Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2 Essentials
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About this ebook
Design, implement, and improve your infrastructure administration with System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2's automation process
About This Book- Learn about the components of Orchestrator, the design and implementation process, and the way it interacts with your environment to create outstanding automation processes
- Gain an in-depth understanding of Runbooks, while exploring its security and troubleshooting aspects
- Follow this step-by-step guide at your own pace and get yourself in the frontline of the Orchestrator world
This book is targeted for those who want to gain time in their administrative tasks and profit from it to improve also their environment by reaching a more autonomous infrastructure. Experience with other System Center family products as well as Active Directory and other core datacentre components would be useful to help you understand and execute the information given in this book.
What You Will Learn- Plan, assess, design, and implement Orchestrator 2012 R2 in a corporate environment
- Master the Runbook Designer and discover all about the Runbook creation process
- Import and integrate more technologies through new imported functionalities and learn what they bring to your environment
- Extend your possibilities and interaction with your environment while you get a hand of the best practices for this system
- Implement high-availability, security, backup, and recovery procedures and fine-tuning of the platform
- Familiarize yourself with the Runbook design and its implementation with an insight into the methodology for a more dynamic Datacenter
With the increasing complexity of systems in our infrastructure designs, administrating these systems has become more complex and repetitive. This ultimately translates into an inefficient environment and loss of time. System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2 is the tool that can help you regain that time again, by simplifying repetitive tasks (or complex ones) into a simple one that will require minimum intervention from you, or even none.
This technology will drive you one step forward towards a more dynamic infrastructure and can also be used to make a customized Private Cloud environment setup.
Starting off with the fundamentals of Orchestrator, this book helps you to learn the configuration and deployment of the Orchestrator 2012 R2 in a corporate environment to successfully deploy and mitigate real-life issues that you might encounter. You'll learn the most used part of Orchestrator, the Runbook Designer, with all its components and mechanisms to help you efficiently design and implement your Runbooks from top to bottom. Additionally, you will also get familiarized with configuring key Integration Packs available for Orchestrator to extend its functionality and enhance the automation solution.
Furthermore, you will explore the possibilities of extending and integrating Orchestrator with other parties and learn to set up core infrastructure administrative tasks that can save time and effort when automated with Orchestrator. You finally round off by gaining insights on the maintenance aspects of Orchestrator, while simultaneously covering the troubleshooting, backup, and recovery features.
Style and approachWritten in a step-by-step guide format, the chapters are organized in a sequence of what you need to know first to move on to the next component. Each chapter contains a broad explanation of what we are working on at that moment and the tips provided are based on real-world experience.
Miguel Oliveira
Miguel Oliveira is a versatile IT architect, system engineer, and information security enthusiast who has been living in Switzerland since 2012; before then, he lived in Portugal. During that time, Miguel worked mostly as an IT consultant, having worked with the major companies in Portugal (namely Novabase and Microsoft) with which he designed, developed, and implemented several System Center solutions across different clients, from the banking/financial industry to energy/oil companies. In Switzerland, he worked for international organizations and for a private company as an infrastructure architect and as a senior systems engineer at the time of publishing this book. Miguel's experience in IT started early as huge curiosity developed in him when he was very young, and it hasn't stopped ever since. The will to develop his knowledge was so strong that at the age of 16, he had his own server at home, and with it, he achieved the first step of his career as an IT systems administrator in 2003, making him an expert on Microsoft products today. He also has good knowledge of VMware, Unix, Network, and Security, which he uses in his daily tasks as an infrastructure architect providing insight and expertise for solutions that are requested by his company. This book is Miguel's first ever published book, and it has been an amazing and interesting adventure.
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Book preview
Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2 Essentials - Miguel Oliveira
Table of Contents
Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2 Essentials
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
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Preface
What is Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2?
What this book covers
What you need for this book
Who this book is for
Conventions
Reader feedback
Customer support
Downloading the color images of this book
Errata
Piracy
Questions
1. Configuring and Deploying Orchestrator 2012 R2
An overview of the Orchestrator components
Planning the Orchestrator architecture
Deploying a single-server solution
Deploying a multi-server solution
Management Server
Runbook Server
Orchestrator console and web service
Runbook Designer
Summary
2. Runbook Designer
Runbook Designer overview
Runbooks overview
Naming, version management, and folders
Smart links
Published data and the Data bus
Global settings
Subscribe and Data Manipulation
Looping
Runbook Control
Runbook design recommendations
Creation of a Runbook
Gathering requirements
Activities selection
Flowcharts
Creating the Runbook
The Runbook Tester
Logging
Summary
3. Orchestrator Integration Packs
Deployment Manager
Integration Packs
Registering Integration Packs
Deploying Integration Packs
Configuring the new categories
Active Directory
System Center Configuration Manager
System Center Operations Manager
System Center Virtual Machine Manager
System Center Data Protection Manager
Summary
4. Extending Orchestrator
An overview of the Orchestration console
Deployment Manager
The Orchestrator Integration Toolkit
The web service
Summary
5. Runbook Examples
Runbook for Active Directory User Account Provisioning
Runbook for Active Directory User Password Reset
Runbook for Automatic System Log Archival
Runbook for Workstation Power Saving
Program execution
Runbook for Weekend Maintenance Routine
Summary
6. Maintaining an Orchestrator Infrastructure
High Availability
Scalability
Security
Troubleshooting
Backup and recovery
Fine-tuning Orchestrator
The Best Practices Analyzer
Summary
Index
Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2 Essentials
Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2 Essentials
Copyright © 2015 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: August 2015
Production reference: 1040815
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78528-758-9
www.packtpub.com
Credits
Author
Miguel Oliveira
Reviewers
Ibrahim Aladwan
Jakob Gottlieb Svendsen
Commissioning Editor
Veena Pagare
Acquisition Editor
Vinay Argekar
Content Development Editor
Nikhil Potdukhe
Technical Editor
Deepti Tuscano
Copy Editor
Merilyn Pereira
Project Coordinator
Vijay Kushlani
Proofreader
Safis Editing
Indexer
Tejal Soni
Production Coordinator
Melwyn D'sa
Cover Work
Melwyn D'sa
About the Author
Miguel Oliveira is a versatile IT architect, system engineer, and information security enthusiast who has been living in Switzerland since 2012; before then, he lived in Portugal. During that time, Miguel worked mostly as an IT consultant, having worked with the major companies in Portugal (namely Novabase and Microsoft) with which he designed, developed, and implemented several System Center solutions across different clients, from the banking/financial industry to energy/oil companies. In Switzerland, he worked for international organizations and for a private company as an infrastructure architect and as a senior systems engineer at the time of publishing this book.
