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Orchestrator 2012 R2 - QuickStart deployment guide

  • Artigo

System Center Orchestrator 2012 is extremely easy to setup and deploy.  There are only a handful of prerequisites, and most can be handled by the setup installer routine.

The TechNet documentation does an excellent job of detailing the system requirements and deployment process:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh420337.aspx

The following document will cover a basic install of System Center Orchestrator 2012 at a generic customer.  This is to be used as a template only, for a customer to implement as their own pilot or POC deployment guide.  It is intended to be general in nature and will require the customer to modify it to suit their specific data and processes.

SCORCH can be scaled to match the customer requirements. This document will cover a typical two server model, where all server roles are installed on a single VM, and utilize a remote SQL database server.

This is not an architecture guide or intended to be a design guide in any way.

Server Names\Roles:

SCO01          Orchestrator 2012 role server

  • Management Server
  • Runbook Server
  • Orchestrator Web Service Server
  • Runbook Designer client application

DB01                  SQL 2012 with SP1 Database Engine Server

Windows Server 2012 R2 will be installed as the base OS for all platforms.  All servers will be a member of the AD domain.

SQL 2012 with SP1 will be the base standard for all database services. SCORCH only requires a SQL DB engine (locally or remote) in order to host SCORCH databases.

High Level Deployment Process:

1.  In AD, create the following accounts and groups, according to your naming convention:

a.  DOMAIN\scorchsvc                       SCORCH Mgmt, Runbook, and Monitor Account

b.  DOMAIN\ScorchUsers                   SCORCH users security global group

c.  DOMAIN\sqlsvc                              SQL Service Account

2.  Add the domain user accounts for yourself and your team to the ScorchUsers group.

3.  Install Windows Server 2012 R2 to all server role members.

4.  Install Prerequisites.

5.  Install the SCORCH Server.

Prerequisites:

1.  Install Windows Server 2012 R2 on all servers.

2.  Join all servers to domain.

3.  Ensure SCORCH server has a minimum of 1GB of RAM.

4.  On the SCORCH server, .Net 3.5SP1 is required. Setup will not be able to add this feature on Windows Server 2012.  Open an elevated PowerShell session (run as an Administrator) and execute the following:

Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core

***Note – .NET 3.5 source files are removed from the WS2012 R2 operating system.  You might require supplying a source path to the installation media for Windows Server 2012 R2, such as:   Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core –source D:\sources\sxs

5.  On the SCORCH server, IIS (IIS Role) is required. Setup will add this role if not installed. 

6.  On the SCORCH .Net 4.0 is required. This is included in the WS2012 R2 OS (.NET 4.5)

7.  Install all available Windows Updates as a best practice.

8.  Add the “DOMAIN\scorchsvc” domain account explicitly to the Local Administrators group on the SCORCH server.

9.  Add the “DOMAIN\ScorchUsers” global group explicitly to the Local Administrators group on the SCORCH server.

10.  On the SQL database server, install SQL 2012 R2.

  • Setup is fairly straightforward. This document will not go into details and best practices for SQL configuration. Consult your DBA team to ensure your SQL deployment is configured for best practices according to your corporate standards.

  • Run setup, choose Installation > New Installation…

  • When prompted for feature selection, install ALL of the following:

    • Database Engine Services

  • If you are going to be deploying a shared SQL server for other System Center components, you might consider adding:

    • Full-Text and Semantic Extractions for Search
    • Reporting Services – Native

  • Optionally – consider adding the following to ease administration:

    • Management Tools – Basic and Complete (for running queries and configuring SQL services)

  • On the Instance configuration, choose a default instance, or a named instance. Default instances are fine for testing and labs. Production clustered instances of SQL will generally be a named instance. For the purposes of the POC, choose default instance to keep things simple.

  • On the Server configuration screen, set SQL Server Agent to Automatic.  You can accept the defaults for the service accounts, but I recommend using a Domain account for the service account.  Input the DOMAIN\sqlsvc account and password for Agent, Engine, and Reporting.

  • On the Collation Tab – you can use the default which is SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS or choose another supported collation.

  • On the Account provisioning tab – add your personal domain user account or a group you already have set up for SQL admins. Alternatively, you can use the ScorchUsers global group here. This will grant more rights than is required to all ScorchUsers accounts, but is fine for testing purposes of the POC.

  • On the Data Directories tab – set your drive letters correctly for your SQL databases, logs, TempDB, and backup.

