Latest Blogs

Stats on Cloud Computing [Infographic]

Tommy Gunn — Wed, 30 May 2012 13:30:21 GMT

Cool infographic designed by the Cloud Hypermarket team which shows some interesting stats about cloud computing, such as adoption, benefits of using the cloud, budgeting, and the top users of cloud computing. Interesting to see how Windows 2012 impacts these numbers in a couple of years. Check out the full graphic below:

Creating and Using Custom Properties in VMM 2012 in PowerShell (and a gotcha)

Pete Zerger — Tue, 29 May 2012 06:45:26 GMT

Custom properties, introduced in Virtual Machine Manager 2012 (VMM), consist of a user-defined name / value pair. They can be used in a variety of circumstances including

VM placement (or use of matching properties on host groups),
Reporting (by using custom properties to tag VM's and services with various bits of owner information)
Lifecycle Management (through the addition of a custom property to store expiration date)
Customizing View in the VMM Admin Console (more on this in a minute)

While you can add custom properties in the UI, I like adding them to PowerShell, which I can incorporate into Orchestrator runbooks to automate the VM and service provisioning, tagging by virtualization assets to support all of the possibilities mentioned above. Below is a sample script demonstrating how to tag a service instance with information to support virtualization lifecycle management, specifically owner information (a RequestedBy property) and an ExpirationDate property to store the retirement date for the newly deployed asset.

Sample Script

PowerShell snow below intended for use in a VMM script, presumably as part of an Orchestrator runbook. The only thing you need to do make the sample work for you is define is the value of a variable called $SvcName, intended to represent the display name of the newly deployed service (from a service template)

#-------------------------------------------------------------

#Set Custom Properties on Service Instance

#-------------------------------------------------------------

$MySvc = get-scservice | where {$_.Name -like $SvcName}

$customPropRequestedBy = Get-SCCustomProperty -Name "RequestedBy"

Set-SCCustomProperty -AddMember @("ServiceInstance") -CustomProperty $customPropRequestedBy

Set-SCCustomPropertyValue -InputObject $MySvc -CustomProperty $customPropRequestedBy -Value "$RequestedBy"

$customPropExpiry = Get-SCCustomProperty -Name "ExpirationDate"

Set-SCCustomProperty -AddMember @("ServiceInstance") -CustomProperty $customPropExpiry

Set-SCCustomPropertyValue -InputObject $MySvc -CustomProperty $customPropExpiry -Value "$VMExpiration"

Exposing Custom Properties in the UI

As alluded to earlier , in the VMs and Services pane of the VMM 2012 Admin Console, custom properties can be exposed by right-clicking on the title bar and selecting the appropriate properties. below is a screenshot the results of the sample PowerShell snippet shown above use as part of a runbook to deploy a service with VMM 2012.

Something to be aware of (Gotcha)

Custom attributes do not accept special characters, such as apostrophes, which I witnessed firsthand recently. There is a bug in VMM 2012 that presents itself when certain special characters are used in custom attributes throughout the UI, causing the console to crash. The fix should you encounter this problem is to remove the offending value via PowerShell or direct database edit, (through Microsoft support would recommend the PowerShell method).

Additional Resources

Hopefully this info provides some food for thought when choosing your naming conventions for your template-based deployments in VMM 2012. Here are a few additional articles in the ‘private cloud in the real world’ series and related System Center articles you may find interesting.

Cloud: Computer Name Scavenging, Reuse and Conflict Handling in VMM 2012

Pete Zerger — Sat, 26 May 2012 03:33:21 GMT

Here are some notes from the field as part of our “Private Cloud in the real world” series. In this installment, I’ll talk about System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 (VMM) behavior when issuing names to VMs, reuse of names, conflict resolution (when no names are available) and the domain join process. I thought this useful info for those scenarios you may never have time to test for yourself, but for which the answers can prove very useful when known in advance.

Defining Available Name Values

When you design templates and provide naming conventions for VMs in VMM 20112, you can use wildcards (specifically, the # sign) in your templates as an indicator to VMM which characters it can assign unique numeric sequences to at deploy time. For example, a value of WEBAPP### would result in computer (NetBIOS) names of WEBAPP001 through WEBAPP999 being issued to to newly deployed VMs. This creates a range (or pool) of names that can be used (and re-used) in deployment.

