The new preview of System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2, comes with a new part called “System Management Automation”

Not much info has been released about what it is, or what it can be used for.

update: more information have been released by microsoft. Start here

It seems to me to be a new runbook engine, with a completely new type of runbooks. I can’t wait to get more info about what it is , and what it is for.

It has 3 parts which is installed seperately:

  • Web Service
  • Runbook Worker
  • PowerShell Module

I will try to post some of my exploration of this new part of Orchestrator.

This will be a series of blog articles.

So far these have been planned:

SCO 2012 R2: System Management Automation Part 1 – Overview and Setup
SCO 2012 R2: System Management Automation Part 2 – The PowerShell Module
SCO 2012 R2: System Management Automation Part 3 – The Web Service
SCO 2012 R2: System Management Automation Part 4 – Using the Web Service in Visual Studio 2012

In this article i’ll show how to use the PowerShell Module.

The idea is to give you a chance to play around with it, and any kind of comments/feedback is very welcomed!

Installation

 

Each part of the System Management Automation have to be installed seperately.

They should be installed in the following order:

    • Web Service
    • Runbook Worker
    • PowerShell Module
    • Register Runbook Worker via PowerShell

 

In my lab i have installed everything (including the rest of SCO R2 and SQL) on the same server, which is ofcause not recommended in production.

  • First Install the basic parts of orchestrator (manament server, runbook designer, web features and runbook server), and make sure everything is running.
  • Open the Setup Splash Screen

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Web Service

 

Web service installation is in 2 parts. First Install Web service, then you need to enable the runbook worker on the web service via PowerShell.

Install

  • In the Service Management Autmation section click Web Service
  • Click Install

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  • Enter name and organization

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  • Accept license agreement. Click Next

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  • Select Web service feature. Click Next

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  • Make sure all prerequisites is installed and enablen

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  • Setup database information. In my lab the SQL is located at localhost on standard port 1433.

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  • Setup the administrators group or person. watch out for typos since there is no check!!
  • Setup service account for the application pool, in my case i use the same service account as ORchestrator (which has domain admin in this lab). watch out for typos since there is no check!

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  • Select port, i recommend to use the default port 9090
  • Select certificate, i am using a self-signed certificate in this lab

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  • Select Location. I recommend to keep it at default

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  • Enable updates and participate in the customer experience program (if you want to). click Next

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  • At the summary, make sure that all info is correct. then click Install

Notice: the URL of the web service, including tenantID appears in this windows.

 

Runbook Worker

  • In the splash screen, click Runbok worker.
  • Enter name and organization (and key)
  • Accept License. Click Next
  • Enable the Runbook Worker Feature. Click Next

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  • Setup database information, this should be the database created by the Web Service installation.

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  • Enter service acccount information
  • Enable updates and participate in the customer experience program (if you want to). click Next
  • At the summary, make sure that all info is correct. then click Install

When the runbook worker has finished installing you will see this message:

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It says to add the runbook worker to the runbook worker deployment using powershell command. This requires the powershell module to be installed first. See the guide below.

PowerShell Module

  • In the splash screen click PowerShell Module
  • The PowerShell module installs automatically.

See the blog post about the powershell module on this blog for more info!

Register runbook worker to the runbook worker deployment

  • Open PowerShell
  • Import Module 
import-module Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManagementAutomation

  • Run the New-SMARunbookworkerdeployment cmdlet using parameters to explain computername and webservice info 
New-SmaRunbookWorkerDeployment -ComputerName "scor2.cloud.local" -WebServiceEndpoint "https://scor2.cloud.local" -Port 9090

Now you are ready to go!

Next part will be published soon! and is about the PowerShell Module!