As promise, the second part of this series will show you to how to update your Operations Manager 2007 R2 infrastructure from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1.

Pre-requisites

Resources

I invite you first to read my previous post : Prepare your environment to Operations Manager 2012 – Part I Actions Plan

Marnix Wolf, an Operations Manager MVP, already posted a series about the same subject, and I really advise you to read it :

Preparing for migrating to OM12: Moving from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 – Part I: Along came a theory
Preparing for migrating to OM12: Moving from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 – Part II: Phase I – The Preparations
Preparing for migrating to OM12: Moving from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 – Part III: Phase II – The Migration

Infrastructure

Below, the pre-requisites from a infrastructure point of view :

• Your current SCOM 2007 R2 Infrastructure must be at least Cumulative Update 4 (CU4) Level, but my personal advice it’s to update it first to the last Cumulative Update, the CU5.
• A brand new server running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
• .Net Framework 3.5.1 role installed.
• Microsoft SQL Server R2 2008 source +  SP1 Package.
• Add you SQL Service Account to the local administrator group of the new server.
• Backup all your SCOM 2007 R2 Infrastructure.

SQL Server 2008 R2 installation

let’s starting

We’re starting a new SQL installation

Select SQL Server Feature Installation

Check at least the check boxes below

Just click on next.

Use the default instance, or create a new one, depending of your environment.

Review the information and click on next.

Configure your Run As Account for the SQL Server.

In the Collation Tab, select SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS and click next.

Specify the SQL Admins for your new SQL Server.

Select Install the Native Mode Default Configuration and click Next.

Just review the information and click on Next.

Just review the information and click on Next.

Just review the information and click on Install.

Installation is in progress.

Installation Completed Successfully.

It’s now time to install the SP1, run the SQLServer2008R2SP1-KB2528583-x64-ENU.exe that you have previously downloaded on Microsoft Website.

Accept the license terms and click next.

Review the information and click on next.

Review the information and click on next.

Review the information and click on update.

Update is in progress.

SP1 has been successfully installed.

Report Server Uninstallation

Go to your current SCOM reporting Server, Add and Remove Programs menu and uninstall the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Reporting Server.

Uninstallation in progress.

SQL Server 2005 : Backup the DBs

Go on your SQL Server 2005, start the SQL Management Studio, select OperationsManagerDB, Tasks, Backup.

Select the backup location for your Operations DB.

In the options, check Verify backup when finished and click on OK.

The backup of the Operations Manager DB completed successfully.

Do exactly the same operations than above for the Data Warehouse DB.

We’ve got now, two DB Backup files.

SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 : Restoring the DBs

It’s now time to go on your brand new SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 server to restore the two databases.

Start the Sql Management Studio and choose Restore Database.

Select restore from Device and add the backup file of your OperationsManager DB and click OK

Check the Restore box next your DB name.

In the Destination for restore, you are now able to specify the OperationsManager DB.

Review all the information, and click on OK.

Do exactly the same for the Data Warehouse DB.

Both DBs are now available.

Now, we have to authorize the SCOM service accounts to connect to these newly restored DBs. For that simply go Sql Management Studio, Security Logins and do a right click, chose new login.

In the User Mapping part, we have to copy exactly the same rights that we have on the SQL Server 2005.

On the SQL Server 2005 :

Replicate the exact same configuration, for each Maps to the SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1.

If you are using several account to connect to the different Database, apply the same than what we did above for all your accounts. For my lab environment, I just have a second account.

We have to Enable the CLR on the Operations Manager DB on the SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 server. Just copy past the query below.

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1; GO RECONFIGURE; GO sp_configure 'clr enabled', 1; GO RECONFIGURE; GO

Click on Execute and check the result.

Now, in the OperationsDB, search for the table dba.MT_ManagementGroup.

Select Edit Top 200 Rows.

Change the SQLServerName_6B1D1BE8_EBB4_B425_08DC_2385C5930B04 value from your SQL Server 2005 server name to the SQL Server 2008 server name.

Go on your OperationsManagerDW Db, select the table dbo.MemberDatabase.

Select Edit Top 200 Rows.

Change the ServerName value from your SQL Server 2005 name to the SQL Server 2008 name.