VM Name Scavenging and Reuse

Default behavior (witnessed in deployment and deletion of more than 200 virtual machines this week) indicates that VMM scavenges names (returns names to the pool) when VMs are deleted and reuses them as soon as possible. For example, if you deploy 10 machines with the WEBAPP### convention using a service template (containing a single VM), they will be named WEBAPP001 – WEBAPP010. If you delete the service containing WEBAPP005, the next VM deployed will be named WEBAPP005.

This is a clear indicator that VMM is paying attention and making efficient use of available names based on the naming pattern provided.

VMM Behavior in Naming Conflicts

There are a couple of scenarios to consider here. Conflicting names and also poor choice in naming pattern that results in a limited pool of available names, in which case we may actually run out of available names for new VMs.

First, when you attempt to deploy from template and provide a name that is already in use, VMM will throw an error and block the attempt, which is predictable I think.

For the second scenario, let’s look at an example. I define a slightly different naming pattern in my template, this time WEBAPP#. This provides a pool of exactly nine names…WEBAPP1 – WEBAPP9. So what happens when the pool of available names is exhausted and you attempt to deploy a service (via service template) that contains the 10th machine?

VMM will actually launch the service deployment, but when the deployment attempts to provision the VM, the following error is thrown and the deployment fails.

Error (630). The computer name must be a valid IP address or name containing letters and numbers. The computer name cannot contain spaces or any of the following characters….

The takeaway here is simply that you want to consider how many VMs may be deployed simultaneously in your environment and choose a pool larger than you will need. Using the example above:

WEBAPP## gives you 99 unique options (WEBAPP01 – WEBAPP99)
WEBAPP## gives you 999 unique options (WEBAPP001 – WEBAPP999)

Domain Join with Name Reuse

My VM and service templates are configured to join the computer to the domain at deployment time. In a Windows 2008 R2 Active Directory domain, I found the domain join process was seamless, even with frequent name reuse. DNS could be an issue if security is tight (and not just anyone can update an A record), so I am running with a less stringent DNS security configuration in my environment. The most common issue I have encountered in conditions of frequent name reuse (not uncommon in a lab environment where lots of deployment testing goes on) is actually DNS cache on the Hyper-V host. I have seen connection to the VM after deployment fail, causing application deployment to fail, requiring the job to be restarted. Not an everyday occurrence, but something to consider.

Additional Resources

Orchestrator Jumpstart Series

Hyper-V Replica in Windows 2012 in 10 Minutes [2-Minute Overview and Video demo]

Pete Zerger — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:09:57 GMT

I am going to run through a quick 2-minute synopsis of a few of the most important Hyper-V features in Windows 8 Beta (now Windows Server 2012) for a customer, and thought I would share with the community at the same time. Below you’ll find a brief description covering the high points of the solution and a short recorded video where you can see the feature in action.

What is Hyper-V Replica?

Hyper-V replica is a game-changing technology that provides a high availability solution that is storage agnostic and very flexible in terms of security (Active Directory not required). This feature enables you to replicate virtual machines between storage systems, clusters, and data centers in two sites to provide business continuity and disaster recovery. Hyper-V Replica is new functionality added to the Hyper-V Role in Windows Server 2012. Hyper-V Replica enables organizations to implement an affordable Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) solution for virtualized workloads. This allows virtual machines running at a primary site to be efficiently replicated to secondary location (Replica site) across a WAN link.

Hyper-V Replica provides a storage-agnostic and workload-agnostic solution that replicates efficiently, periodically, and asynchronously over IP-based networks, typically to a remote site. Hyper-V Replica allows a Hyper-V Administrator, in the event of a failure at a primary site (e.g. fire, natural disaster, power outage, server failure etc.), to execute a failover of production workloads to replica servers at a secondary location within minutes, thus incurring minimal downtime. The configurations at each site do not have to be the same with respect to server or storage hardware.

What’s the big deal? (the value add)

This feature makes it easier and less expensive to plan and implement business continuity and disaster recovery solutions for your virtual machines. Hyper-V Replica provides the necessary management APIs that enable IT management vendors to build disaster recovery (DR) solutions for enterprise customers. Likewise, hosting companies that host dedicated/virtual servers for their customers can more easily offer DR as a service, (especially Small and Medium Business (SMB) customers).

