Pre-Upgrade Tasks for Operations Manager

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager, System Center 2012 - Operations Manager, System Center 2012 SP1 - Operations Manager

You have to perform a number of pre-upgrade tasks before you upgrade from System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 to System Center 2012 – Operations Manager. The order in which you perform these tasks will vary depending on your upgrade path. For more information about which order you should follow, see Upgrade Path Checklists for Operations Manager.

Overview of the Pre-Upgrade Tasks

In a single-server management group upgrade, you must perform all the applicable pre-upgrade tasks before you start the upgrade process. Service will be interrupted until the upgrade process is completed. If your single-server management group does not meet the minimum system requirements, or you do not want to experience downtime, you can add a secondary management server, and then follow the distributed management group upgrade process.

In a distributed management group upgrade, you perform the upgrade in phases to minimize the interruption in service. For more information about these phases, see Upgrade Tasks for Operations Manager. You might have to perform pre-upgrade tasks before each upgrade phase.

Important

Before you follow any of these procedures, make sure that you verify that the servers in your Operations Manager 2007 R2 management group meet the minimum supported configurations for System Center 2012 – Operations Manager. This will help you determine whether you need to add any new servers to your management group before you upgrade. For more information, see Supported Configurations for System Center 2012 – Operations Manager.

The following table shows the tasks that you must complete before you upgrade from Operations Manager 2007 R2 to System Center 2012 – Operations Manager. This table provides the following information:

• Tasks to complete

• Links to the procedures related to those tasks

• Potential downtime that a task might create

• Description of the potential risk to the stability of your data and monitoring environment and how to mitigate that risk

Important

The order of the tasks depends on the upgrade path that you follow. Use the Upgrade Path Checklists for Operations Manager to follow the steps in order for your particular upgrade scenario.

Task	Downtime, risk, and mitigation
Upgrade Hardware and Software to Meet System Requirements	Possible downtime if hardware and software changes are needed. Risk dependent on required changes.
Import the Upgrade Helper Management Pack	No downtime or interference; low risk.
Back up the RMS Encryption Key	No downtime or interference; low risk.
Review the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Event Logs	No downtime or interference; low risk.
Check for Gateway Servers Reporting to the RMS	No downtime or interference; low risk if the management servers have the necessary certificates.
Remove Agents from Pending Management	No downtime or interference; low risk.
Check the Operations Manager 2007 R2 RMS for Active Connected Consoles	Consoles might lose connectivity to the RMS during upgrade.
Disable the Notification Subscriptions	Interference; no notifications are sent during the upgrade. Mitigation; after the upgrade, check for any alerts that were missed.
Stop the Services or Disable any Connectors	Connectors do not function during upgrade.
Verify that the Operational Database Has More Than 50 Percent Free Space	No downtime or interference; low risk.
Verify the SQL Server Collation	The management group upgrade does not succeed if unsupported collation configurations exist.
Back up the Operations Manager Databases	Depending on the backup technology that you use, some backup methods might lock a database during backup.
Restore the RMS Encryption Key on the Secondary Management Server	No downtime or interference; low risk. Required only if the root management server (RMS) does not meet the supported configuration requirements for System Center 2012 – Operations Manager. This should be performed just prior to management group upgrade.
Upgrade SQL Server Reporting Services	The reports will be unavailable, but data will not be lost.

Upgrade Hardware and Software to Meet System Requirements

Before you perform the pre-upgrade and upgrade tasks, you might have to upgrade the hardware and software to meet system requirements. For more information, see Supported Configurations for System Center 2012 - Operations Manager and Upgrading Hardware and Software to Meet System Requirements.

Import the Upgrade Helper Management Pack

An Upgrade Helper management pack is available to help guide you through the upgrade process. For information about how to import and use the Upgrade Helper management pack, see Upgrade Helper Management Pack.

Review the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Event Logs

Review the event logs for Operations Manager 2007 R2 on the root management server (RMS) and on the management servers to look for recurring warning or critical events. Address them and save a copy of the event logs before you perform your upgrade.

Check for Gateway Servers Reporting to the RMS

If there are gateway servers that report to an Operations Manager 2007 R2 RMS with an unsupported configuration, you must ensure that the secondary management server from which you will perform the management group upgrade can communicate with the gateway. You can run a Windows PowerShell script to display the primary and failover management servers for all gateway servers. Run the following script.

