platform for automating and adapting your organization’s IT service management best practices, such as those found in Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) and Information
Component Name Description
Management Server Contains the main software part of a Service Manager installation. You can use the Service Manager management server to manage incidents, changes, users, and tasks.
Database The database that contains Service Manager configuration items (CI) from the IT Enterprise; work items, such as incidents, change requests, and the
configuration for the product itself. This is the Service Manager implementation of a Configuration Management Database (CMDB).
Data warehouse management server
The computer that hosts the server piece of the data warehouse.
Data warehouse databases Databases that provide long-term storage of the business data that Service Manager generates. These databases are also used for reporting.
Service Manager console The user interface (UI) piece that is used by both the help desk analyst and the help desk administrator to perform Service Manager functions, such as
incidents, changes, and tasks. This part is installed automatically when you deploy a Service Manager management server. In addition, you can manually install the Service Manager console as a stand-alone part on a computer.
Self-Service Portal A web-based interface into Service Manager.
System Center Data Protection Manager
Data Protection Manager (DPM) enables disk-based and tape-based data protection and recovery for servers such as SQL Server, Exchange Server, SharePoint, virtual servers, file servers, and support for Windows desktops and laptops. DPM can also centrally manage system state and Bare Metal Recovery (BMR) which will allow us to protect the servers that contain our virtualized infrastructure.
Component Name Description
DPM server The DPM server contains the program files of the Data Protection Manager installation. This server will be responsible for all the protection and recovery jobs
Database The DPM database will contain all the information of your Data Protection Manager environment. All protection group information, agent information, recovery points and so on are stored here.
Central Console Operations Management is used as the platform for the central console and is used to manage your SCDPM server (or multiple DPM servers)
Storage Pool The Storage Pool contains your storage that will be used to take disk-to-disk backups
Summary
In this first chapter, you reviewed the components that are needed to deploy a private cloud. Now you know all the building blocks to start with your evaluation of the private cloud.
You can download Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd459137.aspx and download the System Center components from
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh505660.aspx?ocid=otc-f-corp-jtc-DPR&wt.mc_id=TEC_103_1_33
Chapter 2: The Private Cloud Evaluation Guide
Scenario & Architectural Overview
Overview
Evaluating a private cloud can be a time-consuming and difficult task. How do you start? What kind of hardware do you need? Which scenarios do you want to test?
With this Private Cloud Evaluation Guide, you can test and try all the components of System Center 2012 in combination with Hyper-V. With this guide you will learn how to build a private cloud and explore how the combinations of the components of System Center 2012 allow you to manage your application from start to finish. After all, in this new era of cloud computing, it’s all about the app.
Our Scenario and End-Goal
Throughout the evaluation guide, we will work with a specific scenario, users and a well-defined goal. To do this, we have designed the evaluation guide after a fictitious company, Contoso and their employees. At the end of each chapter, we will summarize the outcomes
Contoso.com
Here is background information about the Contoso Ltd., including details about the nature of their business operations, size and location, etc.
Contoso, Ltd. is a global manufacturing and shipping company, dealing primarily with building materials.
Customers are large retail home improvement chains
Contoso maintains 75 locations in 10 countries on 3 continents
o 2,000 servers, 700 of which are physical servers and 1,250 which are virtual servers hosted with Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V
o 12,000 employees total, with an IT department of about 150 people. o Three data centers (Seattle, Tokyo and Brussels)
Jeff, the Datacenter Admin
Jeff is a datacenter administrator within Contoso. His major concerns are keeping the infrastructure up and running, and accommodating all the requests from his application owners. The major challenges that Jeff has are:
Managing change is difficult due to lack of well-defined procedures provisioning and managing services and related infrastructure
Service requests and incidents are currently managed in a third party ticketing system. However, problem correlation is difficult due to lack of a comprehensive CDMB to track IT assets
Availability of key revenue-generating services is suffering due to recurring incidents that currently require manual intervention
2-4 week delays in service and resource provisioning have resulted in tension between IT and other business units
Lack of visibility into virtual and physical datacenter resources has resulted in widespread performance problems in LOB applications
Emily, the Application Owner
Emily is an Application owner. She is responsible for her line of business application that needs to be deployed. Emily’s biggest challenges are:
Keeping the different versions up-to-date (production, test environment, acceptance…)
Being able to deploy the application rapidly
Getting the needed resources from IT quickly
Ensuring that engineering and IT work together well
Get applications to market faster
Other Persona
Jack: VP of Marketing – Application (Lob) Owner “The Board:” CxOs (CEO or CIO)
Contoso Engineering Group: Application Development Mike: Team Member of Emily’s group
“The Board” of Contoso has asked a consultancy firm to investigate the pain points of IT within the company and to provide advice on a possible solution. The consultancy company has investigated both the issues with the IT group as the users of IT. The key pain points are server sprawl and virtual server sprawl. Users are looking at purchasing IT services outside the IT department in the cloud and are convinced that they can get it cheaper elsewhere.
