I have a couple of Orchestrator servers with Web Features role installed on them. I’ve recently added those servers as Infrastructure Servers in VMM 2012 R2 in order to update them from there. After adding them the Orchestrator Web Service on those server stopped working. Continue reading “Orchestrator Web Service Does Not Work After Adding The Server to Infrastructure Servers in VMM 2012 R2”
Using Infrastructure Servers in VMM 2012 R2
Infrastructure Servers is a new feature in System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager. You can read about this feature here but besides what you can read there let’s look at the feature more visually. Continue reading “Using Infrastructure Servers in VMM 2012 R2”
Quick Look at System Center Service Provider Foundation Management Pack
Last week the SPF MP for SCOM was released so let’s look on how to install it and configure it.
First we need to install it:
Then we need to import in SCOM
After it is imported we need to create account/s. According to the guide you need to create two accounts in SCOM:
- One account that have access to the SPF database and with access to your VMM;
- Second account with access to the VMM endpoint in SPF.
As I see it you need only read access for both accounts but in my case I will use one account that have admin rights in SPF database, admin rights in VMM and member of the group that gives permissions to the VMM endpoint.
Set it to more secure
Next open the properties of the account in the Distribution tab add all your SPF server(s), VMM server(s) and SQL server(s) where SPF database is:
In the SCOM console in Profiles section you will see two profiles:
- Service Provider Foundation Database Account
- Service Provider Foundation VMM Web Endpoint Account
To both accounts you need to add the account you’ve just added in SCOM. Of course if you want to go more secure and have two accounts you will add them to the corresponding profile. Also remember to distribute the accounts to the right servers. In my case I am adding to both profiles the same account:
After that in your Service Provider Foundation State view you should see your SPF servers:
If you have any alerts for wrong credentials you can reset the monitors and close the alerts. During the import, the creation of the accounts and setting them some alerts might be generated for wrong credentials.
SCVMM – SCOM Maintenance Mode Integration is fixed in System Center 2012 R2
Previously I’ve blogged here, here and here about SCVMM and SCOM maintenance mode integration. In the past if you put Hyper-V hosts in maintenance mode in SCVMM the corresponding SCVMM object for the host is also put in maintenance mode. The problem with this scenario is that you can get some alerts if you patch the hosts automatically or bring them completely down for other maintenance tasks. Now with System Center 2012 R2 this is no longer the case. If you put the hyper-v hosts in SCVMM in maintenance mode:
The computer object of the host is put in maintenance mode in SCOM:
Now you can perform maintenance task on host without getting noisy alerts and we are closer to better automation.
I would like to thanks the VMM product group for listening on my feedback and for those who voted for this feature change.
Request Error on Calling Freshly Installed Orchestrator 2012 R2 Web Service
Previously I’ve encountered this error on the Preview build of Orchestrator 2012 R2 and now I’ve encountered in the RTM bits.
This error appears in the following scenario:
You have SQL server to store the Orchestrator DB. In my case it is SQL Cluster. You have one server where you want to deploy all Orchestrator roles.If you use the installation wizard and deploy all Orchestrator roles at once you will not have this error. The Orchestrator web service will work perfectly fine. But using the all in one installation doesn’t give you the flexibility to have different service accounts. So if you deploy with the all in one installation wizard first the management server and the web features the Orchestrator web service works fine. But as soon you start the installation again and deploy the Runbook server role on the same server the web service starts to give request error upon calling it. Apparently when you deploy the Runbook server role on the management server separately something is changed in the Orchestrator database and the web service stops working. Even if you have other servers with the web service they will also start giving the error.
The workaround
If you are OK of using all Orchestrator roles with one service account just install all roles at once. If you want to use different accounts have a dedicated server for Orchestrator management role and separate servers for Runbook and/or web features roles. As long as you do not install the runbook role on the management server separately your Orchestrator web service will be fine.
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