#Display Primary and Failover Management Servers for all Gateway Servers 
$GWs = Get-SCOMManagementServer | where {$_.IsGateway -eq $true} 
$GWs | sort | foreach { 
Write-Host ""; 
"Gateway MS :: " + $_.Name; 
"--Primary MS :: " + ($_.GetPrimaryManagementServer()).ComputerName; 
$failoverServers = $_.getFailoverManagementServers(); 
foreach ($managementServer in $failoverServers) { 
"--Failover MS :: " + ($managementServer.ComputerName); 
} 
} 
Write-Host "";

To ensure mutual authentication between the gateway and the secondary management server, you install certificates from a certification authority (CA) on the secondary management server and the gateway server. For more information, see the Deploying the Certificates section of How to Replace an Operations Manager 2007 R2 Gateway that Has an Unsupported Configuration (Operations Manager Upgrade).

After you have imported the certificates on the new secondary management server, and you verify that the gateway server has a healthy state, you must set the new management server as the primary management server for the gateway, and set the RMS as the secondary management server.

Remove Agents from Pending Management

Before you upgrade the secondary management server, remove any agents that are in Pending Management.

To remove agents that are in Pending Management

1. Log on to the Operations console by using an account that is a member of the Operations Manager Administrators role for the Operations Manager 2007 management group.

2. In the Administration pane, expand Device Management, and then click Pending Management.

3. Right-click each agent, and then click Approve or Reject.

Back up the RMS Encryption Key

The Operations Manager 2007 R2 root management server (RMS) encryption key is necessary to decrypt secure data in the operational database. When you have a backup of the RMS encryption key, you can import the key on a new management server when you upgrade the management group from an Operations Manager 2007 R2 secondary management server.

To back up the encryption key by using the Encryption Key Backup or Restore Wizard

1. Log on to the computer hosting the secondary management server with an account that is a member of the Administrators group.

2. Open a command prompt window by using the Run as Administrator option.

3. At the command prompt, type:

   cd <Operations Manager Installation Folder>

   SecureStorageBackup

4. In the Encryption Key Backup or Restore Wizard, on the Backup or Restore page, select the Backup the Encryption Key option, and then complete the wizard, providing a location and password for the key.

   Note

   Recovery of the password is not possible if the key is lost or forgotten.

   Note

   Store the encryption key in a location that can be easily accessed, such as a file share. You have to restore this encryption key on all management servers in your management group before you upgrade.

To back up the RMS encryption key by using the Command Prompt window

1. Log on to the computer that hosts the Operations Manager 2007 R2 root management server by using an account that is a member of the Administrators group.

2. Open a Command Prompt window as an administrator by using the Run as administrator option.

3. At the command prompt, type cd <path to installation folder>, and then press Enter.

4. To back up the encryption key, do the following:

   1. Type SecureStorageBackup Backup <BackupFile>, and then press Enter.

   2. At the Please enter the password to use for storage/retrieval prompt, type a password that is at least eight characters long, and then press Enter.

   3. At the Please re-enter your password prompt, type the same password, and then press Enter.

Check the Operations Manager 2007 R2 RMS for Active Connected Consoles

Consoles that are connected to the Operations Manager 2007 R2 RMS might lose connectivity during the upgrade of the management group. Before you perform the upgrade of the management group, you should notify anyone who has a connected console to close the connection.

Disable the Notification Subscriptions

You should disable notification subscription before you upgrade the management group to ensure that notifications are not sent during the upgrade process.

To disable subscriptions

1. Log on to the Operations console account that is a member of the Operations Manager Administrators role for the Operations Manager management group.

2. In the Operations console, select the Administration view.

3. In the navigation pane, expand Administration, expand the Notifications container, and then click Subscriptions.

4. Select each subscription, and then click Disable in the Actions pane.

   Note

   Multiselect does not work when you are disabling subscriptions.

Stop the Services or Disable any Connectors

Refer to the non-Microsoft connector documentation for any installed Connectors to determine the services used for each Connector, and whether it is supported for System Center 2012 – Operations Manager.

To stop a service for Connectors

1. On the Start menu, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.

2. In the Name column, right-click the Connector that you want to control, and then click Stop.

Verify that the Operational Database Has More Than 50 Percent Free Space

You must verify that the operational database has more than 50 percent of free space before you upgrade the management group because the upgrade might fail if there is not enough space. You should also ensure that the transactions logs are 50 percent of the total size of the operational database.