The results showed that there are many concerns about compliance and security. The complexity of the infrastructure is also becoming extremely difficult to manage.
Based on these results, “the Board” of Contoso has given the datacenter admin a challenge. Jeff needs to build a private cloud so that Emily has the ability to manage the applications she is responsible for. Emily and Jack should be able to deploy their application rapidly into production and scale whenever the need should arise. The
application should also be monitored as a whole and should have the ability to upgrade to a new version without or with minimal interruption. Emily and Jack should also have self-service capabilities and a user interface where they can see their environments.
Figure 1: Management Components
In Figure 1: Management Components, you see an overview of what we are going to build with the components of
System Center 2012. In the picture, you can see 3 main categories:
Application Management is all about deploying and operating business applications.
Service Delivery and Automation involves standardizing and automating service and resource
provisioning, managing change and access controls, etc.
Infrastructure Management is needed to be able to deploy and operate the entire underlying
infrastructure on which our business applications and services run.
The Scenario
Throughout the different chapters of this Private Cloud Evaluation Guide we will work towards the specific demands of the business. After running through the different chapters, you will have a private cloud with an application in it that can be monitored, automated, deployed and managed as a service and self-service possibilities. In this first part of the Evaluation Guide, Jeff is going to get all the components installed and then prepare everything for the private cloud. In the last chapter, Jeff will deploy his first cloud. In the second part of the Evaluation Guide, which will be released on a later date, Jeff will continue his work and configure automation, backup and so on for the application so Emily can easily deploy the application and be confident Jeff can meet the agreed-upon SLA.
Architectural Overview
Here is the overview of what hardware we are going to use for our private cloud evaluation. This can be different from your environment but this is the minimum required to evaluate the private cloud.
Following servers are used:
Name Function CPU Memory Disk IP
Hyperv02 Hyper-v host 4 24 GB 1 TB 192.168.1.2
Orchestrator Orchestrator + Unified Installer server 2 vCPU 2 GB 40 GB 192.168.1.3 VMM Virtual Machine manager server 2 vCPU 2 GB 80 GB 192.168.1.4
AppController App Controller server
2 vCPU 2 GB 40 GB 192.168.1.5
OpsMgr Operations 2 vCPU 2 GB 40 GB 192.168.1.6
Hyperv02
Orchestrator VMM AppController OpsMgr ServiceMgr ServiceMgrDW DPM
Virtual - Virtual Network
AD Hyper-V Host Operations Manager SQL Server 2008 R2 AppController SQL Server 2008 R2 Virtual Machine Manager SQL Server 2008 R2 Orchestrator SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Manager SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Manager Data Warehouse SQL Server 2008 R2 Data Protection Manager SQL Server 2008 R2 Domain Controller
ServiceMgr Service Manager server
2 vCPU 2 GB 40 GB 192.168.1.7
ServiceMgrDW Service Manager Datawarehouse
2 vCPU 2 GB 40 GB 192.168.1.8
DPM Data Protection Manager server
2 vCPU 2 GB 40 GB 192.168.1.9
AD Domain Controller 1 vCPU 512 MB 40 GB 192.168.1.10
Table 1: Server Information
When you are going to deploy the infrastructure and work through the different exercises, you can use your own IP addresses and better hardware. If you work with different IP ranges, you need to take into account that for some of the exercises, you will also need to change the ranges.
The two most important considerations for your private cloud management infrastructure regarding performance will be:
Memory
Disk IO
If you want to change the specifications of the virtual machines, please read the Prerequisites in Chapter 3 to verify that you meet the necessary requirements in advance.
What you need in advance
In this section we are going to discuss the environment required before you can continue with this evaluation guide.
