Hi everyone,

Microsoft just released the beta of System Center Orchestrator 2012 (previously know as Opalis). http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2011/06/15/announcing-the-system-center-orchestrator-beta.aspx

This beta is public, could be downloaded and tested by everyone.

First, I invite you to read the Pre-requisites :
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh201965.aspx

But also the Release Notes :
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh204684.aspx

In these TechNet articles you will find useful information, like this one : Even if you are in a lab environment, don’t try to install System Center Orchestrator 2012 Beta on a Domain Controller, It will not pass the requirement check. (thank you to Adam and Ravi to notice that to me).

You will see that Microsoft did an awesome work on the installation process. It’s really easier than installing Opalis 6.3.

Basically, for installing this beta you will need a server with :

• Windows 2008 R2 Server (RTM or SP1, both supported)
• SQL 2008 R2
• IIS
• .Net Framework 4
• Silverlight
  

1. Download the System Center Orchestrator 2012 Beta file at the Microsoft Download Center : http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26503 

2. Extract the content of the file.

3. Run the setupsco.exe file.

4. If you want to install all the features (Runbook Designer, Console/Web Service, Runbook server) on the same server, select Install Orchestrator. The installer also gives the possibility to install each features independently.

5. No product key required for the beta, just accept the license agreement.

6. Select all the features that you want to install. Select everything for this first install.

7. By expanding, you have information about each features and their prerequisites :

8. The installer has a prerequisites checker :

9. Two level in the prerequisites, Critical will block the installation process, warning could be pass.

10. Orchestrator requires a service account to run runbooks and access remote system resources.

11. Go to your Active Directory console, create a new account, and add it in the Local Administrator Group of the server.

12. You also have to authorize this account to "Log on as a service". Enable this right in Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy -> Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment.

13. Open "Log on as a service" policy and enter the service account that you just created.

14. Back to the Orchestrator 2012 beta installer and click on the Test button.

15. Database connection, Go to your SQL server, open the management studio, and create manually the Orchestrator database.

16. Add your service account as Credentials for the SQL server.

17. Grant this account as db_owner of the Orchestrator DB.

18. Go back to the Orchestrator installer, select Existing database and chose the database that you just created.

19. Orchestrator use a group (local group or Active Group) for authorizing access to the Run Book Designer. Go to your Active Directory console, create a new security group, add your user account and the service account created above as group member.

20. Back to the Orchestrator installer and select the group just created :

21. Check the box Grant remote access for the Runbook Designer.

22. Configure the port for the web service and Orchestrator Console.

23. Select the installation folder.

24. Review the summary, note that you could change any parameter directly from there.

25. Installation in progress…

26. After a few minutes, the installation is finished.

27. You could now enjoy the new Runbook designer.

28. And also the new Web Console based on IIS, .Net and Silverlight.

As you could see, Microsoft really did an awesome work on the installation process. Next post will present all the new features of System Center Orchestrator 2012 in details.

Christopher KEYAERT

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Hi all,

Today, another case that I had at one of my customer. The idea is simple, He wanted to generate an incident (Could be in SCSM, BMC Remedy) based on a SNMP Trap sent by a monitoring application. (SolarWinds, Tivoli, …)

In the default integration pack, System Center Opalis has a Monitoring SNMP Trap activity :

In the details of this activity, we could filter the host/server from which we accept to receive SNMP Trap, the Port, Enterprise identifier, ….

For publishing the data received from the SNMP Trap, we have to go in the Advanced part :

We have to add the object identifier of each data that we want to publish. we have to manually publish an data output for each OID that we want to use.

Once done, the Monitoring SNMP Trap activity will publish the data as Output-x variable that we could use in other Opalis activities.

Now that we have configured the data from the SNMP Trap, we will publish them to the Send Platform Event activity.

In the Send Platform Event activity, select published data from the Monitor SNMP Trap activity :

The variables that we are interested in are Output – x – Value and we could use them in any of our activities. Here we will just display them, but we could imagine to use them for an incident creation :

Configuration is now finished, run the Runbook and send an SNMP Trap to the System Center Opalis server. When the trap will be received, the Runbook will start automatically :

And the content of the Trap will be available in the Events :

The output result :

We could now use information from SNMP Trap in any of our activities.

Christopher KEYAERT

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Hi,

For one of my customer, I had to retrieve some information from an Oracle DB with System Center Opalis. The DB Query object included in Opalis supports MS SQL, Oracle, Odbc connection ….

For querying an Oracle DB with Opalis, there is some requirements, that I will explain step by step below :

1. Install the Oracle client on your Opalis server. Opalis requires the x86 release of the Oracle Client even if the Opalis server is in x64.

2. Oracle client is available at the following page : http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/enterprise-edition/downloads/112010-win32soft-098987.html

3. Download this version : Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Client (11.2.0.1.0) for Microsoft Windows (32-bit).

win32_11gR2_client.zip (684,581,290 bytes)

4. When downloaded, and uncompressed, just execute the setup.exe file.

5. During the installation process, select Runtime as installation type, and continue the next /next setup.

6. Once the setup finished, we need new to edit the tnsnames.ora configuration file.

7. Go to InstallationFolder\product\11.2.0\client_1\network\admin\ and edit the tnsnames.ora file.

8. ARSDVL is the name of the Oracle DB on which we want to connect, this name is used at two places in the file. line 4  as service name and also in the Connect_Data field. Host contqins is the name of the Oracle DB server.

9. Once the file edited and saved, for testing the connection, open a CMD prompt and type : 
SQLPLUS LOGIN@TNSNAME

10. If the SQL> prompt appears, we now than everything is ok and we could go back to our Opalis policy.

11. Here, a simple Opalis policy which will query the Oracle DB and return the result in an event.

12. Query Database object - Connection configuration : Add the name used in the tnsnames.ora file in the Service Name field, set the connection credentials.

13. Query Database object – Query : Here a simple Select query (Tips : Don’t add the ‘;’ at the end of the query or you will get an error message).

14. Send Platform Event – Configuration :

15. Run the policy.

16. Check the result

Christopher KEYAERT

client · Install · InstallationFolderproduct · name · zip