The solution is basically storage agnostic. This component is designed in such a way that it makes the scenario work irrespective of where the virtual machine VHD file(s) resides (VHD files can be hosted on Direct Attached Storage (DAS), a SAN LUN, an SMB share on a File Server, or a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV).

Installation and Security

From a security perspective, Hyper-V Replica can also be implemented between un-trusted domains/workgroups. Hyper-V Replica is implemented as part of the Hyper-V Role. The Hyper-V Role can be enabled on a standalone Hyper-V server or on servers that are members of a Failover Cluster. Hyper-V servers can function as members of a Workgroup or as member servers in the same or different Active Directory domains. It is not required that Primary and Replica servers be part of the same Active Directory domain. If the Hyper-V server role is enabled on servers that are members of a Failover Cluster, those servers must be joined to the same Active Directory domain.

What works differently? You can use a built-in solution to configure virtual machines to be replicated to a second server running Hyper-V. For more information, see Maintaining Business Continuity of Virtualized Environments with Hyper-V Replica: scenario overview.

Video: Configuring and Operating Hyper-V Replica in Windows Server 2012 (Beta)

Here’s a short video where you can see Hyper-V Replica in action.

Configuring and Operating Hyper-V Replica

Additional Information

Hopefully this helped you get the concept in hand. If you’re ready for the deep dive, MS has published an 80+ page whitepaper on the topic at Understand and Troubleshoot Hyper-V Replica in Windows Server "8" Beta

And just a few of the many System Center and MS Private Cloud-related System Center 2012 articles here on SCC

Implementing rapid scale-out of a machine tier in VMM 2012 via PowerShell

Cloud: A quick note on accurately measuring Hyper-V host performance and utilization

What’s new in the Cloud Services Process Pack (CSPP) Release Candidate for System Center 2012?

Private Cloud in the real world: 5 lessons from the private cloud fabric

How to prepare for Orchestrator? Learn Opalis in a month of Friday afternoons! (free online resources)

PowerShell Scripts for System Center (Master Collection)

[Private Cloud]: Configuring anti-affinity between VMs on Hyper-V 2008 R2 SP1 and VMM 2012

SCVMM Tip: Testing PRO Integration in VMM / OpsMgr 2012

4 Hyper-V performance testing tips for the private cloud

Hyper-V Network Optimizations and Best Practices [Private Cloud]

Streamlining Linux VM configuration on Hyper-V with the Set-LinuxVM PowerShell module

Hyper-V on Windows 2012 New Features and Enhancements [Video Shorts]

Pete Zerger — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:06:05 GMT

Here is a series of video shorts from some of the MVPs on the Infront team demonstrating some of the new virtualization-related features in Hyper-V v3 on Windows Server 2012 (aka Windows 8) including: Hyper-V Replica, Storage Live Migration, Controlling Network Bandwidth for VMs, Dynamic Memory Enhancements and Failover-related topics.

To access:

Click the link
Scroll to the top of the page (Youtube renders kind of funky in IE requiring this sometimes)

The Series

Configuring and Operating Hyper-V Replica in Windows Server 2012

Initiating a Failover in Windows Server 2012

Reversing the Replication Path after Failover in Windows 2012 Hyper-V

Dynamic Memory Enhancements in Windows Server 2012

Controlling Network Bandwidth for VMs in Windows Server 2012

Storage Live Migration in Windows 2012 Hyper-V

MMS 2012 Keynote 4/17: Summary for Geeks (#SYSCTR, #MMS2012)

Cameron Fuller — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:51:57 GMT

The first keynote of MMS 2012 represented the 10 year anniversary for MMS! Specific points from the keynote include the following items:

Announcements:

System Center 2012 was officially announced: A USB Key provided for MMS attendees with all of the System Center 2012 software

Windows Server 2012 name announced!
- (Previously referred to as “Windows Server 8”)
- This implies that Windows Server 2012 will be released in 2012
- Presenters discussed that System Center will be updated to support Windows Server 2012

Other items of note:

An SCVMM report showing included forecasting (shown below)