Hyper-V Host(s)
Depending on the architecture, you should have one or more Hyper-V hosts installed with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. You can download the evaluation version of Windows here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dd459137
Your Active Directory should be prepared with a few users and groups (see below). For information on how to install Active Directory, visit http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc755103(v=ws.10).aspx
The Virtual Network
You need to prepare your Virtual Network so that the virtual machines can communicate with the hosts and with the other virtual machines. In a production environment, you will be working with different vlan’s, but for this guide we worked with a single network adapter, configured with the following parameters:
Parameter Value
Name Virtual – Virtual Network
Notes Microsoft Virtual Switch
Connection Type External (to your network adapter)
Allow management operating system to share this network adapter
Virtual Servers
The servers in Table 1: Server Information should already be deployed and joined to the domain. Follow this
procedure to deploy a virtual machine on Hyper-V:
Creating Virtual Server
2. In the Actions pane, select New > Virtual Machine
3. In the Before You Begin screen, select Next
4. In the Specify Name and Location screen, fill in the Name of the virtual machine and the Location where you want to store the files. Then select Next
5. In the Assign Memory screen, fill in the amount of memory allocated for this Virtual Machine. Note that the amount should be at least 2048 MB for the unified installer requirements (see chapter 3), the
Domain Controller can be 512 MB and then select Next
6. In the Configure Networking screen, select your virtual network that you have created and select Next
7. In the Connect Virtual Hard Disk screen, fill in the size for your VHD, specify the location and name of your VHD and select Next
8. In the Installation Options screen, select how you want to install the Operations System. In our case, since we downloaded the ISO from the evaluation center, we choose the ISO and then select Next
9. In the Completing the New Virtual Machine Wizard screen review your settings and select Finish to create the machine
Installing and Configuring the OS
You can find all the required steps to install the OS in Appendix.
Configure and Join Domain
1. In the Initial Configuration Tasks window, select Configure Networking
2. In the Network Connections window, right-click on the Local Area Connection Network icon and select
Select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and find all the required steps to install the OS in Appendix. 3. Properties
4. Fill in the appropriate network information. Note that this information can be different in your environment. Select OK
5. Select Close and Close the network connections window
6. On the Initial Configuration tasks window select Provide computer name and domain
8. Fill in the Computer name and Domain and select OK
9. On the Windows Security window, fill in the name and password of the user that has permissions to join this server to the domain and select OK
11. Select OK when you get the restart notification
12. Select Close in the System Properties window
13. Select Restart now to finish the process and to restart the server
Repeat the procedures for all servers.
Group Policies
To make the evaluation easier, we’ve created a Group Policy on domain level to enable and disable a few settings. By default Jeff disabled all Windows Firewalls on the server machines and enabled remote desktop for easy access. It is not necessary to disable Windows Firewall and you can review the requirements for Windows Firewall on the different TechNet pages for the components. Jeff knows that he will need to configure the Windows Firewall in production, but since this is an evaluation, he wants to deploy the systems fast and get quickly results.
Passwords
All passwords in this evaluation guide are the same. For every account, we are using the password: “P@ssw0rd” (with the 0 being zero)
1. Open Active Directory Users and Computers
2. Create an OU by right-clicking on Contoso.com (or the root of your domain) and choose New >
Organizational Unit
4. On the newly created OU right click and choose New > User
5. Fill in the New Object window with the following parameters and then select Next
Parameter Value
First name Jeff
Full name Jeff
User Logon name Jeff
7. Repeat steps 4 to 6 for the following users with the following parameters
Parameter Value
First name Emily
Full name Emily
User Logon name Emily
Parameter Value
First name Mike
Full name Mike
User Logon name Mike
Parameter Value
First name Jack
Full name Jack
User Logon name Jack
8. Right-click on the newly created user and select Properties
9. Change the properties for the two users according to the following parameters
User Parameter Value
Jeff Description DataCenter Administrator
Emily Description Application Owner
Security Groups
We also need some security groups for this evaluation. Build the following security groups:
Parameter Value
Name ProductionEmilyCloud
Type Global Security
Hardware and other possibilities
It is not necessary to run the private cloud evaluation on the same hardware or the same setup as described above. You can work with multiple Hyper-V hosts and/or split-off the domain controller role to another server. You can also separate the Orchestrator and Unified Installer role on different machines. With this evaluation guide we tried to deploy the private cloud with a minimum amount of hardware.