To check how much free space the Operational Database has

1. On the computer that hosts the operational database, open SQL Server Management Studio.

2. In the Object Explorer, expand Databases.

3. Right-click the operational database, point to Reports, Standard Reports, and then click Disk Usage.

4. View the Disk Usage report to determine the percentage of free space.

To increase the free space for the operational database and log files

1. On the computer that hosts the operational database, open SQL Server Management Studio.

2. In the Connect to Server dialog box, in the Server Type list, select Database Engine.

3. In the Server Name list, select the server and instance for your operational database (for example, computer\INSTANCE1).

4. In the Authentication list, select Windows Authentication, and then click Connect.

5. In the Object Explorer pane, expand Databases, right-click the operational database, and then click Properties.

6. In the Database Properties dialog box, under Select a page, click Files.

7. In the results pane, increase the Initial Size value for the MOM_DATA database by 50 percent.

   Note

   This step is not required if free space already exceeds 50 percent.

8. Set the Initial Size value for the MOM_LOG to be 50 percent of the total size of the database. For example, if the operational database size is 100 GB, the log file size should be 50 GB. Then click OK.

Verify the SQL Server Collation

SQL Server collation for all databases and database instances must be one of the following:

Language	Collation
English	SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
French	French_CI_AS
Russian	Cyrillic_General_CI_AS
Chinese CHS	Chinese_PRC_CI_AS
Japanese	Japanese_CI_AS
Spanish	Traditional_Spanish_CI_AS
Other Languages	Latin1_General_CI_AS

Important

You must ensure that all databases and database instances have the correct collation before you run upgrade on the management group.

To determine the SQL Server collation of a database, you can check the database properties. In SQL Server Management Studio, right-click the database you want to check, and then click Properties. The collation is listed under Maintenance.

For information about changing the SQL Server collation of a database, see Setting and Changing the Server Collation.

Restore the RMS Encryption Key on the Secondary Management Server

When you cannot upgrade the management group from the RMS because it does not meet the minimum supported configurations for System Center 2012 – Operations Manager, you must restore the encryption key on the Operations Manager 2007 R2 secondary manager server from which you will run the management group upgrade. For more information about whether the RMS meets the required supported configurations, see Supported Configurations for System Center 2012 - Operations Manager. You should restore the encryption key just prior to upgrading the management group. To restore the encryption key, you must use the SecureStorageBackup tool.

To restore up the RMS encryption key by using the Encryption Key Backup or Restore Wizard

1. Log on to the computer hosting the secondary management server with an account that is a member of the Administrators group.

2. Open a command prompt window by using the Run as Administrator option.

3. At the command prompt, type:

   cd <Operations Manager Installation Folder>

   SecureStorageBackup

4. In the Encryption Key Backup or Restore Wizard, on the Backup or Restore? page, select the Restore the Encryption Key option and then complete the wizard, providing location and password for the key.

To restore the RMS encryption key by using the command prompt

1. Log on to the computer hosting the secondary management server with an account that is a member of the Administrators group.

2. In a Command Prompt window using the Run as Administrator option, type:

   cd <Operations Manager Installation Folder>

   SecureStorageBackup Restore <BackupFile>

3. At the Please enter the password to use for storage/retrieval prompt, type the password, and then press Enter.

4. Use the same password that was used to back up the encryption keys.

To verify that the RMS encryption key has been restored

1. On the Start menu, click Run.

2. Type regedit, and then click OK. The Registry Editor starts.

   Warning

   Incorrectly editing the registry can severely damage your system. Before you make changes to the registry, back up any valued data that is on the computer.

3. Navigate to the HKLM\Software\microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager\3.0\MOMBins key. If value1 and value2 exist, the encryption key has successfully been restored.

Back up the Operations Manager Databases

Obtain verified recent backups of the operational database and of the data warehouse database before you upgrade the secondary management server. You should also create backups of databases for optional features, such as the Reporting and the Audit Collection Services database before you upgrade them. For more information, see How to: Back up a Database and How to Schedule Backups of System Center 2012 - Operations Manager Databases.

Upgrade SQL Server Reporting Services

System Center 2012 – Operations Manager requires either SQL Server 2008 R2 or SQL Server 2008 R2 Sp1 on the SQL Server Reporting Services database (SSRS). For information about upgrading to SQL Server, see Upgrading to SQL Server 2008 R2.

See Also

Upgrade Path Checklists for Operations Manager