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This is the first comprehensive Operations Manager 2012 technical resource for every IT implementer and administrator. Building on their bestselling OpsMgr 2007 book, three Microsoft System Center Cloud and Data Center Management MVPs thoroughly illuminate major improvements in Microsoft’s newest version–including new enhancements just added in Service Pack 1.
You’ll find all the information you need to efficiently manage cloud and datacenter applications and services in even the most complex environment. The authors provide up-to-date best practices for planning, installation, migration, configuration, administration, security, compliance, dashboards, forecasting, backup/recovery, management packs, monitoring including .NET monitoring, PowerShell automation, and much more.
Drawing on decades of enterprise and service provider experience, they also offer indispensable insights for integrating with your existing Microsoft and third-party infrastructure.
Detailed information on how to...
Download free online content for System Center 2012 Operations Manager Unleashed here
Download Appendixes D and E here.
What's New in System Center 2012 Operations Manager
Download the sample pages (includes Chapter 2 and Index)
Introduction 1
Fast Track: A Quick Look at What's New 2
Part I: Operations Management Overview and Concepts 2
Part II: Planning and Installation 3
Part III: Moving Toward Application-Centered Management 3
Part IV: Administering System Center 2012 Operations Manager 4
Part V: Service-Oriented Monitoring 4
Part VI: Beyond Operations Manager 5
Part VII: Appendixes 6
Disclaimers and Fine Print 6
Part I Operations Management Overview and Concepts 7
1 Operations Management Basics 9
Ten Reasons to Use Operations Manager 10
The Problem with Today's Systems 11
Why Do Systems Go Down? 12
No System Is an Island 13
Lack of Notification 14
Lack of Historical Information 15
Lack of Expertise 15
Lack of Methodology 16
Missing Information 16
False Alarms 17
Proliferation of Virtualization and Cloud Computing 17
The Bottom Line 17
Operations Management Defined 18
Microsoft's Strategy for Operations Management 20
Microsoft's Dynamic Systems Initiative 21
IT Infrastructure Library and Microsoft Operations Framework 24
ISO 20000 30
Optimizing Your Infrastructure 30
Managing System Health 34
Bridging the Operations Management Gap 35
Connecting Systems. 37
Notification: Errors and Availability 38
Historical Information 43
Built-in Expertise 45
Using a Methodology 47
Catching Missed Information 48
Reducing False Alarms 48
Managing Virtualization and the Cloud 49
Overview of Microsoft System Center 51
Reporting in System Center 52
Service Management 53
Protecting Data 53
Virtual Machine Management 54
Deploy and Manage in the Cloud 55
Orchestration and Automation 55
Cloud-Based Configuration Monitoring 55
Configuration Management. 55
Endpoint Protection 56
The Value Proposition of Operations Manager 56
Summary 57
2 What's New in System Center 2012 Operations Manager 59
The History of Operations Manager 59
The Early Years: MOM 2000 and MOM 2005 59
Operations Manager 2007 60
Operations Manager 2007 R2 and Beyond 61
Introducing System Center 2012 Operations Manager 62
Supported Configurations 64
Root Management Server and Root Management
Server Emulator 65
High Availability with Resource Pools 67
Network Monitoring Enhancements 70
Monitoring .NET Applications 71
Using PowerShell 72
Saving Overrides 72
Using the Console 73
Web Console Updates 73
Maintenance Mode on Management Servers 75
Dashboards 75
What's New in Security 75
Connector Functionality Replaced by System Center 2012
Orchestrator 76
Changes in Capacity 76
Terminology and Concepts 77
AEM: Capturing Application Crash Information 77
Operations Manager Agent 77
Audit Collection 77
Classes: Templates for Objects 77
Features Versus Components 77
Gateways 78
Heartbeats: Checking the Health of the Agent 78
Management Group 78
Management Pack 78
Management Server 79
Models 79
Resource Pool 79
RMS Emulator 79
Run As Account 79
Run As Profile 79
User Role 80
Summary 80
3 Looking Inside OpsMgr 81
Architectural Overview 82
System Center 2012 Integration 82
Management Group Defined 85
Server Features 87
Windows Services 95
System Center Management Service 96
System Center Data Access Service 97
System Center Management Configuration Service 97
OpsMgrVSSWriter Service 97
System Center Audit Forwarding Service 97
Audit Collection Service Collector Service 98
Application Performance Monitoring Service. 98
OpsMgr Communications Channels 98
How Does OpsMgr Do It? 101
Management Group Mechanics 101
Service Modeling 103
How Health Models Work 107
About State-Based Monitoring 109
Management Pack Schema 109
Populating the Health Model with Monitors 112
How Rules Differ from Monitors 119