Please note that the configuration found above is the absolute minimum to follow the scenario in this evaluation guide.
The biggest blockers for evaluating the private cloud will be (in this order):
Memory
Disk IO
We advise at least 24 GB but 32+ GB is preferable.
Disk IO is the second biggest blocker for the evaluation. In total, you would need at least 500 – 600 GB of hard disk space. SSD Disk (or better hardware) is strongly recommended. Running the private cloud on lower Disk IO components may cause a lot of performance issues as previously discussed.
Summary
In this chapter Jeff has prepared the infrastructure necessary to start with the evaluation of the private cloud by using the System Center Unified Installer (Chapter 3). In production environments, this will probably be done differently and you may have other deployed systems / procedures in place. Now that we have a base infrastructure in place, we can continue on to Chapter 3 and start the installation of the components.
Chapter 3: Installing the Private Cloud through the
Unified Installer
Overview
To help in getting started with a private cloud, Microsoft has created the System Center Unified Installer for evaluation and proof of concept purposes. The Unified Installer automates much of the installation process for the System Center 2012 components. The installation scripts deploy the System Center components and are
designed for either a lab or proof of concept. In this chapter, we will use the Unified Installer to install our environment.
In this chapter, Jeff is going to use the Unified Installer to install all of the components of System Center 2012, back-end database engines and prerequisites.
Before you Begin
Please take the time to read through the important notes and prerequisites before using the Unified Installer.
Important Notes
The documentation and workarounds for the known issues listed below can be found in the Unified Installer Release Notes: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh751278.aspx
A "Logon Failure" Message is displayed when accessing SCUI.EXE using non-local domain credentials
"This program might not have installed correctly" message might display when attempting to extract the Unified Installer on a local drive when using Windows 7 SP1
DPM installation might fail
Preexisting installations of SQL Server might cause deployment to fail
Prerequisites
The latest prerequisites information can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh751268.aspx
Hardware (per target computer, Virtual or Physical): a. CPU: Dual-core 2.1 gigahertz (GHz)
b. RAM: 2 gigabytes (GB) minimum, 4 GB recommended c. Disk space: 10 GB of free space
Software
a. One of the following versions of Windows operating systems: 64-bit edition of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Windows Server 2008 R2 with (SP1)
b. Internet Information Services (IIS) c. Microsoft .NET Framework 3.51
2012 component)
.NET Framework 4.0 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=232304)
Windows Automated Installation Kit 2.0 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=224463)
Report Viewer 2008 SP1 Redistributable (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=234896)
Microsoft Report Viewer 2010 Redistributable Package (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=234118)
Trial Version of SQL Server 2008 R2 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=239628)
SP1 for SQL Server 2008 R2 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=235126)
Cumulative Update Package 4 for SQL Server 2008 R2 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=238411)
SQL Server 2008 R2 Native Client
a. x86 package: (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=188400) b. x64 package: (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=188401) c. IA-64 package: (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=188402)
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Command Line Utilities
a. x86 package: (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=188429) b. x64 package: (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=188430) c. IA-64 package: (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=188431)
Microsoft Analysis Management Objects
a. x86 package: (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=218847) b. x64 package: (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=218910) c. IA-64 package: (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkID=218912)
Creating the Installer Computer
The Installer Computer is the computer where you will run the Unified Installer. The Unified Installer can be run on a Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 or a Windows 7 SP1. In our scenario, to save on resources, we are going to run the Unified Installer on the same server that we are going to run System Center Orchestrator (Orchestrator). To be able to run the Unified Installer, we need to prepare this machine in advance. We do this by changing the local policy of that server. We can also do this by using a Group Policy but Jeff decides to follow the documentation on TechNet and therefore changes the local policy.