There was a great demo video from Vijay Tewari to deploy a bare metal host in SCVMM (Having met Vijay in the past I loved the coffee jokes integrated throughout- he may be the only guy at Microsoft I know who drinks more coffee than I do)
Demonstration of Operations Manager showing service level integration and dashboards in OpsMgr 2012, and .NET monitoring including application failures.
MCSE re-invented for the cloud: MCSE Private Cloud.
Windows Server 2012:
- No shared storage, migration of VM’s between servers. “Shared nothing live migration”
- Network virtualization in Windows Server 2012
Catapult’s own Jason Sharp was on the intro-video! (see the picture in the top left)

Moving Applications to the Cloud, 2nd Edition [Microsoft E-book Download]

Pete Zerger — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 23:04:45 GMT

This book provides a look at considerations, processes and tools for migrating applications to Azure. Great for IT pros who want to know a bit more about what is involved in migrating on premise applications to Windows Azure.

Download for free at http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29252

Are you looking to participate in the System Center community via Twitter?

rorymccaw — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 03:27:43 GMT

If so, consider using the following hash tags to have your content followed by the greater System Center community at large.

Component	Hashtag
System Center all up or broad awareness (should be included in every tweet related to SC)	#sysctr
These are only included in tweets that are specific to a particular component:
Virtual Machine Manager	#scvmm
Service Manager	#scsm
Operations Manager	#scom
Data Protection Manager	#scdpm
Orchestrator	#scorc
Advisor	#scadvisor
App Controller	#scappctrl
Configuration Manager	#configmgr

Have fun, learn System Center. www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php

Great demos coming in today's System Center Virtual User Group meeting!

Pete Zerger — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:08:03 GMT

The latest installment of the System Center Virtual User Group kicks off today! Today you’ll see demo heavy sessions on the new MP authoring tools in OpsMgr 2012, how to extend ConfigMgr 2012 to manage your 3rd party devices (iPads, iPhones, MAC, etc. etc.), as well as the latest release of the Veeam nworks MP for monitoring VMware ESX / vSphere. Should be a great show…details below.

Registration

Registration for the System Center Virtual User Group Meeting #18

http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=159955

Agenda

The planned agenda shown here (all times EST)

Sponsor

This installment of the System Center Virtual User Group is brought to you by SystemCenterCentral.com

Speaker Bio's

Ken Galvin

Ken Galvin is the Program Manager of the QMX – System Center unit of Quest Software. He has been with the QMX product for over six years in a number of roles including project, operations, product and product marketing and business development – primarily in the international and public sectors. Before Quest, Ken worked at AT&T for 20 years in operations, sales operations, sales management and project management. He lives near the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia with his wife and four children and is very active in music and youth ministry in his community.

Alec King

Alec King is a Director of Product Management at Veeam, and the original author and architect of the hugely successful ‘nworks Management Pack for VMware’. An expert in monitoring, management and automation, Alec has been developing MPs in Microsoft Operations Manager since MOM 2000. Alec regularly delivers presentations at technology trade shows such as Microsoft Management Summit, Tech-Ed and VMworld.

Baelson Duque

Baelson Duque started at Microsoft a Systems Engineer and shortly thereafter, became a Tools Engineer building tools for Microsoft Game Studios Operations team that managed zone.msn.com. There he owned the Monitoring Infrastructure where Baelson pioneered MOM 2000 as the Operations Monitoring Platform. Baelson is now a proud member of the System Center Operations Manager Program Management team bringing with him over 5 years of Operational Expertise from many levels in the IT Operations stack. Baelson has been with the OpsMgr PM Team for over 8 years designing many features from core modules in the Infrastructure, many Management Packs, Distributed Application Designer, Synthetic Transactions, and various MP Templates. Baelson is currently a Sr. Program Manager responsible for the Next Gen UI Framework to support Dashboards in OpsMgr 2012 and the Authoring Tools for Management Packs.

What IT admins should know about cloud and virtualization [infographic]

Tommy Gunn — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:42:46 GMT

Here’s an infographic with some interesting tips, facts and statistics on cloud and virtualization from Solarwinds. It shows private cloud in the lead over public and hybrid…I thought it would be the opposite.