OpsMgr as a Workflow Engine 120
Presentation Layer Scenarios 126
Using the Operations Console 127
Improvements to the Web Console 129
Portals into APM 129
OpsMgr Reporting 131
PowerShell as a Presentation Layer 131
Notification Channels 132
Fast Track 133
Summary 134
Part II Planning and Installation 135
4 Planning an Operations Manager Deployment 137
Envisioning Operations Manager 139
Understanding History, Requirements, and Goals 139
Vision 141
Scope 141
Risks 141
Planning Operations Manager 142
Designing 142
Planning for Licensing 171
Creating the Plan 175
Sample Designs 179
All-In-One Operations Manager 179
Small Organization 179
Midsized Organization 182
Geographically Dispersed Organization 183
Fast Track 185
Summary 186
5 Installing System Center 2012 Operations Manager 187
Planning Your Implementation 188
Installation Prerequisites. 189
Windows Domain Prerequisites 190
Windows Security Accounts 190
Software Requirements 191
Recommended Order of Installation 196
Single Server Deployment 197
Single Server Deployment: High-level Order of Installation 197
Two Server Deployment 198
Multiple Server Deployment 199
SQL Server 200
First Management Server 200
Additional Management Servers and Consoles 212
Reporting Server 217
Web Console 223
Gateway Server 230
Installing Audit Collection Services 235
Installing ACS on a Secondary Management Server 236
Deploying ACS Reporting to an SSRS Instance 239
Installing Agents on Servers 241
Discovering Windows Computers in a Trusted Domain 241
Manually Installing Agent in an Untrusted Domain or Workgroup 243
Configuring ACS Forwarder for Certificate Operation 246
Enabling ACS Forwarders. 246
Check Online for Update Rollups 247
Importing Windows Server Management Packs 247
Removing OpsMgr 248
Troubleshooting Your Installation 248
Summary 249
6 Upgrading to System Center 2012 Operations Manager 251
Planning Your Upgrade 251
Update OpsMgr 2007 R2 to Cumulative Update 4 or Later 251
Strategic Upgrade Decisions 252
In-Place Upgrade Versus Multi-Homed Migration 254
RMS and Gateway Upgrade Challenges 255
RMS Strategies 256
Gateway Strategies 257
Using the Upgrade Helper Management Pack 258
Performing an In-Place Upgrade 261
Upgrading the Single Server Management Group 262
Upgrading the Distributed Management Group 271
Upgrading from a Secondary Management Server 289
Performing a Multi-Homed Upgrade 297
Deploy OpsMgr 2012 Management Group 298
Multi-Home All Agents 299
Retire the OpsMgr 2007 R2 Management Group 302
Case Studies 304
Small Network: In-place OS, SQL Upgrades 304
Medium Enterprise: Preserve Database 306
Large Enterprise: Multi-Home Strategy 310
Summary 312
Part III Moving Toward Application-Centered Management 313
7 Configuring and Using System Center 2012 Operations Manager 315
Introducing the Operations Console 315
Connecting to the Operations Console 316
Confirming Management Group Health 319
A Quick Tour of the Operations Console 320
Configuring the Operations Console 323
Using the Monitoring Pane 324
Using the Authoring Pane 342
About the Reporting Pane 352
Administration Pane 355
My Workspace 368
Using Operations Manager: Beyond the Consoles 370
Using the Operations Console 371
Adding Management Packs 371
Deploying Agents 372
Fast Track 372
Summary 373
8 Installing and Configuring Agents 375
Understanding Core Concepts 375
How Discovery Works 376
Scheduling Discovery 378
Approval Process 378
Agent-Managed Systems 379
Agentless Managed Systems 382
Systems in an Unknown State 384
Network Devices 384
UNIX/Linux Systems 384
Discovering and Deploying Agents 384
Agent Supported Platforms 385
Agent Requirements 387
Management Pack Requirements for Operating System
Monitoring 388
Using the Discovery Wizard 389
Manual Agent Installation 398
Active Directory Integration 401
Group Policy Deployment 406
Configuration Manager Agent Deployment 408
Image-Based Deployment 410
OpsMgr Agent Port Requirements 411
Converting Agentless-Managed to Agent-Managed 411
Coexisting OpsMgr Agents with MOM 2005 412
Multi-Homed Agents 412
Managing Agents 413
Validating Agent Functionality 413
Converting Manually Installed Agents and Applying
Update Rollups 414
Event Log Sizes and Configurations 415
Pending Actions 416
Agent Settings 416
Agent Failover 416
Agent Internals 417
Removing or Renaming Agents 418
New User Interface on Windows Agents 419
AEM Versus Agent-Monitored and Agentless Monitoring. 420
Troubleshooting Tips 420
Troubleshooting Windows Agents 420
Troubleshooting UNIX/Linux Agents. 420
Fast Track 421
Summary 421
9 Complex Configurations 423
Implementing High Availability 424
Microsoft Failover Clustering for SQL Server 426
Using Log Shipping 429
Network Load Balancing the Data Access Service 432
Network Load Balancing the Web Console. 433
ACS High Availability 433
High Availability with Resource Pools 436
Modifying the Default Resource Pools Membership Behavior 436