1. Open a blank MMC (Click Start > Run, type MMC and select OK)
2. Add the Group Policy Object (File > Add/Remove Snap-in, choose Group Policy Object, select Add) 3. In the Select Group Policy Object dialog box, select Finish
5. In the Console1 window, browse to Credential Delegation. (Console Root, expand Local Computer
Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Credential Delegation)
6. Open Allow Delegating Fresh Credentials in the Settings pane
7. In the Allow Delegating Fresh Credentials dialog box, do the following:
Enable the policy
Make sure that Concatenate OS defaults with input above is selected, and then select OK
8. Open Allow Delegating Fresh Credentials with NTLM-only Server Authentication in the Settings pane
9. In the Allow Delegating Fresh Credentials with NTLM-only Server Authentication dialog box, do the following:
Enable the policy
In the Options area, click Show and enter WSMAN/* in the value field
Make sure that Concatenate OS defaults with input above is selected, and then select OK 10. In the Console1 window, browse to WinRm Client. (Console Root, expand Local Computer Policy >
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Remote Management (WRM) > WinRM Client)
12. In the Allow CredSSP authentication dialog box, click Enabled, and then select OK
13. Open Trusted Hosts in the Settings pane 14. In the Trusted Hosts dialog box, select Enabled
15. In the Options area, in TrustedHostsList, type *, and then select OK
Preparing the Target Computers
To prepare the Target Computers, you can either change the local policy on each target computer or create a group policy object for those servers. We created a new OU in Active Directory and placed all the target computers in that OU.
On that OU, we created a GPO with the following parameters
Location Parameter Value
Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Remote Management (WinRM) / WinRM Service
Allow automatic configuration of listeners Enabled IPv4 filter: * IPv6 filter: *
Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Remote Management (WinRM) / WinRM Service
Allow CredSSP authentication Enabled
Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Remote Shell
Computer Configuration / Administrative Templates / Windows Components / Windows Remote Shell
Specify maximum amount of memory in MB per Shell
2048
The GPO report will look like this:
Preparing the Prerequisites and Source Files
Before you start with the installation, you need to prepare the source files and prerequisites. After downloading the evaluation versions of System Center 2012 you will need to extract some of these installers and you also need to download all the prerequisite files and place them on a share.
All of the components and prerequisites need to be extracted into separate folders in order for the Unified Installer to work.
If the downloaded files come in ISO or .zip format, you will need to extract them. When you have bits that are one or more .exe files, run a command prompt as an administrator and run the .exe with the –extract parameter with it. Example: To extract AppController, run AppController.RTM.exe –extract
A new pop-up window will open asking you where you want to extract the files.
Installation of the System Center Components with the Unified
Installer
Now that Jeff has done all the preparations, he can start with the deployment of the components. Since Jeff decided to run the Unified Installer on the same computer as the one where he is going to run Orchestrator, he will start on that server.
1. Log on to the computer Orchestrator by using the Domain Administrator account
If you want to use another account than the administrator account, you need to take into account that that user has administrative credentials on both the Installer computer and the Target Computers
2. On the Unified Installer installation media, right-click setup.exe, and then select Run as administrator to open the System Center 2012 Wizard
If .NET 3.5 is not installed, you will receive the following notification and it will be installed automatically.
3. If you receive the following notification, select Yes to continue
4. On the System Center 2012 page, select Install System Center
6. On the Product Registration page, read the Microsoft Software License Terms, and accept by selecting, I have read, understood, and agree with the terms of the license agreement. Since we are doing an evaluation, Jeff also select Install as an evaluation edition and then select Next
7. On the Component Selection page, select the System Center 2012 components to install. In our evaluation, Jeff is going to install Orchestrator, Virtual Machine Manager, App Controller, Operations
Manager, Service Manager and Data Protection Manager and then select Next
8. On the Component Media Location page, select Browse or type the folder where you stored the installation media. In our case, the source files are located on a share on the hyperv02 server and then select Next
Specifying a mapped drive for installation files is not supported. You must specify location by universal naming convention (UNC) or by copying the installation files to a local hard disk drive.
9. On the Prerequisite License Terms page, select I accept these License Terms for the prerequisites that you will be using, and then select Next. These are the prerequisites that you downloaded earlier and placed into the different folders.
11. On the Installation Destination Location page, accept the defaults, and then select Next
Due to constraints for the path name, the destination location for DPM cannot be changed.
12. On the Servers page, type the name of the server or servers that will host the System Center 2012 components, and then select Next
For this release, you must use a computer short name when you are specifying the computer that will host a System Center 2012 component. Do not use a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or an IP address when you are defining a target computer. The computer names must be unique. You can install only one component per computer.