Via Visual.ly

Orchestrator Runbook Automation JumpStart: Part 2 - Advanced Features and Functionality

Pete Zerger — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:02:14 GMT

If you read part 1 and completed the hands-on labs, you now have a foundation in Orchestrator runbook functionality and authoring. In part 2, we are going to build on this functionality. This installment will discuss advanced runbook concepts that will allow you to incorporate advanced decision logic into modular runbooks that will support reuse.

HAND ON LABS: As mentioned in part 1, to reinforce the concepts covered in this installment, you will find a pointer to accompanying hands-on lab exercises (on Microsoft’s TechNet Virtual Labs) that reinforce the concepts discussed here. These labs are largely Opalis 6.3 labs, but the authoring experience (interface, runbook concepts, etc.) in Orchestrator is basically unchanged from that of Opalis (although some terminology has been updated). In fact, the runbooks used in these Opalis labs all work in Orchestrator 2012.

In the Series

The series will consist of the following articles. Since the entire series is ready, you should see a new article every 3 days or so.

Day 1 (this article): Runbook Concepts, Components and Rules of the Databus
Day 2: Advanced Features and Functionality (this article)
Day 3: Bridging Gaps, Extending Capabilities, Best Practices
Day 4: Deep Dive into the Orchestrator Web Service
Day 5: Wrap Up, Challenge lab and Bonus Download

In This Installment

Advanced Runbook Features and Functionality
Testing and Troubleshooting Your Runbooks
Taking Automation to the next level with Orchestrator and System Center
Hands on Labs

New to Orchestrator? Go back and read part 1 in the series before continuing.

Advanced Runbook Features and Functionality

With the basics under your belt, it's time to explore some of the more advanced features of Orchestrator. This section will touch a number of advanced runbook elements, including:

Runbook Nesting
Looping
Junctions
Data Manipulation Functions
Variables
Complex Link Logic (advanced branching) [coming in part 3]

Runbook Nesting

You can initiate one Orchestrator runbook from within another runbook using an Invoke Runbook activity. The runbook being called is referred to as the child runbook, and the runbook that is making the call using the Invoke Runbook activity is known as the parent runbook. It is possible for data to be passed to the child runbook from the parent runbook, allowing data from the child runbook to be published for use in the parent runbook.

As discussed in part 1, data publishing behavior at the activity level within a single runbook is automatic. This is not the case when working with multiple runbooks and attempting to publish data between them. By default, no published data from within the child runbook is visible to the parent; you must perform some additional configuration steps to make the output of the child runbook available to the parent. For a look at how to configure data publishing between runbooks, check out this blog post "Opalis: working around limitations with workflow activities and link operators" from Opalis Integration Server 6.3 Unleashed contributing author Marcus Oh.

You will want to get familiar with Invoke Runbook and publishing data between runbooks, because this plays an important role in Orchestrator runbook authoring best practices. This will be discussed more in part 3 of this series.

Looping

Looping allows you to build automatic retries, monitoring, and validation into a runbook, and at multiple points within the runbook if needed. Orchestrator enables you to configure conditions to exit the loop. For example, if you wish to exit after a minimum number of executions or after a certain amount of time, you can select the associated "Loop" Common Published data on the Exit tab, then select ‘Number of attempts’, as displayed in Figure 1.

Figure 1 - Exit Tab Configuration in runbook Properties

You can define looping behaviors on the Exit and Do Not Exit tabs in Looping properties. Note that the rules on the Do Not Exit tab always take precedence over the rules on the Exit tab.

The Exit tab shown in Figure 1 specifies the conditions that will determine if the loop will exit.
The Do Not Exit tab specifies the conditions that will cause the loop to continue.

Looping can be configured only available at the activity level, not at the runbook level. However, you can work around this limitation with the Invoke Runbook activity, as explained by Ryan Andorfer in his post "Looping a Policy."

Junctions

The Junction activity enables you to configure a runbook to allow multiple branches in the runbook to complete before it continues past the Junction activity. In addition, the Junction activity can republish data from any one branch so that activities downstream of the Junction activity can consume the data. Data from branches other than the one you select will not be available. You can also choose "None" to stop propagation of published data from any of the branches upstream of the Junction activity if the data is not needed downstream in the runbook.

