On August 28, this blog passed the 200,000 mark for page views since its creation! Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the blog via articles, comments, or questions. We are glad this blog serves a useful purpose :). Thank you also to everyone who has sent words of thanks and encouragement regarding System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Unleashed. Authoring books is a lot of work, but hearing how it has helped so many makes that all worthwhile!

- Kerrie, Cameron, John, and Andy   8/28/08

This is the final of a five part series discussing lessons learned through installing System Center Operations Manager onto a fully Windows 2008 environment (DC, RMS, SQL, and Reporting servers). You can see previous posts in this series at:

• http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!695.entry  OpsMgr by Example - Server 2008 POC – Part 1 (Domain Controller)
• http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!710.entry  OpsMgr by Example - Server 2008 POC - Part 2 (Database Server)
• http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!719.entry  OpsMgr by Example - Server 2008 POC - Part 3 (Root Management Server)
• http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!728.entry  OpsMgr by Example - Server 2008 POC – Part 4 (Data Warehouse Server) 

At this time, we have successfully completed all of the required pieces of the environment other than the reporting components. This post discusses installing the Reporting Server on Windows Server 2008. The Reporting Server installation is definitely the most error-prone part of the entire OpsMgr installation, be it on Windows 2003 or Windows 2008.

Hotfixes for OpsMgr 2007 – Windows 2008 Servers with Agents

Each of the servers in this configuration needed to have three hotfixes applied to them:

• 951327
• 952664
• 953290

After applying these hotfixes, you will need to reboot the system.

OpsMgr Prerequisites

The .NET Framework 3.0 components are not installed by default. You can install these in the Server Manager by adding the Application Server role.

Prior to installing the reporting components for Operations Manager, follow the steps identified in KB article 938245 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938245/) to configure reporting services on Windows Server 2008.

Do not attempt to install the reporting components on a system until you can successfully browse to both http://localhost/reports and http://localhost/reportserver on the reporting server. Configuration is required within the Reporting Services Configuration. Browsing of either of the above URL’s will not work until the Reporting Services Configuration is working, we display a functional example below. During our configurations we needed to create a new Report Server Virtual Directory, configure the Database Setup section, and perform an IISReset of the website to get it to a green state for the first six items, as shown in this screenshot:

A successful browse of http://localhost/reports and http://localhost/reportserver will look like this:

Do not pass go, do not collect $200/We spent several hours trying to resolve issues that were actually related to configurations necessary for SQL 2005 Reporting Services to work on Windows Server 2008. Installing the reporting components on a system that does not already have functional reporting services will just make the situation worse.

The prerequisites for the Reporting Server component include SQL Server 2005 with Reporting Services (which in turn requires the Web role, etc) with SQL 2005 Service Pack 2 applied.

OpsMgr Reporting Server installation

The installation of Operations Manager’s Reporting Server worked just the same as on a Windows 2003 platform (once the prerequisites had been configured correctly).

What’s Next?

• Validate reporting functionality both from the existence of the reports and the ability to get valid data from the reports (the Management Pack ODR report is a simple one to validate this with).
• Deploy Operations Manager agents into the environment.
• Integrate additional management packs.
• Wait on official support for Windows Server 2008 as a platform for all of the Operations Manager components.

Lessons Learned

• It is possible you will get an error "Unable to connect to the remote server" when browsing to http://localhost/reports or http://<servername>/reports. For steps on how to address this, check out http://r0nwilliams.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!62A0019E9E556103!190.entry.
• Without question, getting SQL 2005 Reporting Services working on Windows 2008 was the most complex piece of the installation. Focus on getting a functional SQL Reporting server before continuing (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938245/ for details).

This is the fourth of a five part series discussing lessons learned through installing System Center Operations Manager onto a fully Windows 2008 environment (DC, RMS, SQL, and Reporting servers). You can see previous posts in this series at:

• http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!695.entry  OpsMgr by Example - Server 2008 POC – Part 1 (Domain Controller)
• http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!710.entry  OpsMgr by Example - Server 2008 POC - Part 2 (Database Server)
• http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!719.entry  OpsMgr by Example - Server 2008 POC - Part 3 (Root Management Server)

We previously installed and configured the Operations Manager database and the Root Management Server (see parts 2-3 of this series). The next step is installing the Data Warehouse server, followed in Part 5 by the series, which discusses the most difficult of the steps – the reporting server installation.

Hotfixes for OpsMgr 20007 – Windows 2008 Servers with Agents

Each of the servers in this configuration needed to have three hotfixes applied to them:

• 951327
• 952664
• 953290

After applying these hotfixes, you will need to reboot the system.

OpsMgr Prerequisites

The prerequisites were checked for the Data Warehouse in part 2 of this article (http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!710.entry), since the same server is hosting both the Operations database and the Data Warehouse components in this environment.

OpsMgr Data Warehouse installation

The installation of Operations Manager’s Data Warehouse worked the same as on a Windows 2003 platform.

Firewall change

The SQL firewall change discussed in part 2 of this series (http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!710.entry) provides the documentation for the firewall rule change required to allow connectivity to the SQL Server.