13. On the Service Accounts page, in Installer Account, type the credentials for the account that will perform the installation, and then select Next
You can change the installer account for the components. For the Installer Account, the Domain and Account names cannot be changed. For the Service Manager Administrator Role Group, no password is needed.
(for example, the management group name), and then click Next
15. On the Communications and Updates page, indicate your preferences for the Customer Experience
Improvement Program, Error Reporting, and Microsoft Update, and then select Next
16. On the Installation Validation page, examine the settings, and then select Install
The deployment progress bar times out after two hours. Some installations may exceed the default time-out period. In these cases, your installation might still be running in the background. You can confirm that by checking the local system installation logs.
18. On the Deployment Summary Report page, select Finish
Troubleshooting the Unified Installer
If the installation of one of the components should go wrong, then you can find the log files at the following locations:
Component Name Log Location
Orchestrator \Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft System Center 2012\Orchestrator\LOGS
VMM \programdata\vmmlogs
Operations Manager \Users\<user>\AppData\Local\SCOM\Logs
App Controller \Users\<user>\AppData\Local\AppController\Logs
DPM \Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012\Data Protection Manager\DPMLogs
System Center 2012 Configuration Manager \ConfigManagerSetup.log
Service Manager \Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp\1
Unified Installer \Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft System Center 2012\Unified Installer\LOGS
Summary
In this chapter, Jeff has installed all the System Center components through the use of the Unified Installer. Now he has all the management tools he needs to continue with his private cloud evaluation. In the next chapter, Jeff
Chapter 4: Connecting the System Center
Components
Overview
One of the biggest strengths of System Center 2012 is its integrated approach to workflow, knowledge and data management. System Center 2012 has connectors and integration packs that simplify communication between the components that help to provide full life-cycle management of your applications and infrastructure. In this chapter we will start with the overview of how to connect the components together.
Now that Jeff has installed all the components by using the Unified Installer, he is going to set up the connections between the components. Because Jeff’s goal is to make sure that Emily’s application is monitored, deployed, and upgradable, he needs to ensure that all of the components are working and communicating together. In this chapter, we are going to create all these connections.
Bringing the System Center 2012 Components Together
When we look back at the model of interaction between Emily and Jeff, we see that the Orchestrator and Service Manager components are located in the middle of the model. This is not a coincidence. Service Manager and Orchestrator automate the workflows, the data management required to deliver self-service and efficiently deliver the private cloud SLAs.
In this figure we see how the components work together. We will now describe the different connections and then Jeff will configure them in his environment.
Orchestrator and the Integration Packs
Jeff knows that Orchestrator comes with an entire set of automation activities out of the box. But Orchestrator can easily be extended by using integration packs. An integration pack is a combination of activities that can extend the functionality of Orchestrator to provide more automation capabilities and integration into other third-party applications. In this evaluation, Jeff is going to use the Integration Packs to System Center 2012.
Registering Integration Packs
Before we can use an integration pack in Orchestrator, we need to register it. Jeff is going to register four integration packs.
2. Right-click on Integration Packs and choose Register IP with the Orchestrator Management Server…
3. On the Welcome to the Integration Pack Registration Wizard select Next
4. Select the Add button and browse to the location where you stored your Integration Packs
6. Repeat this process for the following integration packs:
System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager
System Center 2012 Operations Manager
System Center 2012 Service Manager
9. Accept the End-User License Agreement by selecting Accept. You will have to do this four times (one EULA per integration pack)
Deploying Integration Packs
Now that Jeff has registered the Integration Packs, he also needs to deploy them to each Runbook server and to each server / workstation with a runbook designer that will use the integration packs. In our evaluation, Jeff is going to deploy them on the Orchestrator server as this is the server that he is going to use for the evaluation.
2. Right-click on Integration Packs and choose Deploy IP to Runbook Server or Runbook Designer…
3. On the Welcome to the Integration Deployment Wizard select Next
4. On the Deploy Integration Packs or Hotfixes page select the four integration packs that we registered and then select Next
System Center Integration Pack for System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager
System Center Integration Pack for System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager
System Center Integration Pack for System Center 2012 Service Manager
5. On the Computer Selection Details page, type in the name of the runbook server (in our case this is
Orchestrator) and select the Add button. Then select Next
6. On the Installation Configuration page, Jeff is going to choose to deploy the Integration Packs now. This will stop all the running runbooks on that server. If that would be a problem, then Jeff could have chosen to schedule the installation or to install the Integration Packs without stopping the runbooks and restart the server afterwards.
