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  • Book Overview & Buying Microsoft System Center 2016 Orchestrator Cookbook
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Microsoft System Center 2016 Orchestrator Cookbook

Microsoft System Center 2016 Orchestrator Cookbook

By : Beaumont, Samuel Erskine (EUR), Andreas Baumgarten, Seidl
5 (1)
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Microsoft System Center 2016 Orchestrator Cookbook

Microsoft System Center 2016 Orchestrator Cookbook

5 (1)
By: Beaumont, Samuel Erskine (EUR), Andreas Baumgarten, Seidl
Buy this Book

Overview of this book

With Microsoft System Center 2016 Orchestrator Cookbook, you will start by learning how to efficiently install and secure System Center Orchestrator. You will then learn how you can create configuration files for SCO 2016. After initial installation and configuration, you will soon be planning and creating functional and fault-tolerant System Center runbooks to automate daily tasks and routine operations. Next you will delve into runbooks; you will learn how to create powerful and advanced runbooks such as Building your Runbook without a Dead End. You will also learn to create simple and advanced runbooks for your daily tasks. Towards the end of the book, you will learn to use SCO for other interesting tasks and also learn to maintain and perform SCO health checks. By the end of the book, you will be able to automate your administrative tasks successfully with SCO.
Table of Contents (8 chapters)
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Preface
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Preface
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What this book covers
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What you need for this book
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Who this book is for
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Conventions
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Reader feedback
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Customer support
Free Chapter
1
Unpacking System Center 2016 Orchestrator
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Unpacking System Center 2016 Orchestrator
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Introduction
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Understanding the Orchestrator architecture
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Planning the Orchestrator deployment
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Installing a single server deployment
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Making the Orchestrator environment highly available
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Deploying an additional Runbook Server
2
The Initial Configuration of SCO 2016
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The Initial Configuration of SCO 2016
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Introduction
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Deploying an additional Runbook Designer
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Registering an SCO Integration Pack
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Deploying the IP to Designers and Runbook Servers
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The initial Integration Pack configuration
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Creating and maintaining a security model for Orchestrator
3
Planning and Creating Runbooks
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Planning and Creating Runbooks
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Introduction
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Initial steps to consider before creating a Runbook
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Making Runbook scenarios automation ready
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Documenting Runbook designs
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Understanding the Orchestrator scenario building blocks
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Runbook Designer standards and primer
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Creating a Runbook
4
Building Advanced Runbooks
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Building Advanced Runbooks
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Introduction
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Creating a child Runbook
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Building a looping Runbook
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Implementing logging in your Runbook
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Implementing error handling in your Runbooks
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Making your Runbooks highly available
5
Simple Runbooks for Your Daily Tasks
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Simple Runbooks for Your Daily Tasks
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Introduction
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Active Directory – Deleting inactive computer accounts
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SCOM – Activating maintenance mode for a server
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SCVMM – Removing an attached ISO from a VM
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ConfigMgr – Automating the update Installation process
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SCSM – Raising priority, if an affected user is a VIP
6
Advanced Runbooks for Your Daily Tasks
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Advanced Runbooks for Your Daily Tasks
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Introduction
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Active Directory – Sending an email to users if their password will expire soon
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SCOM – Advanced alerting with SCO
7
Doing More with Orchestrator
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Doing More with Orchestrator
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Introduction
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Starting an SCO Runbook using PowerShell
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Starting an SCO Runbook with the Orchestration Console
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Using SCOOSP to provide self service with SCO
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Maintaining and health checking SCO

Planning the Orchestrator deployment

The installation of SCO is simple. You must plan the deployment appropriately according to your needs. This recipe discusses and provides steps on common planning tasks to be performed before mounting the ISO for organizations who have successfully deployed SCO.

Getting ready

How to do it...

There are three planning categories. They are: people, processes, and the technology (SCO product):

  1. Identify and agree on the roles and responsibilities of the SCO team. SCO deployments typically have three types of users:
    • Services accounts: They perform actions for the specific components of SCO
    • Administrators: They will typically perform all the activities including, but not limited to, SCO installation, Runbook creation and management, and the delegation of security to operators
    • Operators: They will typically use the SCO console and the Runbook Designer to create and manage Runbooks
  2. Identify and document initial prototype processes to be used as the first candidate for automation and testing. The types of processes for this purpose should be simple, repeatable tasks that fall into an organization's required standard service requests. Good candidates are service requests, which do not require authorization and approval. An additional example category is Windows operating system services that can be stopped and started as a part of troubleshooting.
  3. Plan for the following technology requirements areas for SCO:
    • SCO deployment type:
Deployment type
Description

Single servers

All the SCO roles are installed on one physical or virtual machine.

