mardi 27 mai 2014

SCOM 2012 Multihomed Agents

In this article, i will describe where you can find "multihoming" for SCOM.

Multihoming allow you to have a SCOM agent manage by different Management Groups.

A example, if you plan to install SCOM 2012 R2 to replace your SCOM 2007 R2, you can keep both version in parallel. Alert will be submitted on each Management Group.

In this scenario, i have a SCOM 2007 R2 and SCOM 2012 R2.

I install agent using SCOM 2007 R2 and SCOM 2012 R2.

To see if it works, on the server where agent is installed, click C:\Program Files\Microsoft Monitoring Agent\Agent\AgentControlPanel.exe

Here you will see both Management Groups.

For example, if you don't wish to receive alerts from this agent on SCOM 2007, delete it.


This action will restart the agent.










lundi 26 mai 2014

How to monitor Dell chassis with SCOM 2012 R2

In this article, you will find a procedure to monitor Dell hardware. For example, if you get a disk failure, you will be notified.

1. Download latest MP from Dell
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/04/driverdetails?driverid=2F99W

Install it and import MP in SCOM.

2. Modify settings
In C:\Program Files\Dell Management Packs\MDStorage Mgmt Suite\5.0\Library
create a txt file dell_MDStorageArray_ip and add IP adresses you need to monitor.

Add IP adresses like this 10.x.x.x;10.x.x.x;10.x.x.x;

3. SCOM
In SCOM, select Dell, Feature Management Dashboard.






Select Chassis Monitoring and in Taks pane, select Import Chassis









You can find all procedure here :
ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_electronics/esuprt_software/smconect/msscom/serverMP51/dell-srvr-mgmt-pck-v5.1-for-ms-sys-center-opr-mangr_User's%20Guide_en-us.pdf

jeudi 15 mai 2014

How to backup branch office using DPM 2012

Some times, you need to backup server with low bandwith. In this article you will find a way to do it.


Install DPM on each site.

The first method consists in install a DPM(2) server on the branch office. Install agents on server that you want to protect using the local DPM(2).

When it's done, you can perform a secondary protection using your principal DPM.

Open DPM(1) and create a new protection group. Select DPM(2) server and all data that you need to backup in DPM(1).






On DPM(2), go to Management, select each agent using right click and Throttle computer.

Click Enable and specify the right setting according to your bandwith.

You will find the backup process in Monitoring, All jobs in progress.













Now you can backup your branch office. The first backup could be very long depends on data size.

How to monitor Dell VRTX CMC

If you have purchased a VRTX from Dell, may be you want to monitor your hardware using SCOM.

This article describe the way to do it.


1. MP

Download the latest MP from Dell, install it, and import MP in OpsMgr

Download Out-Of-Band- Monitoring MP, install it, and import MP in OpsMgr

2. Create a Run As Account

Go to Administration Run As Configuration – Right click Accounts- Create Run As Account.
Create an Account in Simple Authentication and display a name.
























Select More secure option


















In Profiles – Right click Dell CMC Login AccountProperties



Click Add and select the account created before. 



Click Select to choose ClassGroup, or Object you want to monitor.

Here i selected many group to monitor CMC and iDRAC.


Click on Account to add computer you need to monitor.
In Authoring - Managements pack objectobject discoveries.

Look for Dell. 

Enable Dell CMC/DRACMC



One last thing.

In Profiles, select SNMP Monitoring Account and Add DCA account created before. Select Dell Modular Chassis class.



















Configuration is over. Alerts will appears in Active Alerts.

For more information :

mercredi 14 mai 2014

How to use Set-SCOMLicense cmdlet

If you have installed SCOM using the evaluation key, you have the possibility to change it later.


1. Open Powershell in Administrator
2. Import-module OperationManager
3. Set-SCOMLicense -ProductID xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx
4. Yes












More information :

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh920237(v=sc.20).aspx

jeudi 8 mai 2014

How to install SCOM 2012 R2

Today i will post a article to describe the procedure to be followed if you want to install System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2 in an high availability environment.

SCOM 2012 R2 will be install on 3 Management Servers and database will be install on SQL 2012 SP1 cluster.

OpsMgr 2012 R2 allow you to monitor all of your servers, applications, devices, etc

You can install SCOM on physical servers or virtual machines. Both are supported by Microsoft. My installation will be perform using 5 VMs.

You can find on this link more informations and all requirements about SCOM 2012 R2 :

Here you will find the way to use SQL Server 2012 Always On with Operations Manager :

The following article will describe a SCOM installation to monitor 400 clients. If you want to define the good size for your project, you can use this link to define it :


Design

As you can see, we have a SQL Cluster where databases will be stored on storage array using iSCSI.

For performance reasons, you need to store your dabatases on a directly attached drive. It's recommended if you install SQL on virtual machines like me.

Reporting feature will be install on SQL server.



Account
  • SCOM Action Account
  • SCOM  Data Access Service
  • SCOM  Data Reader
  • SCOM  Data Warehouse Write Service
  • SQL Service Account
Create a domain group with all SCOM account and add this group to the local administrators in all servers.