8. You can verify that the deployment is successful by looking at the Runbook Designers folder within the Orchestrator Deployment Manager to see that the Integration Packs are there. You can do the same by looking at the Runbook Servers and selecting Orchestrator to see if the Integration Packs are shown.
Configuring the System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager Integration Pack
Before Jeff can actually use the Integration Packs, he needs to configure them so that they have a connection to the correct server(s) and that they have a username and password to connect to these servers. In the next steps, Jeff is going to configure the four integration packs that he just registered and deployed.
Before Jeff can configure an integration pack, he needs to make sure that the prerequisites are OK. In the documentation on TechNet, he finds all the information that he needs:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh295851.aspx
To configure the System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager Integration Pack, Jeff needs to have the following prerequisites:
System Center 2012 – Orchestrator
System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager (VMM)
Windows Management Framework (Windows PowerShell 2.0 and WinRM 2.0)
Jeff has deployed the Orchestrator server and the VMM server in Chapter 3. The Orchestrator server is
configured on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 so the Windows Management Framework is also covered. Last but not least, Jeff needs to change the execution policy of PowerShell. The execution policy in Windows PowerShell determines which scripts must be digitally signed before they will run. By default, the execution policy is set to
2. In the PowerShell window, type set-executionpolicy remotesigned and select Enter
3. Type Y when asked
4. Jeff is now ready to connect the Integration Pack to the Virtual Machine Manager server. Open System
5. On the menu bar, select Options and select SC 2012 Virtual Machine Manager
6. On the Prerequisite Configuration page, select Add…
7. On the Add Configuration page, type in the Name (VMM Connection) and click on the … button to add the Type (System Center Virtual Machine Manager). Then fill in the following properties and then select
OK
VMM Administrator Console: vmm.contoso.com
Password: **********
Authentication Type (Remote only): Default
Port (Remote only): 5985
Use SSL (Remote only): False
Cache Session Timeout (Min.): 10
8. Select Finish
Jeff has now configured the Integration Pack to connect to Virtual Machine Manager in his environment.
Configuring the System Center 2012 Service Manager Integration Pack
Jeff continues by configuring the System Center 2012 Service Manager Integration Pack. Just as before, he reads the prerequisites first:
System Center 2012 – Orchestrator
System Center 2012 – Service Manager
o The ENU Locale
o The U.S. English date format (month/day/year)
Jeff doesn’t need to do anything special to configure this Integration Pack so he can go directly to System
Center 2012 Orchestrator Runbook Designer
1. Open System Center 2012 Orchestrator Runbook Designer
2. On the menu bar, select Options and select SC 2012 Service Manager
4. Fill in the following information, then select the Test Connection button
Name: Service Manage Connection
Server: servicemgr.contoso.com
Domain: contoso
User name: administrator
Password: ******
Polling: 10
Reconnect: 10
5. When the window Test connection succeeded appears, select OK and then OK again
Configuring the System Center 2012 Operations Manager Integration Pack
The next integration pack that needs to be configured is System Center 2012 Operations Manager. Jeff looks again on the TechNet Page and notices that he needs the following prerequisites:
System Center 2012 - Orchestrator
System Center 2012 – Operations Manager
Operations Manager console on each computer where an Orchestrator Runbook server or Runbook Designer is installed. Orchestrator will use the Operations Manager console to interact with Operations Manager.
Before configuring the Integration Pack, Jeff installs the Operations Manager console on the Orchestrator server. The procedure for this can be found in the Appendix.
Jeff is now ready to connect the Integration Pack to the Operations Manager server. 1. Open System Center 2012 Orchestrator Runbook Designer
2. On the menu bar, select Options and select SC 2012 Operations Manager
4. On the System Center Operations Manager Connection Settings page, fill in the following information and select Test Connection
• Name: OpsMgr.contoso.com • Domain: contoso
• User name: administrator • Password: *******
5. When the Connection successful dialog box appears, select OK twice
Configuring the System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager Integration Pack
The last integration pack that Jeff wants to deploy is the Data Protection Manager integration pack. As usual, he checks the prerequisites:
System Center 2012 - Orchestrator
System Center 2012 – Data Protection Manager (DPM)
Windows Management Framework
All the prerequisites are OK. The integration pack also requires that the execution policy of PowerShell is set to
Remote Signed but we already did that when we configured the Virtual Machine Manager integration pack.