Lessons Learned

There were no surprises when installing the Data Warehouse server on Windows Server 2008.

In June 2007, we posted OpsMgr by Example: Configuring Baselines (http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!183.entry), which discussed working with the baselines in the Exchange 2003 management pack for OpsMgr 2007.

Microsoft released the most recent update to the Exchange 2003 management pack 8/21/08, available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9FF454F4-6D34-4FB9-9E0B-F5B68C6EDC4F&amp;displaylang=en&displaylang=en. This newest version of the MP lowers the sensitivity of Self Tuning Threshold (STT) rules and monitors, increasing the threshold at which the monitors alert.

In addition, the following Self Tuning Threshold monitors were disabled and replaced with static "consecutive samples over threshold" monitors:

• MSEchangeIS\RPC Averaged Latency
• MSExchangeIS Mailbox\Send Queue Size
• SMTP Server\Remote Retry Queue Length
• SMTP Server\Local Queue Length
• SMTP NTFS Store Driver\Messages in the queue directory
• MSExchangeIS Transport Driver\TempTable Current
• SMTP Server\Remote Queue Length

For additional information, check the "How to Configure Self Tuning Threshold Monitors" section of the management pack guide, OM2007_MP_ExSrvr2003.doc. This section describes how the STTs work.

We see this change in the Exchange 2003 management pack as a logical step forward, and were glad that community sites like this one are having an impact in the product evolution.

This is the third of a five part series discussing lessons learned through installing System Center Operations Manager onto a fully Windows 2008 environment (DC, RMS, SQL, and Reporting servers). In this post, we will install and configure the Operations Manager Root Management Server (RMS), as we now have a functional Windows 2008 SQL Server (see Part 2 of this series at http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!710.entry).

Hotfixes for OpsMgr 20007 – Windows 2008 Servers with Agents

Each of the servers in this configuration needed to have three hotfixes applied to them:

• 951327
• 952664
• 953290

After applying these hotfixes, you will need to reboot the system.

Additional hotfixes are required that are specific to the servers with installed OpsMgr components. These include:

• 954049
• 951380

OpsMgr Prerequisites

There are several prerequisites for installation of the Root Management Server (plus the console and the web console).

• With Windows 2008, we need to add the Web Server role (including ASP.net, windows authentication, IIS 6.0 management compatibility and ASP). For background on this, we worked from the article on how to install and configure reporting services on Windows Server 2008 available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb839480.aspx.
• Using the Application Server role adds the .Net framework components.
• We ended up installing the Windows PowerShell via a command line (ServerManagerCmd –i Powershell).

OpsMgr RMS, Web Console, Console Install

Installing the Operations Manager’s RMS, Operations Console and Web Console components worked just the same as on a Windows 2003 platform. The only item to note is if the RMS cannot contact the OpsMgr database server, it will display this error:

Check out the video showing the installation steps:

Firewall Change

The RMS installation made the required changes for the Windows 2008 firewall. These included the following ports:

• Health Service (5723)
• SDK (5724)
• Web Console (51908)Application Error Monitoring (51906)
• Connector Framework (51905)
• Customer Experience Improvement Program (51907)

Lessons Learned

• Windows Server 2008 now installs as roles several of the prerequisite components required for OpsMgr.
• The Windows 2008 firewall creates the appropriate firewall rules to allow OpsMgr to function on the system.

UPDATE via Comments:

Another point to keep in mind with Windows 2008 and OpsMgr is that UAC can cause issues with console logon. It might be worth updating this info and include this additional link http://cameronfuller.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!A231E4EB0417CB76!1557.entry .  That is a great point, thanks for mentioning it!

A while back, Kerrie wrote a post about downtime and managing IT Operations at http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20187. As a follow-up to that, she just participated in a blog interview with StackSafe about IT Operations and how Operations Manager can help you in managing your downtime (and uptime!). Check it out at http://www.stacksafe.com/blog/kerrie-meyler-a-microsoft-mom-mvp-dishes-about-it-operations/08/19/2008/.

This is the second of a five part series discussing lessons learned when installing System Center Operations Manager onto a fully Windows 2008 environment (DC, RMS, SQL, and Reporting servers). Since we now have a functional Windows 2008 domain controller (see Part 1 of this series at http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!695.entry), our next step is installing and configuring the Operations Manager database server.

SQL Installation

Installation prerequisites for the Operations Manager database components included first performing a standard SQL 2005 installation, and then installing SQL 2005 SP2. 

Windows Server 2008 adds the Web Server as a role. If you have not the Web Server and the asp.net option, this shows as a warning during the SQL Server installation. Since this server will not provide reporting services or other web based features, we can ignore those warnings during our installation process. We installed SQL Server using default configurations, with the exception of choosing a domain user account to be the SQL Server service account.

Hotfixes for OpsMgr 20007 – Windows 2008 Servers with Agents

Each of the servers in this configuration needed to have three hotfixes applied:

• 951327
• 952664
• 953290

After applying these hotfixes, you will need to reboot the system.

