SCOM 2012 R2 DRP or Upgrade to your Operating System

With System Center 2016 just around the corner I have being asked quite often by customers on upgrading their current servers OS for SCOM servers, because a lot of them are still in 2008 R2 with a SCOM 2012 R2, this can be challenging, but with this guide you can check for the things you need and the basic task list on how to do it, as always try this first in a test environment and adjust it to your needs, the guide is intended just to outline the process so you can adapt it to your needs.

Prerequisites:

1. Documented users and Passwords:
   • Example, SQL Monitoring, Azure subscriptions, Lync Monitoring, ETC.
2. Certificates:
   • Azure Management Certificates.
   • Management Servers and Gateway Servers Certificates.
3. Media:
   • Windows Server.
   • SCOM.
   • SCOM most recent UR Available.
   • SQL Server.
   • Antivirus.
4. Others:
   • Antivirus Exclusions: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/975931.
   • Firewall Exclusions: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj656649.aspx#BKMK_Firewall – Remember that reporting services require ports 1433 and 1434.

Activities:

References: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh531578.aspx

1. Stop services in Management Servers.
2. Create a full backup of your databases: OperationsManager and OperationsManagerDW.
3. Install new operating systems with the same server names.
4. Install .Net Framework: Install-WindowsFeature –name NET-Framework-Core
5. Ensure connectivity to and from your management servers by name, and to your gateways if relevant.
6. Apply OS Updates
7. Install SQL Server with the following features:
   • Database Engine.
   • Full Text Search.
   • Management Tools.
8. Use the same instance name as your previous installation.
9. Use your defined user for SQL Services.
10. Check your Collation to: Latin1_Genera_CP1_CI_AS.
11. Review your data default paths.
12. Install SQL Server.
13. Review that the SQL agent is running and set to Automatic start.
14. Restore your backups from the databases to your new SQL Server.
15. Enable SQL Service Broker for OperationsManager and OperationsManagerDW databases:
    • ALTER DATABASE [Database_name] SET ENABLE_BROKER;
16. Enable CLR:
    • sp_configure @configname=clr_enabled, @configvalue=1
    • GO
    • RECONFIGURE
    • GO
17. We will use this command for installing an MS in recovery mode: Setup.exe /silent /AcceptEndUserLicenseAgreement /Recover /EnableErrorReporting:Always /SendCEIPReports:1 /UseMicrosoftUpdate:1 /DatabaseName:OperationsManager /SqlServerInstance: DatabaseInstance /DWDatabaseName:OperationsManagerDW /DWSqlServerInstance: DatabaseInstance /DASAccountUser: SDKAccount/DASAccountPassword: Password /DatareaderUser: DataReaderAccount /DatareaderPassword: Password /DataWriterUser: DataWriterAccount /DataWriterPassword: Password /ActionAccountUser: [ActionAccount] /ActionAccountPassword: [Password]
18. We will need to retype user and password for each Run as Account in the console once SCOM is installed in recovery mode, this includes the ones with Binary or Certificate Accounts, this should be eliminated and recreated, this are used in Management Packs like Azure and Operational Insights, just reconfigure the service and they will be recreated automatically at least in this two cases, go to administration –> Accounts to change or delete them.
19. Start your services in the other MS.
20. Reconfigure your mail Rely if you had one.
21. Verify notifications.
22. Verify configuration and functionality for emailing reports.
23. Wait for some time before applying the URs, to check if everything is working as expected, monitoring the event viewer.
24. Install last available UR.
25. Import required certificates for agent and gateways communications.
26. Use MOMCertimport to assign the certificate to the HealthService.
27. Restart every HeartService you import a certificate for.
28. Install Antivirus.
29. Apply Antivirus Exceptions
30. Apply Firewall Exceptions.
31. Verify Monitoring and Alerts are being generated.

Note: In case you decide to change the instance name or server name of the databases for some reason you need additional steps:

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio.
2. Expand Databases, OperationsManager, and Tables.
3. Right-click dbo.MT_Microsoft$SystemCenter$ManagementGroup, and then click Edit Top 200 Rows.
4. Change the value in the SQLServerNamecolumn, it will have an ID at the end in the column header, to reflect the name of the new SQL Server-based computer.
5. Save the change.