The System Center Data Protection Manager Integration Pack requires that the PowerShell remoting is enabled. This integration pack uses Windows PowerShell remote commands to communicate with the DPM server, regardless of whether the server is remote or local. If you have not already done so, you must configure the DPM server and the Orchestrator client computer to receive Windows PowerShell remote commands that are sent by the Orchestrator server.
To enable PS Remoting: 1. On the DPM server
2. Open a Windows PowerShell (x86) console as an administrator. 3. Type Enable-PSRemoting and select Enter
4. Select Y when asked to continue
5. Select Y again when asked to perform this action
Jeff can now configure the Data Protection Manager integration pack. 1. Open System Center 2012 Orchestrator Runbook Designer
3. On the Prerequisite Configuration page, select Add…
4. Fill in the following configuration and then select OK
DPM Administrator Console: DPM.Contoso.com
DPM Server: DPM.Contoso.com
User: administrator
Domain: Contoso
Password: ******
Authentication Type: Default
Port: 5985
Use SSL: false
5. Select Finish
Additional Exercise – Install Active Directory Integration Pack
If want to perform the remaining exercises in this Private Cloud Evaluation Guide, you’ll first need to install the Active Directory Integration Pack, otherwise this exercise is optional.
1. Download the Active Directory Integration Pack:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=28020
2. Register the integration pack 3. Deploy the integration pack
4. Configure the integration pack with the information below:
Name: Active Directory Connection
Type: Microsoft Active Directory Domain Configuration
Configuration User Name: administrator
Configuration Password: ******
Service Manager and the Connectors
Jeff has created the connections in System Center 2012 Orchestrator. Now he needs to configure the
Connectors in System Center 2012 Service Manager. Connectors in Service Manager are used to build the
configuration management database, CMDB. The CMDB is created and maintained by importing configuration items (CI’s) from Active Directory Domain Services, Operations Manager, Virtual Machine manager, and
Configuration Manager There is also a connector that allows you to automatically import alerts from Operations Manager and you can import data manually as well from a CSV file. By having an accurate and easily maintained CMDB, Jeff can accurately create the organizational processes and automated responses required to maintain his private cloud SLAs.
For creating the connectors in Service Manager, Jeff logs on to the Service Manager server as a Domain Administrator
The Active Directory Connector
The Active Directory Connector will import users, groups, printers and computers as configuration items into the Service Manager CMDB database. Those objects then can be used as objects in incidents, requests and so on. Jeff is going to configure this connector.
1. In the Service Manager console, under Administration, click on Connectors
I 2. In the Tasks pane, on the right, select the Create connector button
3. Choose Active Directory connector
4. On the Before you begin page, select Next
5. On the General page, type in the following parameters and select Next
Name: Active Directory Connector
Description: Connector for Active Directory
6. On the Domain or organizational unit page, select the domain then select New… to create a specific account for this connection or choose an already created account. In this case, we are going to create a new one.
7. On the Run As Account page, fill in the following parameters; after that, when back on the Domain/OU page test the connection and select Next
Name: Active Directory Account
Description: Account to connect to Active Directory
Domain: Contoso
8. On the Select objects screen, select All computers, printers, users and user groups and select Next
9. On the Confirm connector settings screen, review your settings and select Create to create the connector
10. On the Completion screen, select Close
The Operations Manager Alert Connector
The next connector that Jeff wants to connect is the Operations Manager Alert Connector. This connector is responsible for checking on a defined schedule if there are new Operations Manager Alerts. These alerts are then matched against the rule(s) that Jeff will create. The connector can also be configured to work
1. In the Service Manager console, under Administration, click on Connectors
2. In the Tasks pane, on the right, select the Create connector button
3. Choose Operations Alert connector
5. On the General page, type in the following parameters and select Next
Name: Operations Manager Alert Connector for Critical Only Alerts
Description: This is a Connector to connect OpsMgr with Service Mgr for all critical alerts
Enable: checked
6. On the Server Details screen, type in the following configuration and select Next
Server name: opsmgr.contoso.com
Run As Account: create a new account with the name Operations Manager Account (see