Server
  • Install Windows 2012 R2 on all servers.
  • On SCOM server, install Microsoft System CLR Types for SQL server 2012 and Report View controls
  • On SQL server, these products will be install with SQL installation. Check that after the installation.
  • Install all windows updates
  • Install .NET Framework 4.5
  • Install .NET Framework 3.5 on SQL Servers. You need 2012 R2 sources to install this feature.
  • Install IIS on the MS server that will provide Web Console feature
    • Static Content 
    • Default Document 
    • Directory Browsing 
    • HTTP Errors 
    • HTTP Logging 
    • Request Monitor 
    • Request Filtering
    • Static Content Compression
    • Web Server (IIS) Support
    • IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility
    • ASP.NET (both the 2.0 and 4.0 versions of ASP.NET are required)
    • Windows Authentication

Cluster

For SQL cluster, you must use SQL 2012 SP1 Enterprise edition. You can't activate Always On feature with Standard Edition.

Add Failover Clustering feature on both servers. Add the storage (mount point) for databases using iSCSI. Add all necessary components to install a cluster.

I created a LUN of 200 Go for database. They will grow up automatically.

















In Failover Cluster Manager, select Create Cluster to create a new cluster. Follow all steps.

All steps will not be describe here.



SQL

To get high availability, we need a SQL Cluster. But you can just install one SQL Server and reduce the complexity.

Install Microsoft SQL Server 2012 SP1 on both servers.



Select all of this features.


  • Database Engine Services
  • Full-Text
  • Reporting Services












Provide an instance name

Add your SQL account that you have created before.











Select Automatic for all services.















In Collation settings, select SQL collation, used for backwards compatibility. 

Select SQL_Latin1_general_CP1_CI_AS.











Follow the next steps and put all logs and others in the virtual disk attach on your server.

Create a listener like server role on your cluster. Configure Always On feature with your DBA admin.


SCOM

Management Server


Install SCOM on each server that will be part of your MS pool. Don’t forget to install SQLSysClrTypes and ReportViewer if it not installed yet. Without that, the installation will fail.

Select all of these features without Reporting server. This feature will be install later.














Enter a name for the Management group.
Specify the listener or the SQL server with instance name.


Select a size for database. It will grow automatically. Here, 10 Go to start.

Specify where you want to store your Log and Data. Here, it will be store in mount volume attached to storage array.

Perform the same thing for OperationsManagerDW
Enter credentials account created before.


ü  DOMAIN\OPSMGRAct
ü  DOMAIN\OPSMGRSDK
ü  DOMAIN\OPSMGRDataR

ü  DOMAIN\OPSMGRDataW

When setup is completed, apply all rollup regarding SCOM 2012 R2 that you can find on technet.




Secondary Management Server

It's recommended to have at leat 2 MS for high availability. You can install more MS if you want steer data between MS.

Select Management server and Operations Console. 
Select Add a Management server to an existing management group.
















Enter the listener for SQL Always On installation or enter SQL server where database is install. 

Enter your credentials accounts 


When it's done, apply all updates and rollups.



Reporting Server

You can install the Reporting server where SQL product is installed like on the design above.

 Select Reporting server
 Provide your Management server
 Select the SQL Server instance.
Enter the Data Reader account that will be used for Reporting server.

Conclusion

SCOM 2012 R2 is now install in high availabilty. Don't forget to add your global admin group on Security settings.



Now you can add agents to monitor your servers. You can also add Management Pack to get some alerts.

You can find severals MP on Microsoft website.

DPM 2012 R2 Update Rollup 2 from Microsoft !

Microsoft publish a new rollup for Data Protection Manager 2012 R2.

With this rollup, you can now protect 2003 Operating System with DPM 2012 R2.

Don't install this update ! Microsoft said there is problem with this Update Rollup 2.

For more information : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2958100/en-us


dimanche 4 mai 2014

How to install DPM 2012 R2

Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2012 is a tool to backup your servers or clients. It enables disk-based and tape-based data protection.
You can protect SQL Server, Sharepoint, Exchange, Virtual Machines, applications, folders, and many others.

Be carefull in the choice of the version :

DPM 2012 R2 can protect Windows 7 and higher for clients. 2008 R2 SP1 and higher for servers.

DPM 2012 can protect Windows XP and higher. Only 8.1 can't be protect by DPM 2012. 2003 to 2008 R2 for servers.

If you plan to protect all of these versions, you must install DPM 2012 and DPM 2012 R2.

Follow this link to see all supported versions : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj860400.aspx


Here you can find a design for DPM.


Be carefull about the data source limit. It's about 600 volumes, of which 300 are replica volumes and 300 are recovery point volumes.

If you exceed this limitation, DPM server could be slow and unusable. Install another DPM server when you reach this limitation.

DPM role and SCOM role can't be install on the same server.

In this design, the short term server will have a retention of 7 days. The secondary server will have a retention of 30 days.


Step-by-step DPM 2012

1. Windows

Sizing for 200 agents :

- 16 Go of memory
- 8 CPU
- 100 Go for C drive and SQL
- LUNs iSCSI or others for backup drives

Install a physical server or standalone Hyper-V with Windows 2012 or R2 and all updates. DPM on a virtual machine is supported. When it's done, install .NET Framework 3.5. You need Windows sources to install this feature like below.















2. SQL

Install SQL with feature :
-          Database Engine Services 
-          Reporting Services – Native
-          Management Tools – Basic










Keep the default instance name or change it if you plan to install this server in production.

Specify a service account for all and set Automatic for all services.











In Collation settings select SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS.











Select Windows authentication mode and add a group of SQL administrators.

Install SQL. All features must be succeed.














3. DPM


Select Use stand-alone SQL Server and specify the instance of SQL.

When the installation is done, reboot the server.

Continue to install DPM. Install all cumulative updates.

When DPM is install, you need to add disks to backup data. You can add some disks in Management settings.









When it's done, you can install agents on all servers you want to protect !