For example, the Operations Manager maintenance mode runbook in Figure 2 uses a Junction to ensure the Start Maintenance Mode activities for the Windows Computer, Operations Manager Health Service, and Health Service Watcher (HSW) have completed before attempting to restart the computer. A copy of this runbook is included in the code download included with this article.

Figure 2 - Operations Manager 2007 R2 Computer Maintenance Mode runbook*

*What maintenance mode looks like in a runbook for OpsMgr 2012 will be a bit different than what you see in figure 2. More on this in a later post.

Data Manipulation Functions

The data manipulation functions in Orchestrator enable you to manipulate string, numeric, and date/time data from published data items or other sources, and convert this into a usable form. You can also perform arithmetic operations on numeric data, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. For example, you can extract data from a text file using a text file management activity, trim leading and trailing spaces from the text, and then retrieve specific parts of the text that you can pass to other activities as Published Data. Microsoft's article at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg440683.aspx provides a detailed description of all data manipulation functions.

Variables

As you are building runbooks, you may find there are values that are the same across different activities in multiple runbooks. When these values need to be updated, it becomes inconvenient to individually change each activity. Variables act as a placeholder in your runbooks, enabling you to specify a value in one location and then use that value globally in any activity. At run time, the workflow engine translates variables configured in an activity during design time.

The funny thing about a variable in Orchestrator is that it rarely varies at all! A variable is almost always set to a static value, meaning a variable in Orchestrator is much like a constant in common programming languages. However, there are two exceptions to the rule:

The NOW() function, which returns info on the current date/time
System environment variables (such as %WINDIR%, shown in Figure 3)

Figure 3 - An environment variable used as the variable value

You can read more about these special Orchestrator variables at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg440631.aspx.

Complex Link Logic (advanced branching)

Links connect activities in a runbook and direct the flow of activity and data within a runbook. Links provide precedence between two activities. The default logic on a link between two activities is "Success". This means that if the activity runs (regardless of result), the downstream activity to which it is linked will execute. However, link conditions can provide sophisticated functionality for implementing complex decision flows involving text, numeric or time-related data.

Part 3 of this series discusses some of the possibilities of links and branching in depth.

Testing and Troubleshooting Your Runbooks

When it is running, every runbook generates a log which you can view in the Runbook Designer. When you are viewing a runbook, the Log and Log History windows will display the real-time and historic logs for the selected runbook. The Orchestrator Web Console allows you to view runbook execution in real time:

The Log window displays the logging of the current run of the runbook. The log displays when the runbook started, and the activity currently running in the runbook will have the running label beside it. The log enables you to determine if there are any problems with specific activities in your runbook.
The Log History window, shown in Figure 4, displays all previous executions of the runbook you selected. The time that the runbook started and ended is displayed at the top of each log entry, and the result of each activity execution is displayed for each entry.

Figure 4 - Log and Log History tabs in the Runbook Designer

Double-clicking an activity log entry in the log lets you view the result of the execution of that activity. The Details dialog displays the Name, Type, Status, Start Time, and End Time of the activity. If enabled, the Details dialog also enables you to browse the Published Data of the activity when it was executed. Use this information when troubleshooting your runbook.

During the development process, you can click the Test button in the toolbar of the Runbook Designer to launch the Runbook Testing Console to test runbook execution. You can step through the runbook activity-by-activity in the runbook Testing Console, manually advancing through the runbook activities and viewing detailed activity output. Keep in mind that the runbook Testing Console actually executes the runbook activities; this is not a theoretical execution. For example, if you test a runbook that deletes records from a database, those records are actually deleted!

Notes from the Field: A common issue encountered by Orchestrator users is a runbook that generates a different result in the Runbook Testing Console than returned when running the runbook from the Runbook Designer. This is usually explained by user security. Runbooks you run in the Runbook Designer run in the context of the Runbook Server service account. On the other hand, runbooks you run in the runbook Testing Console execute in the context of your current user credentials. If your user account does not have the same permissions as the Runbook Server service account, some runbooks that successfully run in the Runbook Designer may fail when run from the Runbook Testing Console.