About Gateway Server Resource Pools and Redundancy 439
Creating Resource Pools 441
Managing the RMS Emulator Role 442
Confirming the RMS Emulator Role 442
Moving the RMS Emulator Role 443
Removing the RMS Emulator Role 444
WAN Links and Gateways 445
Multi-Homing Agents 447
Connected Management Groups 450
Designing for Distributed Environments 451
High-Level Steps 451
Potential Pitfalls 453
Fast Track 454
Summary 454
10 Security and Compliance 455
Securing Operations Manager 455
About Role-Based Security 456
Operations on the Data Access Service 457
User Roles and Profiles 459
Run As Profiles and Run As Accounts 469
Required Accounts 473
Database Security. 483
Mutual Authentication 484
Agent Proxying 488
Using SSL to Connect to a Reporting Server 489
Using the Health Service Lockdown Tool 489
About Cross Platform Security 490
Firewall Considerations and Communications Security 491
Using Audit Collection Services 497
Planning for ACS 499
Deploying ACS 508
Administering ACS 512
Fast Track 525
Summary 525
11 Dashboards, Trending, and Forecasting 527
Built-in Dashboard Functionality 527
Using Templates 529
Using the Summary Dashboard 530
Using the Service Level Dashboard 531
Using Widgets 532
Using Widgets in SharePoint 538
What Built-in Dashboard Functionality Does Not Do 539
Prebuilt Dashboards 539
Network Monitoring Dashboards 539
Operations Manager Dashboards 541
APM Dashboards 544
Additional Dashboard Options 545
Visio Integration 546
Savision Live Maps 547
Silect Software 549
Bay Dynamics 549
InFront Consulting System Center Dashboard 549
Dundas Dashboards 549
SharePoint 2007 Dashboards 550
SQL Queries 551
Prebuilt Gadgets 551
Custom Gadgets 551
PerformancePoint 552
Power View 553
Reports, Trending, Forecasting, and Capacity Planning 553
Reporting in OpsMgr 554
Existing Reports and Trending 557
Forecasting and Capacity Planning with OpsMgr 560
Fast Track 562
Additional Reference Links 562
Summary 563
Part IV Administering System Center 2012 Operations Manager 565
12 Backup and Recovery 567
Roles of Key OpsMgr Files and Databases 568
Establishing a Backup Schedule 570
Database Grooming and Maintenance 572
Grooming the Operational Database 572
Grooming the Data Warehouse Database 573
Grooming the Audit Database 582
Grooming APM Data 582
Database Maintenance 585
Backing Up and Restoring the SQL Server Databases 589
Operations Manager Database Backups 590
Performing Operations Manager Database Restores 595
Moving the OpsMgr Databases to a Different Database Server 597
Backing Up Key Files 602
Backing Up Management Packs 603
Backing Up Reports 607
Backing Up SSRS Encryption Keys 609
Backing Up the IIS Metabase 610
Using Data Protection Manager 611
Installing DPM Agents on Untrusted Computers 611
Installing DPM Agents on Trusted Computers 612
Creating a DPM Protection Group for OpsMgr 613
Monitoring the DPM Status of the OpsMgr Protection Group 614
OpsMgr Recovery Scenarios Using DPM 615
Disaster Recovery Planning 617
Recovering from a Total Loss 617
Using Log Shipping 618
Other Approaches for Database Disaster Recovery 619
Recovering from a Downed Management Server 620
Fast Track 621
Summary 621
13 Administering Management Packs 623
Management Packs Defined 623
Model-Based Management 624
Management Pack Structure and Functionality 624
About Objects 628
Performing Diagnostics and Recovery 629
About Workflows 630
Understanding Data Types 633
Management Pack Elements. 633
ClassType 634
RelationshipType 635
DataType 635
SchemaType 635
Module Types 635
UnitMonitorType 636
Understanding Overrides 636
Management Pack Templates 640
Presentation Types 641
ConsoleTask 641
View 641
Folder 641
Report 642
ReportParameterControl 642
Run As Profiles 642
Sealing Management Packs 642
Finding Management Pack Information 644
Management Pack Updates 644
Determining Management Pack Versions 645
Checking the Version of an Installed Management Pack 646
Importing Management Packs through the Operations
Console 647
Management Pack Bundles 649
Planning for Deployment 650
Determine an Order to Implement Management Packs 650
Initial Tuning: Tuning by Function 651
Troubleshooting Recap 658
Exporting Management Packs 659
Importing Management Packs. 661
Managing Management Packs 666
System Center Internal Library 666
System Center Core Monitoring Agent Management 666
Viewing Management Pack Content and Overrides 667
Listing All Management Packs Associated with a Server 667
Fast Track 667
Summary 668
14 Monitoring with System Center 2012 Operations Manager 669
The Importance of Monitoring 670
About Rules 671
Alert-Generating Rules 672
Collection Rules 678
Using Monitors 686
Unit Monitors 687
Dependency Rollup and Aggregate Rollup Monitors 706
About Alerts 706
Generating Alerts 708
The Life Cycle of an Alert 709
Adding Knowledge 724
Using Company Knowledge 725
Integration with