Miguel's experience in IT started early as huge curiosity developed in him when he was very young, and it hasn't stopped ever since. The will to develop his knowledge was so strong that at the age of 16, he had his own server at home, and with it, he achieved the first step of his career as an IT systems administrator in 2003, making him an expert on Microsoft products today. He also has good knowledge of VMware, Unix, Network, and Security, which he uses in his daily tasks as an infrastructure architect providing insight and expertise for solutions that are requested by his company.
This book is Miguel's first ever published book, and it has been an amazing and interesting adventure.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my wife, Rita, for all her help and support during moments when I wasn't around due to writing this book. I would like to dedicate this book to my little girl, Alice, who has inspired me to do it. I also want to express my gratitude and thanks to Vinay Argekar for giving me the opportunity to author this book and all his patience with me; without him, this book wouldn't have been here.
I also want to thank all my mentors and dear friends who helped me improve over the years: Adalberto Aguiar, Pedro Almeida, Jaime Pocinho, Alberto Nunes, and last but not least, Paulo Lopes. Without these gentlemen, I wouldn't have reached the point of excellence I am at today. Also, a word to my dear friends who kept pushing me to finish the book (you're too many to be listed): a big thank you!
About the Reviewers
Ibrahim Aladwan is a senior systems engineer at STS Jordan, working with Systems Management, Monitoring, Orchestration, the private cloud, and Data Center Virtualization. He has extensive experience as a design and technical expert for complex IT projects in Active Directory, Messaging, Server Virtualization, Desktop Virtualization, System Management, Protection, and Storage Systems with all Implementation Scenarios and Disaster Recovery Solutions. Ibrahim has good training and presentation skills and has consulted, supported, and trained many IT professionals. In addition, he has his own blog and posts, which he feels will be helpful for IT professionals. Ibrahim is currently certified with several Microsoft technologies, such as MCSE:Private Cloud, MCSA:Office 365, Desktop Virtualization, Active Directory, Exchange, and Windows Server.
Jakob Gottlieb Svendsen is a senior consultant, trainer, and chief developer at Coretech A/S, a System Center Gold Partner, and he is a member of the System Center Alliance. Since starting at Coretech in 2007, he has worked on scripting and development and has also worked on developing tools, extensions, and scripts for System Center. His primary focus is Automation, including Orchestrator, Service Management Automation, and Azure Automation. He has presented at TechEd and many other events. Jakob is the cofounder of the Danish PowerShell User Group (www.psug.dk). He has authored several courses and blogs at http://blog.coretech.dk/jgs.
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Preface
In the IT administration world, there has always been a huge demand for quicker ways of doing more with less (either time or material). An IT admin is constantly confronted with requests that either become a routine task and end up increasing their workload, or are just requests that bring a bit more inertia to the daily administrative process by adding either another component to manage, or requests to approve moving forward by looking into another console to monitor in order to take action to move forward. With technology always evolving and becoming more dynamic, IT administration becomes more difficult and demanding, which leads to newer software, tool implementation that will possibly need operations and tasks to be performed on a daily basis and information to be processed and debugged at several levels, exhausting the IT personnel resources on these administrative tasks and, or recurring actions that derivate from all this.
Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2 can bring added value and make the IT admin's life easier by cutting short recurrent actions and allowing the IT admin to be focused on other tasks while Orchestrator carries on with those recurrent tasks. We identify and orchestrate these tasks through a workflow in order to make it more autonomous and only intervene when the workflow is not able to work out the task in it.
What is Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2?
Microsoft System Center Orchestrator (SCORCH or Orchestrator, from now on) is a workflow automation software that allows IT administrators to automate monitoring and deployment tasks. Orchestrator's tasks are actually Runbooks that are designed through a drag-and-drop user interface and then translates them into .NET, PowerShell, or SSH commands to automate the tasks defined. It is possible to manage various System Center components, as well as AD and other technologies through the use of Integration Packs and can also be used to automate tasks in other operating