Enable the SQL Broker, for that, take a look to Alexander's post : http://scug.be/blogs/scom/archive/2008/11/22/the-sql-server-service-broker-for-the-current-opsmgr-database-is-not-enabled.aspx

RMS : Changing the link to the DB server

We now have to change the SQL server reference on the RMS server to point to the new SQL Server. For that, stop the three System Center Services.

Launch the RegEdit and look for the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager\3.0\Setup

We have to change the DatabaseServerName value to point to our new SQL Server.

Start the 3 Operations Manager Services on the RMS.

In the Event Logs, you must see these events.

Last but not least, the reporting server.

Microsoft released a KB for running Operations Manager 2007 R2 on SQL Server 2008 R2 KB245714. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2425714

Open Computer Management, in the Computer Management MMC snap-in, expand System Tools, expand Local Users and Groups, and then click Groups.

Locate the following group:
SQLServerReportServerUser$<hostname>$MSRS10_50.<SQLInstanceName>

Rename the group to the following by removing "_50" from the group name:
SQLServerReportServerUser$<hostname>$MSRS10.<SQLInstanceName>

Install System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Reporting.






Select only the Reporting Server Part.


Specify the name of you RMS server.


Specify the name of your new SQL Server.


Review the information and click on Next.


Click on Next.


Click on Next.


Click on Install.


Installation in progress.


Installation done.

The Reporting is Back in SCOM Console.

After you install System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Reporting, rename SQLServerReportServerUser$<hostname>$MSSRS10.<SQLInstanceName>


back to original name SQLServerReportServerUser$<hostname>$MSSRS10_50.<SQLInstanceName>

We could now remove the SQL Server 2005 and enjoy our new SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1.

I hope this post will help you to prepare your environment to be ready for SCOM2012. The next post of this series will show you how to migrate your RMS role from Windows Server 2003 SP2 to Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.

Christopher Keyaert – Ops Mgr MVP

I will start this new series of posts about Operations Manager 2012 by explaining how to prepare your SCOM2007 environment to move to SCOM2012. The very first step to do before updating OM itself is to update the existing environment configuration, OS and DB, to be compliant with the OM2012 requirements.

Hopefully for us, you will see that there is several OS and DB configurations supported by bot Operations Manager releases, OM2007 and OM2012.

I invite you to take a look to the information available on Microsoft TechNet :

Operations Manager 2007 R2 Supported Configurations
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb309428.aspx

Operations Manager 2012 Supported Configurations
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh205990.aspx

I did a summary of he OS and DB configurations information in the tables below :

Supported Configuration for OM2007 and OM2012

Management Server supported configuration :

DB Server supported configuration :

As you can see, several configurations are supported by OM2007 and OM2012.

The actions plan – Theory Part

In this posts series, we will work on a really small SCOM 2007 R2 infrastructure. We just have, one DB server and one Root Management Server. Concerning the configuration, both are running Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 X64 and the Operations Manager DBs are hosted on SQL Server 2005 SP3.

As we could conclude from the tables above, our current Operations Manager 2007 infrastructure is not eligible for Operations Manager 2012. We have to update the Operating Systems on both servers and the SQL Server version must be also updated.

Updating the DB server

As we have to move from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1, we will install a brand new server which will run Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1.

We will move the Operations Manager 2007 DBs from the old SQL Server 2005 to the new SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1. Don’t worry  too much about this part, the second post of this series will explain in detail how to move the Operations Manager DBs from SQL 2005 to SQL 2008.

Once done, we will remove the old SQL Server from our infrastruture.

Updating the RMS server

Now that our Operations Manager is running on the new SQL Server 2008, we will update the RMS. Our Root Management Server is currently running Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 X64. To be compliant to SCOM2012, we will have to update it to Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.

For doing this update, we will first install a brand new server running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and install it as a new Management Server in our current SCOM 2007 R2 infrastructure.

Once done, we have to promote our brand new Management Server as Root Management Server of our OM infrastructure. The old RMS will be retrograded to a Management Server role.

and finally, we will remove the Management Server which is running Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 X64.

We have now an environment eligible to Operations Manager 2012.

Conclusion

As we noticed, there is several step to accomplish. This first post was the actions plan, the theory, in my next posts, we will do it in practice.

