Prerequisites:

1. Documented users and Passwords:
   • Example, SQL Monitoring, Azure subscriptions, Lync Monitoring, ETC.
2. Certificates:
   • Azure Management Certificates.
   • Management Servers and Gateway  Servers Certificates.
3. Media:
   • Windows Server.
   • SCOM.
   • SCOM most recent UR Available.
   • SQL Server.
   • Antivirus.
4. Others:
   • Antivirus Exclusions: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/975931.
   • Firewall Exclusions: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj656649.aspx#BKMK_Firewall – Remember that reporting services require ports 1433 and 1434.

Activities:

References: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh531578.aspx

1. Stop services in Management Servers.
2. Create a full backup of your databases: OperationsManager and OperationsManagerDW.
3. Install new operating systems with the same server names.
4. Install .Net Framework: Install-WindowsFeature –name NET-Framework-Core
5. Ensure connectivity to and from your management servers by name, and to your gateways if relevant.
6. Apply OS Updates
7. Install SQL Server with the following features:
   • Database Engine.
   • Full Text Search.
   • Management Tools.
8. Use the same instance name as your previous installation.
9. Use your defined user for SQL Services.
10. Check your Collation to: Latin1_Genera_CP1_CI_AS.
11. Review your data default paths.
12. Install SQL Server.
13. Review that the SQL agent is running and set to Automatic start.
14. Restore your backups from the databases to your new SQL Server.
15. Enable SQL Service Broker for OperationsManager and OperationsManagerDW databases:
    • ALTER DATABASE [Database_name] SET ENABLE_BROKER;
16. Enable CLR:
    • sp_configure @configname=clr_enabled, @configvalue=1
    • GO
    • RECONFIGURE
    • GO
17. We will use this command for installing an MS in recovery mode: Setup.exe /silent /AcceptEndUserLicenseAgreement /Recover /EnableErrorReporting:Always /SendCEIPReports:1 /UseMicrosoftUpdate:1 /DatabaseName:OperationsManager /SqlServerInstance: DatabaseInstance /DWDatabaseName:OperationsManagerDW /DWSqlServerInstance: DatabaseInstance /DASAccountUser: SDKAccount/DASAccountPassword: Password /DatareaderUser: DataReaderAccount /DatareaderPassword: Password /DataWriterUser: DataWriterAccount /DataWriterPassword: Password /ActionAccountUser: [ActionAccount] /ActionAccountPassword: [Password]
18. We will need to retype user and password for each Run as Account in the console once SCOM is installed in recovery mode, this includes the ones with Binary or Certificate Accounts, this should be eliminated and recreated, this are used in Management Packs like Azure and Operational Insights, just reconfigure the service and they will be recreated automatically at least in this two cases, go to administration –> Accounts to change or delete them.
19. Start your services in the other MS.
20. Reconfigure your mail Rely if you had one.
21. Verify notifications.
22. Verify configuration and functionality for emailing reports.
23. Wait for some time before applying the URs, to check if everything is working as expected, monitoring the event viewer.
24. Install last available UR.
25. Import required certificates for agent and gateways communications.
26. Use MOMCertimport to assign the certificate to the HealthService.
27. Restart every HeartService you import a certificate for.
28. Install Antivirus.
29. Apply Antivirus Exceptions
30. Apply Firewall Exceptions.
31. Verify Monitoring and Alerts are being generated.

Note: In case you decide to change the instance name or server name of the databases for some reason you need additional steps:

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio.
2. Expand Databases, OperationsManager, and Tables.
3. Right-click dbo.MT_Microsoft$SystemCenter$ManagementGroup, and then click Edit Top 200 Rows.
4. Change the value in the SQLServerNamecolumn, it will have an ID at the end in the column header, to reflect the name of the new SQL Server-based computer.
5. Save the change.

A few weeks ago I was with a customer giving them guidance on how to setup the management pack for SQL, and the three accounts required where a problem for them, they told me it was to complicated because of how their account management process works.

This is a common request among customers so I thought it was a good idea to share this configuration with the community, so here are the permissions required to use a single account scenario for the SQL management pack Run As Accounts.

1. Add user to the following local security groups>
   1. Perfomance Monitor Users
   2. Event Log Readers
   3. Users
2. In SQL Server Management Studio grant the following privileges to the user:
   1. VIEW ANY DEFINITION
   2. VIEW SERVER STATE
   3. VIEW ANY DATABASE
3. Map the user login to the msdb database and any other you want to monitor.
4. Add the user login to the msdb database with the SQLAgentReaderRole.
5. Add the user login to the msdb database with the PolicyAdministratorRole.
6. Restart the healthservice.exe on the SQL Server.

Hope this helps with your SQL management pack setup.

Thins new cloud based monitoring trend including Application Insights is a step forward in how we monitor and consume our monitoring data.