This scenario is typically implemented in test environments but is fully supported in production. This, however, becomes a single point of failure for highly automated environments.

Multiserver

The SCO roles are separated and installed on one or more machines.
    • Minimum hardware requirements for each SCO component:
Component
Requirements

Management Servers
  • Operating system—Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2012 R2
  • 2 GB minimum
  • 200 megabytes (MB) of available hard disk space
  • Dual-core Intel microprocessor, 2.1 gigahertz (GHz) or better
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1

Orchestration databases
  • Database: Microsoft SQL 2012 SP2, Microsoft SQL 2014, Microsoft SQL 2014 SP1, Microsoft SQL 2014 SP2, Microsoft SQL 2016
  • Collation: SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
  • Local or remote (Basic Engine only)

Runbook Servers
  • Operating system: Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2012 R2
  • 2 GB minimum
  • 200 megabytes (MB) of available hard disk space
  • Dual-core Intel microprocessor, 2.1 gigahertz (GHz) or better
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1

Orchestrator console/web services
  • Operating system: Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2012 R2
  • 2 GB minimum
  • 200 megabytes (MB) of available hard disk space
  • Dual-core Intel microprocessor, 2.1 gigahertz (GHz) or better
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5 with WCF
  • Web Service: Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 and enabled IIS role
  • Microsoft Silverlight 4**

Orchestrator Runbook Designers
  • Operating system: Windows Server 2016 or Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 10
  • 2 GB minimum
  • 200 megabyte (MB) of available hard disk space
  • Dual-core Intel microprocessor, 2.1 gigabyte (GHz) or better
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1
  • Services accounts and delegation groups:
Account/group
Type
Notes

Orchestrator management services

Service accounts

Create an Active Directory user account for this service. This is the main management server service account, and it is granted the "log on as a service" right during the installation.

Orchestrator Runbook monitor services

Service accounts

Typically, this is the same account as the Orchestrator management service.

Orchestrator Runbook services

Service accounts

This is the same user account as the Management and Runbook Server monitor service in a single deployment, but it can be different for multiserver deployments; Active Directory domain account is recommended.

Runbook authors (SCO_ADMINS)

Groups

Create an Active Directory group. This group will have the equivalent access of full administration to the SCO deployment.

Runbook operators (SCO_CON_USERS)

Groups

Create an Active Directory group. This group will have the equivalent access of a Runbook operator to the SCO deployment.

Installation user

User

The user with full administrative rights on the SCO servers is required to perform the installation and configuration of the SCO deployment.
  • Network communication ports:
Source
Targeted computer
Default port
Configurable

Runbook Designers

Management Servers

135, 1024-65535

Yes, after the SCO Installation.

Management Servers, Runbook Servers, and web services

Orchestration databases

1433

Yes; it is specified during the installation on the SCO supported version of Microsoft SQL Server. This is the case where the SQL Server instance is not using the default port.

Client browsers

Orchestrator web services

81

Yes, during the SCO installation.

Client browsers

Orchestration consoles

82

Yes, during the SCO installation.

How it works...

The planning activities discussed are the minimum activities the authors recommend. The tasks performed at this stage will ensure that you ask and plan for all your requirements before investing time in the actual installation. An additional benefit is identifying any people or budgetary risks before the deployment.

There's more...

There are two additional planning areas, which are typically ignored in technology-focused deployments. These areas are communication strategies and stakeholder management:

  • The communication strategy: One of the inaccurate myths of SCO is that it would automate the IT professional. SCO, when implemented right, would improve efficiency, but will not replace people. On the contrary, you need to communicate with the people who perform the manual tasks, as they hold the key to how to best automate their efforts. Early engagement with all the IT team members should be one of your key planning tasks.
  • The stakeholder management: Stakeholders are all users affected by the SCO deployment. An important category of stakeholders is the management team responsible for policy creation and enforcement. Automation without a good planned organization may lead to conflicts at the political level of your organization. An example of such a scenario is the ability to create Active Directory user accounts with rights to specific organization areas and restricted resources.
End of Section 4
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