Stay tune for the next post, in which I will explain in detail how to move the Operations Manager DBs from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1.

Resources

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 download
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/bb738014.aspx

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2012 RC download
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27974

Operations Manager TechNet Forums
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/systemcenteroperationsmanager

Christopher Keyaert – Ops Mgr MVP

As you probably know, in SCOM 2012, there is no RMS role anymore. For keeping backward compatibility with some management packs that required the RMS role, Microsoft created the RMS Emulator role.

By default this role is hosted on the first management server that you installed.

As you can see, SCOM2012.vnext.be server is hosting the RMS Emulator role. This is confirmed by the following PowerShell command : GET-SCOMRMSEmulator command-let.

Now, if you want to move this role to another, simply execute the command : Get-SCOMManagementServer -Name "NewServerThatWillHostRMSEmulatorRole" | Set-SCOMRMSEmulator

You could confirm the move of the RMS Emulator role by retyping the command : GET-SCOMRMSEmulator

Or by looking on in the SCOM Console :

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

Two days ago, I received the Microsoft MVP award for the first time. I’m really happy and proud of this status. I will continue to do my best for sharing my knowledge with the System Center Community.

I would like to thank you all my readers, the persons who follow me on tweeter, SCUG.be Team, Microsoft and of course the System Center Community.

Thank you
Christopher

First day back to work after the Xmas holidays and first error of the year
Below 3 events that I found on a customer server, that was not reporting to Operations Manager anymore.

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    HealthService
Event Category:    Health Service
Event ID:    1220
Date:        1/3/2012
Time:        4:22:36 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    xxxx
Description:
Received configuration cannot be processed. Management group "xxxx". The error is 0x80FF0066(0x80FF0066).

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    HealthService
Event Category:    Health Service
Event ID:    7022
Date:        1/3/2012
Time:        4:22:35 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    xxxx
Description:
The Health Service has downloaded secure configuration for management group xxxx, and processing the configuration failed with error code 0x80FF0066(0x80FF0066).

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    HealthService
Event Category:    Health Service
Event ID:    7004
Date:        1/3/2012
Time:        4:22:35 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    xxxx
Description:
The Health Service received a secure message from management group xxxx which was encrypted using the wrong public key.  This message has been discarded and the public key will be re-published.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

The root cause is a missing registry key on the server. Take a look to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HealthService\Parameters\Management Groups\UCBOM2007\SSDB\References

On the non working server :

On a working server :

When you compare the both servers, you notice that the following registry key is missing :

Just import the missing registry key from the working server to the non working server, and after a few seconds, the event below will appear, problem fixed

Event Type:    Information
Event Source:    OpsMgr Connector
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    21025
Date:        1/3/2012
Time:        4:28:37 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    xxxx
Description:
OpsMgr has received new configuration for management group xxxx from the Configuration Service.  The new state cookie is "24 58 21 8C 7C D4 70 68 B2 87 1A 52 EA BE 7F 66 43 10 FC A7 "

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

If you want more information about this issue, I invite you to read the two followings posts :

http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/2009/02/eventid-7024.html
http://www.systemcentercentral.com/tabid/60/indexId/34058/tag/Forums+Operations_Manager/Default.aspx#vindex56241

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

As you probably already noticed, Microsoft has released some days ago the new New Base OS MP 6.0.6957.0.

This management pack adds a lot of new cool functionalities that Kevin Holman explained on his blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2011/09/30/opsmgr-new-base-os-mp-6-0-6956-0-adds-cluster-shared-volume-monitoring-bpa-and-many-changes.aspx

Now after several days, we’re starting to notice that this new management pack has also some “bugs” :

1: Report execution might fail because of lacking proper security settings on a Stored Procedure;
2: Importing the MP might fail when one has many overrides in place for diskspace. All because of a spelling error;
3: Knowledge is out of date for the new default values in the free space monitors;
4: The BPA monitors can be noisy for Server 2008R2 systems;
5: The “performance by utilization” report section dealing with Logical Disk % Idle time is upside down: the lowest idle time values are on top (100% Idle time is the lowest) and the highest idle time (anything close to 10% or even less) are on the bottom.
6: Impossible to deploy the new reports on SQL2005