There's a lot of benefits from this kind of Service, let me explain some of them:

• Capital Cost (CAPEX): We know that for monitoring event logs and security auditing we need to collect millions of elements per day, and this takes lots of costly storage and a lot of computing power with the maintenance equipment associated to consume this massive amount of information in a fast easy way, with Azure Operational Insights you just pay for the amount of data you collect and how long you want to store it, no more high upfront costs for a proactive and audit ready monitoring solution.
• Operational Cost (OPEX): Managing a monitoring or audit solution takes time with the maintenance tasks, updates, and generally everyday health reviews of the infrastructure used for this purpose. With Azure Operational Insights your time could be more productive, instead of maintaining hardware, storage, upgrades, etc. You can be more valuable by delivering analytics for a more insightful vision of present problems or potential ones, having a web based solution that you can have access when you need it in the device you need it.
• Hybrid Monitoring with SCOM: Operations Manager 2012 R2 is a great monitoring tool, highly customizable, easy to use for basic monitoring, with base recommendations for monitoring with free Microsoft management packs, and a quick overall glance of your IT resources health and problems. With Azure Operational Insights you get a whole new set of functionalities you get three exclusive functionalities with the integration Alert management, Configuration Assesment and VMM based Capacity planning, also you can view your OpInsights issues integrated with the on premise, take your SCOM deployment a step forward with this integration.
• Flexibility: With Operational Insights you can easily be online for monitoring in less than a day, for Azure PaaS, Azure IaaS and on premise servers, with or without the SCOM integration, there's a free trial, try it today!

This are only some advantages of using OpInsights, I will talk about the configuration and functionalities in my next posts.

In the next post we will talk about the Intelligence Packs.

Update: Operational Insights is now generally available as part of the Microsoft Operations Management Suite.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/operations-management-suite/overview.aspx

I got some feedback from a couple of you regarding how you want the next articles to be shaped, so I’m going to do them a little more graphical, if you have any suggestions please comment.

The firs step is going to be use our SCVMM server as a WSUS too, so let’s login with our SCadmin account and start the installation:

In the server manager go to “Add roles and features”:

Navigate trough the wizard to the server role page and select Windows Server Update Services:

Add the required features:

Continue with all the defaults until you reach the WSUS “Content” page, select a folder in your server to store updates:

Accept the defaults and confirm the install:

Wait a few minutes for the installation process and click close.

Now go to the WSUS console in the server manager:

Launch the post installation tasks from the upper flag in the server manager:

Right clock in your server name and select “Windows Server Update Services”:

You will get a wizard:

Navigate with the defaults trough the wizard until you are in the “Specify proxy Server”,  you will need to connect to the upstream server to continue, click “Start Connecting”:

Wait for completion and click Next:

Leave the English default and click Next:

• Unselect office products.
• Select System Center 2012 R2 – Virtual Machine Manager
• Unselect Windows and just select Windows Server 2012 R2.
• Click Next.

Select the classifications:

Select Synchronize Manually:

Select begin initial synchronization and finish:

Now go to SCVMM Console –> Fabric.

Right click in update servers and Add Update Server:

Use the following settings and add:

Note: If you have a remote WSUS you will need to install the WSUS console in the SCVMM servers.

In the next post I will show you how the compliance baselines for updates

Assign the storage for cluster:

• In the Fabric tab –> Servers –>All hosts –> Standalone, you should see your 3 machines.
• Right click in each of your future cluster nodes and select Move to host Group.
• Select the Clusters group you created previously and Ok.
• Now you should have something like this:

• Right click the Clusters group folder and select properties.
• In the right navigation list, click Storage.
• Click the Allocate Storage Pools button.
• Select your pools and add them.
• Click Ok.
• Click the Allocate Logical units button.
• Click Ok.
• Right click in your Node1 host and select properties.
• Click storage from the left navigation list.
• Click add and disk.
• Click Create Logical Unit.
• Name it Quorum and put it in your slow storage pool.
• In the volume label type Quorum.
• Select do not assign a drive letter or drive path.
• Click Ok.

Now to the cluster creation:

• From the upper ribbon click Create–> Hyper-V Hyper-V Cluster, Click Next.
• Fill in a descriptive name and select your VMMaction account from browse, click Next.
• From the upper drop down list, select your Clusters group.
• Add your Node1 host and click Next.
• Select your Quorum and click next.
• Click Next.
• Create.
• Wait for the cluster creation.
• Back in the fabric right click in your new cluster and select, add cluster node.
• Add Node 2 to the cluster and click Add.
• Select your VMMaction credentials and click Ok.
• Wait for the completion.

If you get an error 25325 when creating the cluster, disable all Network Interfaces that have connectivity to the Storage server except one, so you only have one communication route.

We provisioned storage and entirely created a cluster from the SCVMM Console, stay tuned for the next post.