  • On the Reporting Services Configuration – choose to Install and Configure. This will install and configure SRS to be active on this server, and use the default DBengine present to house the reporting server databases. This is the simplest configuration. If you install Reporting Services on a stand-alone (no DBEngine) server, you will need to configure this manually.

  • Setup will complete.

  • You will need to disable Windows Firewall on the SQL server, or make the necessary modifications to the firewall to allow all SQL traffic.  See https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175043.aspx    

Step by step deployment guide:

1.   Install SCORCH 2012 R2:

  • Log on using your domain user account that is a member of the ScorchUsers group.
  • Run SetupOrchestrator.exe
  • Click Install
  • Supply a name, org, and license key (if you have one) and click Next.  If you don't input a license key it will install Eval version.
  • Accept the license agreement and click Next.
  • Check all boxes on the getting started screen, for:
    • Management Server
    • Runbook Server
    • Orchestration Console and Web Service
    • Runbook Designer
  • On the Prerequisites screen, check the boxes to activate/remediate any necessary prerequisites (such as IIS and .NET), and click Next when all prerequisites are installed.
  • Input the service account “scorchsvc” and input the password, domain, and click Test. Ensure this is a success and click Next.
  • Configure the database server. Type in the local computer name if you installed SQL on this SCORCH Server, or provide a remote SQL server (and instance if using a named instance) to which you have the “System Administrator” (SA) rights to in order to create the SCORCH database and assign permissions to it. Test the database connection and click Next.
  • Specify a new database, Orchestrator. Click Next.
  • Browse AD and select your domain global group for ScorchUsers. Click Next.
  • Accept defaults for the SCORCH Web service ports of 81 and 82, Click Next.
  • Accept default location for install and Click Next.
  • Select the appropriate options for Microsoft Update, Customer Experience and Error reporting. Click Next.
  • Click Install.
  • Setup will install all roles, create the Orchestrator database, and complete very quickly.

Post install procedures:

1.  Open the Deployment Manager, Orchestration Console, and Runbook designer. Ensure all consoles open successfully.

2.  Lets register and then deploy Integration Packs that enable Orchestrator to connect to so many outside systems.

Download the toolkit, add-ons, and IP’s for SCORCH 2012 R2.  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39622

  • Make a directory on the local SCORCH server such as “C:\IntegrationPacks”
  • Copy to this directory, the downloaded IP’s, such as the following:
    • SC2012R2_Integration_Pack_for_Azure.oip
    • SC2012R2_Integration_Pack_for_Configuration_Manager.oip
    • SC2012R2_Integration_Pack_for_Data_Protection_Manager.oip
    • SC2012R2_Integration_Pack_for_Operations_Manager.oip
    • SC2012R2_Integration_Pack_for_REST.oip
    • SC2012R2_Integration_Pack_for_Service_Manager.oip
    • SC2012R2_Integration_Pack_for_Virtual_Machine_Manager.oip
    • System_Center_2012_R2_Integration_Pack_for_ActiveDirectory.oip
    • System_Center_2012_R2_Integration_Pack_for_ExchangeAdmin.oip
    • System_Center_2012_R2_Integration_Pack_for_ExchangeUser.oip
    • System_Center_2012_R2_Integration_Pack_for_FTP.oip
    • System_Center_R2_Integration_Pack_for_SharePoint.oip                  
  • Open the Deployment Manager console
  • Expand “Orchestrator Management Server”
  • Right click “Integration Packs” and choose “Register IP with the Orchestrator Management Server”
  • Click Next, then “Add”.  Browse to “C:\Integration Packs” and select all of the OIP files you copied here.  You have to select one at a time and go back and click “Add” again to get them all.
  • Click Next, then Finish.  You have to accept the License Agreement for each IP. 
  • Now when you select “Integration Packs” you can see these IP’s in the list.
  • Right Click “Integration Packs” again, this time choose “Deploy IP to Runbook server or Runbook Designer”.
  • Click Next, select all the available IP’s and click Next.
  • Type in the name of your Runbook server role name, and click Add.
  • On the scheduling screen – accept the default (which will deploy immediately) and click Next.
  • Click Finish.  Note the logging of each step in the Log entries section of the console.
  • Verify deployment by expanding “Runbook Servers” in the console.  Verify that each IP was deployed.
  • Open the Runbook Designer console.
  • Note that you now have these new IP’s available in the designer for your workflows.

Additionally – you can download more IP’s at:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh295851.aspx

Such as the VMware VSphere IP, or the IBM Netcool IP.

