In this blog post I'll walk through the steps involved to get the new Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 BETA installed. System Center Orchestrator 2012 (also known as SCO or SCORCH) is the new name for the market leader 'Automation and Runbook' application Opalis that Microsoft aquired in late 2009.
Taken from the Microsoft System Center Blog:
System Center Orchestrator 2012 delivers 3 core benefits to customers:
- Integration – Optimize and Extend your existing Investments
- Orchestration – Deliver Flexible and Reliable Services
- Automation – Lower Costs and Improve Predictability
The steps in this post are based on the BETA edition, although the installation steps will be the same for the final RTM version.
To start with, ensure you have a virtual or physical machine that meets the following pre-requisites:
Resources:
- 1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM or above (2 GB recommended)
- 200 megabyte (MB) of available hard disk space
- Dual-core CPU or better
Software:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
- Web Server Role (IIS) installed
- .Net Framework 4
- Sliverlight 4 (for the Orchestration Console)
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
You can download the BETA from the link below:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26503
Once you have downloaded the BETA to a location on the C drive of your new Windows Server 2008 R2 machine, right mouse click on the 'SystemCenterOrchestrator2012Beta.exe' installer and select 'Run As Administrator' to begin the process.
Choose a directory to extract the files to and select 'OK'
Now Right Mouse Click on the 'SetupSCO.exe' installer and select 'Run As Administrator' to begin the installation wizard
You should now see the 'System Center Orchestrator 2012 Setup' window and you will be presented with a number of installation options. SCORCH supports either a fully co-located installation of all the roles onto the same server or it also supports standalone installation of each component onto different servers if you so wish.
We're going to go for the co-located installation and install all of the components onto the one virtual machine, so click on the 'Install Orchestrator' option to continue
The installer will now check to see if your machine has met the pre-requisites and will prompt you if something needs to be installed beforehand - see the screen below
Once the pre-requisites have been met, the 'System Center Orchestrator 2012 Setup' wizard will continue. Accept the licence agreement from the screen below and click on 'Next'
From the 'Select Features to Install' screen, ensure that the feature(s) you want are selected and then click 'Next' to move on
Based on the features that you have selected to install, the Pre-Requisite checker will again run and check the requirements for these features against the computer you are installing onto. In the screen below,I haven't installed the .Net Framework 4.0 so this has been highlighted. It does provide a nice little link for me though to go and download the .Net Framework 4.0 which is a handy tip!
Once you have downloaded and installed the pre-requisites, click on the 'Verify Prerequisites Again' button and the installer should move on to the next step
In the next step, you need to create a user account within your Active Directory that will be used to run Runbooks and access remote system resources. This account must have at least local administrative privileges on the computer you are installing SCORCH onto along with 'Log on as a service' rights enabled too.
Once you have created the new account with the relevant administrative and logon as a service peissions on the SCORCH computer, click on the 'Test' button and the installer should confirm if all is in place to continue on. When you see the 'Credentials Accepted' message, then click 'Next'
At this point we are now ready to create the new Orchestrator SQL database and there are a couple of ways to do this. I am installing SCORCH into its own SQL instance on a remote SQL server and have already configured this before I have begun the SCORCH installation process.
Important Note: As was the case with SCOM, System Center Orchestrator 2012 needs an SQL collation setting of - SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. If this collation setting is not configured, you WILL run into problems down the line with an issue relating to 'Send Email Activity not storing data'
The screenshot below shows the SQL collation setting being configured at the time of the SQL Instance installation
As I've installed a separate SQL instance for my SCORCH installation, I've made my SCORCH service account (srv_scorch) a member of the 'Sys Admin' role for this particular instance in SQL. The SCORCH service account needs to have at least 'db_owner' permissions on either the SQL instance or a pre-created empty SQL database named 'Orchestrator' before you continue with the SCORCH installer.
From the screen below, type in the SQL server name and instance (if applicable) and select either a new or existing database depending on your preferences, then click 'Next'
From the next screen, configure the Orchestrator management group and whether or not you want to grant remote access for the Runbook Designer (this option will have to be selected from a computer other than the Management Server however). Click 'Next' to continue
Leave the ports at their default values or change them to whatever you need to and then click 'Next' to continue on
Choose either the default installation path for SCORCH or browse to a different location and then click 'Next'
Confirm you are happy with the installation summary or if you need to change anything simply click on the handy 'Change' link option beside each section to go back directly to make your changes. Click 'Next' once you're happy to continue
Finally, once the installation is finished, you should see the screen below stating that 'Setup completed successfully'.
Click on 'Close' from the screen above and the new 'System Center Orchestrator Runbook Designer' window will now open confirming that you have installed SCORCH correctly!
You can also now open the 'System Center Orchestrator Deployment Manager' from the 'Start Menu' as below
The screen below shows the new System Center Orchestrator Web Console - accessible from the port number that you specified during installation
Now to see how hard I can push the integration of SCORCH with the other System Center products!