Taking Automation to the next level with Orchestrator and System Center

The System Center IPs for Orchestrator deliver integration between System Center products for a variety of use case scenarios, including:

Incident Remediation (via Operations Manager 2007 R2)
Virtual Machine Provisioning (via Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2)
Change Management and CMDB automation (via Service Manager 2010)
Backup and Recovery (via Data Protection Manager 2010)
Software and Update Distribution (via Configuration Manager 2007)

Note: The System Center 2012 IPs are currently in beta and available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=28725

For example, the runbook shown in Figure 5 interacts with Operations Manager 2007 R2 to automate incident remediation.

Figure 5 - Sample Incident Remediation runbook from Orchestrator 2012

Here is a high-level description of the steps performed in this runbook:

The Monitor Alert activity monitors for an alert titled 'DHCP Service Stopped'.
The Get Service Status activity checks to verify the DHCP Client service is actually stopped.
If the service is running, a custom field on the Operations Manager alert is updated with a note indicating a false alarm.
If the service is stopped, the Start DHCP Service activity restarts the service.
Once the service is started, the alert is updated with a note that the service has been restarted by Orchestrator.

The activities from these IPs also can be used together to create advanced automation scenarios incorporating multiple System Center products in a single automation sequence. A copy of the sample runbook shown in Figure 5 is included in the code download included with this article.

Hands-On Lab

Now, you’re ready to apply what you’ve learned in the creation of more advanced Orchestrator runbooks. As with the hands-on labs in part 1, the runbooks in these labs will run equally well in Opalis and Orchestrator.

REMEMBER:

Authoring experience and interface in Opalis and Orchestrator is basically the same.
Policies in Opalis are what we now call Runbooks in Orchestrator….same concept, new terminology.
Foundation Objects are now called Standard Activities….same concept, new terminology.

Next Installment

That's it for this installment. The third installment continues this discussion of Orchestrator fundamentals, including:

Complex Link Logic (Advanced Branching)
Bridging the Gaps with PowerShell
Extending Your Capabilities with Community-Developed IPs
Runbook Authoring Best Practices

Get Orchestrator Unleashed

Pete Zerger is an author for the upcoming System Center 2012 Orchestrator Unleashed (http://www.amazon.com/System-Center-2012-Orchestrator-Unleashed/dp/0672336103). This book is authored by an expert team of current and former Microsoft MVPs who also wrote the industry's leading guide to Opalis 6.3, Orchestrator 2012's predecessor product.

[Infographic] Business and the cloud…adoption, challenges, expectations

Tommy Gunn — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:47:07 GMT

The majority already have at least a toe in the water...more than 60% having already implemented at least one cloud solution, in trials, or planning an implementation.

via Symantec

How big is the data in the cloud? [infographic]

Tommy Gunn — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 03:16:58 GMT

The rise of the cloud is even faster than I though. This infographic from CSC predicts that by 2020 roughly 1/3 of all data produced will live in or pass through the cloud. The size of that data will be 32 Zettabytes, which is roughly 1 trillion gygabytes of data!

Via CSC

Podcast: Inside Central 19-ROI on Runbook Automation

Pete Zerger — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:04:54 GMT

Episode Description: Pete is back, and this episode he provides some great guidance and advice on how best to calculate and tackle ROI for RBA. We are also excited to announce that the Inside Podcast will be broadcasting live, every day from MMS 2012. For more information click here.

Download Episode and Show Notes

Find the episode download and links to resources mentioned in the podcast at http://insidepodcastnetwork.tv/show/ic19/

Previous Episodes

You can review show notes and download previous episodes at the links below

Podcast: Inside Central 18 - Skilling Up on System Center 2012

Pete Zerger — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 01:23:30 GMT

Episode Description: This podcast, which was recorded on the 24th of Feb. With Pete taking the week off, OpsMgr MVP Cameron Fuller is at the helm. We discuss some valuable approaches to creating your own home lab and essential techniques that will assist in “Skilling Up” for Operations Manager 2012.

Download Episode and Show Notes

Find the episode download and links to resources mentioned in the podcast at http://insidepodcastnetwork.tv/show/ic18/

Previous Episodes

You can review show notes and download previous episodes at the links below

[MMS 2012 Sessions] Managing Cisco UCS with PowerShell and System Center

Pete Zerger — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 01:15:24 GMT

Cisco partners with Microsoft on System Center and Private Cloud, but has their own management suite (under the acronym CITEIS) that would be a competitor to System Center in some respects (more at http://ow.ly/9Kw1m ), but nobody touches System Center for end-to-end management capabilities. I see UCS gear in the field frequently of late, and I am very pleased to see that Cisco is delivering two sessions at MMS 2012 on how to manage Cisco UCS with System Center 2012 and PowerShell. I am definitely hoping to make at least one of these sessions….session details below.