Additionally – check out Charles Joy’s blog on popular codeplex IP’s which have been updated for Orchestrator:

https://blogs.technet.com/b/charlesjoy/

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    This might help: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2012/05/24/clarification-on-sql-server-collation-requirements-for-system-center-2012.aspx

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Orchestrator comes as part of System Center.

    http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/system-center-2012-r2/try.aspx

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 22, 2013
    Kevin,  Love your quick install series, how about an upgrade series too?  Going from SP1 to R2, etc. Jess

  • Anonymous
    October 22, 2013
    Sounds like a lot of work.   :-)

  • Anonymous
    October 23, 2013
    Kevin - you are referencing to IPs from July 2013 - are those the RTM files? Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    October 25, 2013
    OK - here are the new ones, released today: www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx

  • Anonymous
    October 29, 2013
    That would be nice, since I have just upgraded mine (lab) and a customer's and although I can see the runbooks fine on the console, it seems the Web Service is dead. Stay tuned.

  • Anonymous
    December 10, 2013
    Just a thought: I see in alot of my implementations that I, after deployment, have to edit det web.config an add the FQDN name. Perhapse you should update the "Post deployment" list. Btw. Very nice lab/test guide :) Keep up the good work!

  • Anonymous
    January 29, 2014
    Useful article to install Orch

  • Anonymous
    March 19, 2014
    Hi Kevin,
    In here you mention "•On the Collation Tab – you can use the default which is SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS or choose another supported collation. "

    We use Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS as our company standard, is this a supported collation or where can I find the list of supported collations?

    Thanks in advance.

  • Anonymous
    September 23, 2014
    Thanks

  • Anonymous
    September 29, 2014
    Guys, can someone help with Orchestrator download link?

  • Anonymous
    October 11, 2014
    Nice article. i installed orchestrator for the first time by reading this article without any issue. thank you very much

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2014
    Hi,

    just two comments;
    1. In prerequisites, step 8, you suggest that service account must be added to Local Administrators group. According to Microsoft documentation (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh912319.aspx, Orchestrator Service Accounts) there is no need for service account to be member of any local security group - "This service account does not have to be an Administrator or a domain Administrator account. "

    2. As for step 9, my interpretation is that this step will allow users of this group to log-on locally or via RDP?

    I haven't yet installed Orchestrator - maybe MS info is missleading? Please also note that adding to local security groups is also not mentioned in (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh420387.aspx, How to Install Orchestrator on a Single Computer).

    Thanks for the article,

    Blaz

  • Anonymous
    December 08, 2014
    Nice work Kevin, I used the quick install articles for Service manger and Orchestrator, both the installs completed without any issues, thanks a lot mate.

  • Anonymous
    July 09, 2015
    Is possible to install the Orchestrator 2012 R2 into one of the SCOM 2012 R2 server ? we have system center 2012 R2 product license and installed SCOM already and want test Orchestrator.

  • Anonymous
    July 09, 2015
    @Vijay - yes, you can install SCORCH on a SCOM server. While not recommended, for lab/testing its fine. You'd need to make sure any web consoles you install don't clnflict on ports, and they wont by default. You can co-locate scorch servers DB with SCOM DB's. Keep in mind, we don't license the infrastructure for System Center, so there are no additional costs to installing these on separate servers.

    • Anonymous
      December 02, 2016
      Hi,Need help, Can orchestrator 2012 r2 support scsm 2010 r2 and scom 2007 r2,a lso can you share any link that can help me to integrate datacenter with orcheastrator.

  • Anonymous
    August 24, 2015
    Wow this is just a excellent guide!

    Thanks so much for this!

  • Anonymous
    August 24, 2015
    Fantastic guide!
    Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    September 01, 2015
    Fantastic read and man did it help!

  • Anonymous
    September 25, 2015
    This has been invaluable to me!
    Thanks so much!

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2015
    this is good clean straight forward article. It helped a lot. thx.

  • Anonymous
    January 12, 2016
    Thx. It helped me.

  • Anonymous
    February 25, 2016
    hi, I wanted to know what are the differnt services on which runbook server are dependent and how many Runbook server can be installed ?????