Marnix Wolf and Bob Cornelissen started to report these bugs on their own blogs :

http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/2011/10/more-than-one-lets-ask-for-new-improved.html
http://www.bictt.com/blogs/bictt.php/2011/10/04/asking-for-a-quick-fix

Marnix also took the really good initiative to open a bug report on connect :

If you also noticed these bugs, please go to the link below and share your experience :

https://connect.microsoft.com/OpsMgr/feedback/details/692944/new-server-os-mp-version-6-0-6956-0-has-some-bad-bugs

This is not a flame or something like that, just an initiative to get a fixed and working MP very soon with all the great new stuff that was added and without at least most of the issues!

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

Last week, I’ve been called by one of my customer, who told me that they saw a huge performance degradation of their SCOM2007 R2 environment.

This customer has a quite big infrastructure, around 2200 servers, using Nworks MP, NetApp MP, Oracle Enterprise Manager connector, Opalis 6.3, Scheduling maintenance mode ….. This environment was working well since a long time and no major modification has been done so far.

The symptoms :

• Taking more 10 min for connecting to the console.
• Console navigation extremely slow or not responding.
• High CPU usage on the RMS.
• Very high CPU usage on the DB Cluster.
• Connection lost time to time to the DBs

After we checked everything we could, it was time to call the Microsoft Premier Support. After several days of investigation with them, we didn’t identity clearly the root cause. so, It was time to turn off one by one each connectors, each third party software that were connecting to Operations Manager.

It took time but we finally found which application was causing our nightmare since several days…. it was the Maintenance Mode Scheduling Tool.

This tool has been released part of the Administration Resource Kit for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 published by Operations Manager Product Team some months ago. More information available here : http://blogs.technet.com/b/jimmyharper/archive/2011/07/14/maintenance-mode-scheduling-tool.aspx

This is really an excellent tool that provide you an user interface for scheduling maintenance mode of your servers. My customer was using it a lot for disabling the monitoring during batch processing, planned reboot and so on.

Since we turned it off by disabling the rule Maintenance Mode Workflow, the Operations Manager infrastructure went back to business. So I continued to investigate on why this tools was causing all our troubles and I finally found this post : http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2011/06/21/schedule-maintenance-mode-reskit-tool-info.aspx

Best Practices:

• Do not go beyond 20 Jobs scheduled.  Anything over this will start to place too much load on your Root Management Server
• Do not schedule more then 20 items in one Job.  If you need to go over this please create a group and target this.  Note: The MP has a bug that only limits you to select up to six objects.  I have attached an updated MP that corrects this issue below.
• When scheduling a group make sure to select system.group then select the group.  If you select the group itself the tool lists the individual group membership.

My customer had more than 40 Jobs scheduled…. so we were clearly not respecting the best practice and that was explaining why our performance degradation came slowly day per day.

Currently, the only solution that we have for scheduling maintenance mode without using that’s tool is to come back to a PowerShell script that we will run from a windows schedule task.

Resources :
System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Evaluation : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/om/bb498233

Technet Forums : http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/systemcenteroperationsmanager

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

This session will provide you with an overview of the capabilities in OpsMgr 2012. With Operations Manager 2012 public beta, this session will get you started by explaining the new OpsMgr 2012 configuration – without an RMS!! We'll also look at configuring high availability and pooling of management servers, as well as other new concepts to be sure that you are ready to get the most out of the upcoming beta.

Watch the Video : Operations Manager 2012: Overview, Setup and Configuration

Resources :
System Center Operations Manager 2012 Beta : Installation step by step
System Center Operations Manager 2012 Beta : Available for download

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

Once the file downloaded, you have to uncompressed it and let takes a look to the SCOM2012 installer.

Here the first screen of the new System Center Operations Manager 2012 installer.

So let’s go, click on install and we have now the license agreement.

In the following screen, you could choose which components you want to install. In my lab, I’m using a separate SQL Server which is also hosting the SQL Reporting service role. So I will uncheck the box for the Reporting Server component for the moment and we will install it later in this post, directly on the SQL server.

If you keep the box checked without having the Sql Reporting service installed on your current computer, you will be block later in the setup process.