Additional OpsMgr Prerequisites

The database server for this environment will host both the Operations Manager database and the Data Warehouse functions. After installing SQL 2005 and patching it with SQL 2005 SP2, a prerequisites check indicated the server was ready for installing both the Operational Database and Data Warehouse OpsMgr components.

The next step was installation of the Operations Manager database. We used the default configurations, as shown in the video below.

Firewall change

To allow the SQL Server to communicate on the default port we need to create a new inbound rule to allow SQL Server port TCP port 1433. This assumes of course that you are using the default port, if you use a different port (such as installing a second instance), you will need to change the firewall to allow that port to communicate.

After installing this rule, log into another system in your environment and validate that telnet can connect to the SQL server on port 1433. Windows Server 2008 does not install the telnet client by default in Windows Server 2008, so you must add that feature prior to testing the ability to connect to the SQL Server.

Lessons Learned

Installing the Operations Manager database components is straightforward as long as you remember to install the appropriate hotfixes and create a firewall rule to allow inbound communication to port 1433.

Some great blogs have been covering information on Windows 2008. Definitely look into:

• http://blogs.technet.com/kevinholman/archive/2008/08/05/my-experience-installing-a-scom-management-server-on-windows-server-2008.aspx - a great write-up on installing OpsMgr on Windows Server 2008
• http://blogs.technet.com/kevinholman/archive/2008/07/29/how-do-i-know-if-i-have-all-the-required-hotfixes-on-windows-server-2008-to-be-supported-for-a-opsmgr-agent.aspx - write-up on required hotfixes

Page 390 of System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed discusses modifying the Registry settings for the EnableADIntegration key on the RMS and management servers. This information was based on our own experiences and testing during earlier versions of OpsMgr 2007, as well as recommendations from Microsoft. Microsoft has since changed the behavior such that this Registry key hack is no longer recommended, and can actually cause problems.

We will be changing the information in the next printing of the book and the errata to say:

To complete the process of activating OpsMgr integration with AD, validate that the registry key HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HealthService\Parameters\ConnectionManager\EnableADIntegration is set to 0.This is the default setting.

There has been some confusion regarding how to configure this setting on management servers. However, do not change it to 1; the value should actually be the default configuration of 0. Changing the value to 1 is not required and actually may cause issues on the management servers.

This is the first of a five part series that discusses lessons learned when installing System Center Operations Manager in a Windows 2008 environment. Windows Server 2008 introduces some features that impact how applications are deployed and configured. Specific areas that affect application deployment and configuration are server roles and the Windows 2008 firewall.

Windows 2008 Server Roles

Windows 2008 uses server roles to simplify the process of installing and to minimize the maintenance and potential security vulnerabilities of the system. Windows 2008 Server initially installs without activating any of these server roles. Examples of server roles include:

• Active Directory Certificate Services
• Active Directory Domain Services
• Active Directory Federation Services
• Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services
• Active Directory Right Management Services
• Application Server
• DHCP Server
• DNS Server
• Fax Server
• File Services
• Hyper-V (64-bit OS only)
• Network Policy and Access Services
• Print Services
• Terminal Services
• UDDI Services
• Web Services
• Windows Deployment Services

The Windows 2008 Firewall

The Windows 2008 firewall, by default, is active on Server 2008. As you install various roles, the Operating System adapts the firewall rules so that the new roles will function. As an example, port 80 is opened inbound to the server if web services are activated.

Since Windows 2008 does not define SQL Server as a server role, firewall rules are not automatically configured when you install SQL Server. http://cameronfuller.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!A231E4EB0417CB76!1427.entry includes a discussion on how SQL Server needs to have firewall rules changed so the configuration manager can access the SQL Server databases.

Server Roles for our OpsMgr Configuration

The servers involved in the configuration we will be discussing in this series include a domain controller, database server, Root Management Server (RMS), data warehouse, and reporting server. We will discuss them in the following order:

• OpsMgr by Example: Server 2008 POC – Part 1 (Domain Controller)
• OpsMgr by Example: Server 2008 POC – Part 2 (DB)
• OpsMgr by Example: Server 2008 POC – Part 3 (RMS)
• OpsMgr by Example: Server 2008 POC – Part 4 (DW)
• OpsMgr by Example: Server 2008 POC – Part 5 (Reporting)

Installing the Domain Controller

The first step to build our Windows 2008 environment was installing a Windows 2008 domain controller using default configurations. Each server in our configuration was installed within Windows 2008 Hyper-V (a good discussion on installation of Hyper-V is available as part of http://cameronfuller.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!A231E4EB0417CB76!1273.entry, look at the first step). The following video shows the steps involved in the installation of a new domain controller into a new forest/new domain.

Once the domain controller reboots, validate that Active Directory Users and Computers shows the new DC appearing in the Domain Controllers container. DNS should also be validated by verifying the DNS Server role is installed and the forward lookup zone is created correctly.

With the domain controller installed and DNS functional, we can begin installing prerequisites on the various Operations Manager components. The first step in this process is the Operations Manager database, discussed in part 2 of this series.

Lessons Learned

Windows Server 2008 impacts how applications are installed and configured – through the use of server roles, and through configuration changes required to the Windows 2008 firewall.