  • Anonymous
    January 19, 2017
    Kevin, Great information as always! Just wanted to follow up, as this is related to Orchestrator 2016. I am using a remote SQL server and have created an instance for Orchestrator (SCORCH2016). Anyways, what I've noticed, is that sometimes when I go to open the runbook designer it just sits at "processing" and never loads, I finally get an error saying "the server threw an exception". If I restart both the Orchestrator Server and the SQL server, most of the time, I'm able to open the runbook designer the next time around. It always seems to be a roll of the dice as to whether or not the runbook designer will open. Windows firewall is turned off on both the Orchestrator Server and the SQL server, and there are no 3rd party firewalls involved either. Secondly, we are moving to 2016 from 2012, (new servers, so my 2012's are still up), however, I've exported / imported runbooks from my 2012 server to my 2016, one of my steps is to Add User to AD Group, when I use the runbook, it fails with a message saying "Unknown exception caught". From other posts online, people seem to think it's an issue with the AD integration pack, as this same runbook works perfectly fine with Orchestrator 2012. Any comments, or help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!!!

  • Anonymous
    April 07, 2017
    Hi,Using Orchestrator 2016 in the Lab, trying to learn it and integrate with scom 2012 r2.When I create a simple run book using two Activates : -Get Alert ( take new alert with resolution state NEW) -Update Alert ( an alert that had resolution state of NEW will be update with new resolution state SCHEDULED)Everything seems to work , except that at the end it will give me this error (in scom console the alert gets updated as expected) When you run it in Runbook Tester and look in the Log pane the last activity fails with the error down below:-------------------Failed to update alert. The exception was "[A]System.Collections.Generic.List1[Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Monitoring.MonitoringAlertUpdateStatusIndigo] cannot be cast to [B]System.Collections.Generic.List1[Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Monitoring.MonitoringAlertUpdateStatusIndigo]. Type A originates from 'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' in the context 'LoadNeither' at location 'C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll'. Type B originates from 'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' in the context 'LoadNeither' at location 'C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll'.".------------I have tried different combination of Runbooks, and always fails at the last activity " Update Alert ". In scom it will update the alert as expected.

    • Anonymous
      May 11, 2017
      Hi, I have the same issue with Dal.I add the Update Alert Activities, I enter the AlertID, I add the filed that i want to get it updated.When i run the run book i get the error: Failed to update alert. The exception was "[A]System.Collections.Generic.List1[Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Monitoring.MonitoringAlertUpdateStatusIndigo] cannot be cast to [B]System.Collections.Generic.List1[Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Monitoring.MonitoringAlertUpdateStatusIndigo]. Type A originates from 'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' in the context 'LoadNeither' at location 'C:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll'. Type B originates from 'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' in the context 'LoadNeither' at location 'C:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll'.".System Center Orcehstrator 2016 on Windows 2016
      • Anonymous
        May 24, 2017
        Hi Adrian Chirtoc,I am also Facing the same issue with SCORCH 2016. Did you find any resolution for the same.Anybody else has faced the same issue ===================================================Failed to update alert. The exception was "[A]System.Collections.Generic.List1[Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Monitoring.MonitoringAlertUpdateStatusIndigo] cannot be cast to [B]System.Collections.Generic.List1[Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Monitoring.MonitoringAlertUpdateStatusIndigo]. Type A originates from 'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' in the context 'LoadNeither' at location 'C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll'. Type B originates from 'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' in the context 'LoadNeither' at location 'C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll'.".=======================================Regards,Satish Phatge.
        • Anonymous
          June 12, 2017
          Yup, having the same issue here with SCORCH 2016. It updates the Alert but still throws error (Status = failed):Failed to update alert. The exception was "[A]System.Collections.Generic.List1[Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Monitoring.MonitoringAlertUpdateStatusIndigo] cannot be cast to [B]System.Collections.Generic.List1[Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Monitoring.MonitoringAlertUpdateStatusIndigo]. Type A originates from 'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' in the context 'LoadNeither' at location 'C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll'. Type B originates from 'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' in the context 'LoadNeither' at location 'C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll'.".
          • Anonymous
            September 27, 2017
            I have the same issue on Orch 2016.Failed to update alert. The exception was "[A]System.Collections.Generic.List1[Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Monitoring.MonitoringAlertUpdateStatusIndigo] cannot be cast to [B]System.Collections.Generic.List1[Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Monitoring.MonitoringAlertUpdateStatusIndigo]. Type A originates from 'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' in the context 'LoadNeither' at location 'C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll'. Type B originates from 'mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089' in the context 'LoadNeither' at location 'C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll'.".
            • Anonymous
              September 28, 2017
              I got this request from a customer directly - I did a repro quickly - SCORCH 2016 throws this error when updating an alert. The resolution was to install the SCOM 2012R2 console on the SCORCH server. The errors went away at that point.