Now let’s get to the fun technical part, we will be adding 3 hosts, two of them doesn’t even have Hyper-V installed, so we will do this from the SCVMM Console and add our storage to SCVMM

Prework:

• Install Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter in my 2 nodes.
• Add them to your domain.
• Connect them to my private lab network, as shown in my 3rd post of the series.
• Enable MPIO.
• Start the iSCSI initiator, just by hitting the windows key and searching for iSCSI and open it.
• You will need to install the storage provider in your storage server with this roles and features:

• And install MPIO.

Adding the servers:

• Go to the console and the Fabric Tab.
• Right Click in the All Hosts Folder under Servers.
• Select Create a Host Group and name it Standalone.
• Repeat the process to create a Clusters group.
• Right click in your Standalone group and Add Hyper-V Hosts and Clusters.
• Select Windows Server computers in a trusted Active Directory domain and click Next.
• Create and select your VMMaction Run As Account from browse and click next.
• Remember to add as local admin your VMMaction account, this will be the one we use to manage the servers.
• Fill in your Storage computer name and click Next.
• Check the box to select your server and click Next.
• In the Host Setting select your Standalone host group and click Next.
• Finish and check the Jobs for success.
• Repeat this steps for node1 and node2 computers.

Creating the Storage Pools. I decided to go with 2 Storage Pools 1 for SSD and another for HDD, so let’s create them in the Storage server.

• Go to your Storage server and open server manager.
• Select File and Storage Services from the left pane.
• Select Storage Pools.
• In the right upper corner click tasks and New Storage Pool.
• Click Next.
• Name it, mine are Fast for SSD, and Slow for HDD, click Next.
• Select the disks you want to add to the pool and click Next.
• Create.
• Repeat for all the pools you need.
• Now go back to Storage Pool and from the tasks of virtual disks, select New Virtual Disk.
• Click Next.
• Select your storage pool and click Next.
• Give it a descriptive name, click Next.
• Select the type of layout by checking the description, I’m using simple for my lab, click Next.
• Select Fixed and click Next.
• Select the max size or the amount you want to assign, click Next.
• Clock Create.
• Go through the new volume wizard with all the defaults just changing the volume name.

We have all our storage configuration in place.

Now let’s add the storage to SCVMM:

• Go to your SCVMM Server and open the Console.
• Select the fabric tab, right click in File Servers under Storage and Add Storage Devices.
• Select Windows-based file server, click Next.
• Fill in your storage server name and select your VMMaction account from browse, and click Next.
• Wait for the discovery and click Next.
• select your Storage Device and click Next.
• Finish.
• Now right click providers and Add Storage Devices.
• Select SAN and NAS devices discovered and managed by a SMI-S provider, click Next.
• Select SMI-S WMI, fill in your storage server name and select your VMMaction account.
• Wait for the discovery and select the device, click next.
• Select the units for the virtual disks you created.
• Create a classification like Gold and another like Silver, to differentiate our fast ssd pool from the HDD one.
• Finish.

In the next post we will build the cluster from the console too, that’s really cool right?

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 1: Lab Setup

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 2: VMM Setup

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 3: Preparing for WDS with VMM

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 4: Installing WDS for SCVMM

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 5: Setting up Networking

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 6: Bare Metal Deployment

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 7: Adding our hosts

How to create a private cloud step by step with System Center part 8: Create a cluster from the console.

• Your motherboard should support BMC (Baseboard Management Controller), I am actually using an old 2nd generation Xeon I had around to test this. you can get a SuperMicro MB and a Xeon CPU for less than $400, because my newer workstations doesn’t support it.
• Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) versions 1.5 or 2.0.
• Data Center Management Interface (DCMI) version 1.0
• System Management Architecture for Server Hardware (SMASH) version 1.0 over WS-Management (WS-Man)
• Custom protocols such as Integrated Lights-Out (iLO).

Now that we have the prerequisites we will need a profile for our hosts:

• You will need to copy our template VHDX to the library share in the SCVMM server.
• From the host where you have the VHDX go to run and \\scvmm.
• Copy the VHDX to the Library share.
• Go to the SCVMM Server and open the Console.
• Go to the Library tab.
• Right click in profiles –> Create Physical Computer Profile.
• Select a descriptive name and select VM Host, click next.
• Click browse to find the VHDX you just imported, if you can’t find it just refresh the library, click next.
• Leave the defaults, but remember that sometimes specially for newer hardware you will need to provide the drivers, and tag them to be used for certain models or manufacturers, click next.
• Fill in the information for general settings and click next.
• You can leave the placement path configuration for later, click next.
• Review the options and finish.

To deploy the new host:

• In the Fabric Tab right click and select Add Hyper-V Hosts and Clusters.
• Select Physical computers to be provisioned as virtual machine hosts, click Next.
• Select a preconfigured run as account with the credentials for your BMC Interface and select the protocol for the Out of band Management, click Next.
• Select the discovery scope, selecting your preferred one, I will use a specific IP address, click Next.
• Select the host group to assign this host and the profile, click Next.
• Select a computer Name, and Next.
• Finish.

That’s It, in the Next post we will add all the hosts and create our cluster.