Sessions Details

Session Title: Understanding & Simplifying Virtual Machine Networking

Speaker: Appaji Malla, Product Manager, Cisco Nexus 1000V
Tuesday, April 17
4:00 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.

Abstract: Server virtualization & cloud environments provide numerous benefits to enterprise customers; however, the dynamic nature of these environments presents additional complexities for virtual machine networking.

This session covers how Cisco Nexus 1000V can help simplify your virtualization environment through a non-disruptive operational model; policy based provisioning and tight integration with System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

Attend this session to learn about Cisco Nexus 1000V architecture, the rich networking capabilities it brings to Hyper-V environments, and how it can simplify your network operations.

Session Title: Manage Cisco UCS with Microsoft System Center 2012 and PowerShell

Speaker: Chakri Avala, Product Manager, Engineering
Wednesday, April 18
2:15 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Abstract: This session will cover management of UCS with Microsoft System Center tools and PowerShell. This session will show integration of UCS XML API with management tools from Microsoft to expose detailed Cisco UCS hardware inventory, monitoring, alerting and automating UCS management using Microsoft PowerShell.

Short demonstrations and videos of Cisco-developed integrations for Microsoft System Center 2012 will illustrate how to monitor, alert, automate, and orchestrate the Cisco UCS environment. A short demonstration of Cisco UCS management using Cisco-developed Cisco UCS PowerTool (PowerShell toolkit) will show integration capabilities of Cisco UCS XML API with powerful scripting tools such as Microsoft PowerShell.

Podcast: Inside Central 17 - Hyper-V Performance Testing Notes from the Field

Pete Zerger — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:22:21 GMT

In this episode, Dan and Pete discuss some interesting findings from a recent work Pete did involving head-to-head VMware and Hyper-V (VMM) go head-to-head in performance testing.

Download Episode and Show Notes

Find the episode download and links to resources mentioned in the podcast at http://insidepodcastnetwork.tv/show/ic17/

Previous Episodes

You can review show notes and download previous episodes at the links below

Download: Windows Server “8” Beta Hyper-V Component Architecture Poster

Tommy Gunn — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:44:38 GMT

This poster provides a visual reference for understanding key Hyper-V technologies in Windows Server “8” Beta and focuses on Hyper-V Replica, networking, virtual machine mobility (live migration), storage, failover clustering, and scalability.

Download at http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/confirmation.aspx?id=29189

Windows 8 Tutorials Master Index

Pete Zerger — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:38:57 GMT

I’ve been running through some great Windows 8 tutorials from around the Internet to get ramped up on the new OS.

For in-depth step-by-step, have a look at the list of “Windows 8 Understanding and Troubleshooting Guides” on the Microsoft site.

Here’s a list of short task-specific tutorials (from various sites, including eightforums.com) that I’ve been leveraging to get comfortable. I’ll add to this list in the coming weeks as I my testing progresses.

WIndows 8 User Interface

Working with Metro Apps

Dual Boot and Disk Configurations

Authentication and Account Management

Podcast: Inside Central 16 - Orchestrated Host and App Servicing in System Center 2012

Pete Zerger — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 05:07:02 GMT

In this, the first episode for 2012 Dan and Pete discuss host and application servicing (a.k.a. patch management) in System Center 2012.

Show Notes

Download

Download episode 16 here: Inside Central Episode 16 (MP3)

Previous Episodes

You can review show notes and download previous episodes at the links below

Podcast: Inside Central 15- PowerShell v3 with MVP Marco Shaw

Pete Zerger — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 03:17:50 GMT

In this episode Dan is joined by PowerShell MVP Marco Shaw while Pete gets a well deserved sleep in.Dan and Marco chat about the recent release of PowerShell v3 CTP2 and some of the great new features of v3.

Download

Download and show notes at http://insidepodcastnetwork.tv/show/ic15/

Previous Episodes

You can review show notes and download previous episodes at the links below