So, we continue the setup process without the Reporting Server component. Here we just have to choose the Installation folder.

The new prerequisites checker is now in progress.

And the result. In my lab, two blocking prerequisites.

First one, I have to install the Report Viewer Controls. This is available as free download at the following url : http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=3841

The second one is the IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility role missing.

Go the Server Manager, add role and now check the IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility.

We recheck the prerequisites, and we just still have two warnings. As I’m using Virtual Machines in a lab environment, we could ignore it and continue the setup process.

Totally new environment, so we create a new management group.

We are now at the SQL part of the setup, I specified my SQL 2008 R2 server name and the setup directly detects that the SQL Server Full-Text-Search is not installed on it.

Go to the SQL Server and run the SQL installer.

In the setup, we just have to add a component to an existing instance and we check the Full-Text-Search component.

Go back to our SCOM2012 installation, the setup is now ok with the configuration of the Operational database and to let us continue.

Now, the parameters for the Warehouse database.

For the web console, we choose the Default Web Site :

Choose your authentication mode for the web console. As it’s for internal use only, the Mixed Authentication is the one that we have to choose.

The credentials part is one of the most interesting and important of the setup. I decided to use one dedicated account as Server Action Account. This account will be use for agent deployment, tasks, …. and a second account for reading and writing into the databases.

We have to create two news users domain.

Adding them as local admin of our future SCOM2012 management server and also as local Admin of the SQL Server.

Now, there is a part on which I’m not really sure. For installing the DB, is the setup will use my current credentials ? Or is the setup will use the service account that we provided. (I will update the post when I ‘ll receive the answer )

In doubt, we go to the SQL server credentials and we add the SCOM2012_DB account as SysAdmin. Like this, the setup process will be able to create the DBs and assign it the rights.

Go back to the SCOM Installation, We just have to provide the credentials of the two accounts that we created.

My lab VMs don’t have internet access, so I’m not able to participate to the Customer Experience Improvement Program, but if you could, please do it.

SCOM2012 seems to be part now of the Microsoft Update program. Option that I will test when I will have a lab with internet access.

The installation Summary where we could review all the information we provided.

Installation in progress……

Woua, setup completed

I opened the new SCOM2012 console… and first surprise…. I’ve got already some alerts

So, It’s seems that the Action Account that we provided during needs to have Read/Write to the WareHouse Db ? What for ? As we already provided a separate service account for the DBs access. Personally, I think that this is a little bug of this first beta release, I will retrieve it to the Microsoft Connect Site.

Ok, but how to solve this ? Simply go to the SQL server, in the credentials part. We open the properties of the Action Account (SCOM2012_AA) and in the User Mapping part, we set the same rights than the SCOM2012_DB account has on the OperationsManagerDW database.

As we already are in the SQL Studio, we could also remove the SysAdmin right that we granted to the SCOM2012_DB account during the setup process. This is not needed anymore.

Once done, all the alerts disappeared

Ok, so now, what’s about the reporting ? Go to the SQL server where we have the Sql Reporting Services installed and Run the SCOM2012 Setup, click on Install.

Select only the Reporting Server component.

Installation folder location.

Prerequisites checker.

We have to specify one management server of our SCOM2012 infrastructure.

We are now able to select the SQL Server instance for reporting services.

Red Cross, this is not good

Hopefully, Microsoft did a great work on the SCOM2012 installer, and simply by clicking on the Red Cross, we have the reason of the failure.

We simply have to start the SQL Server Agent service and to set it to Automatically.

We specify the DB reader account that we already used before.

If you server has internet access, please choose Yes.

As I said before, my lab servers don’t have internet access, so I will handle the updates manually.

The installation Summary report.

Go for the installation.

Once done, we’re now able to generate reports in your all new SCOM 2012 infrastructure.

Stay tune for next posts about SCOM2012

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

Here’s what’s new

• Rich application performance monitoring and diagnostics for .NET applications plus JEE application health monitoring
• Support for monitoring heterogeneous environments
• Integrated network device monitoring and alerts
• Simplified management infrastructure (no more RMS)
• Common console across datacenter and clouds with customizable dashboards

Microsoft Download link : DOWNLOAD
Microsoft Official announcement : Read it

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc