Ronni Pedersen's deployment ramblings

The built-in migration tool in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager is a great tool to help you in the process of migrating from Configuration Manager 2007 to System Center 2012 Configuration Manager. It can migrate all your content like packages, drivers, Task Sequences, OS images etc. But if you’ve integrated the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Update 1(MDT) in your current environment, the Task Sequence might have steps that can’t be migrated to the new version.

To migrate an MDT 2010 Task Sequence, you need to integrate MDT 2012 with the ConfigMgr 2012 site. But the wizard can only migrate MDT 2012 Task Sequences, so you need to upgrade the MDT 2010 installation first.

To migrate a MDT 2010 Task Sequence to a new ConfigMgr 2012 Site the following steps must be performed:

• Update the ConfigMgr 2007 MDT 2010 to MDT 2012
• Migrate the old MDT 2010 Task Sequence to MDT2012 (In the ConfigMgr 2007 environment)
• Install and Integrate MDT 2012 on the ConfigMgr 2012 Site
• Migrate the Task Sequence using the wizard

This is the process for the current release (ConfigMgr 2012 RC2 and MDT 2012 RC1), but I expect this process to be valid on the final release as well.

Happy migrating…

When troubleshooting OS Deployment in System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, I really miss the state messages from the advertisement status in ConfigMgr 2007.

You can find the same information in reports, but for this scenario, I really prefer the Status Messages.

This guide will help you create a Status Message Query for a Specific Deployment ID.

First you need to get the deployment ID of the Task Sequence you wish to monitor.

Monitoring -> Overview -> Deployments. (The Deployment ID are not displayed by default).

Navigate to the Status Message Queries:

Monitoring -> Overview -> System Status -> Status Message Queries, and click Create Status Message Query.

Give the Status Message Query a name, and click Edit Query Statement…

Click Show Query Language.

Copy the following Query into the Query Statement, and click OK.

Replace the site code (P01) and the Deployment ID (P01200ED), in the query.

select stat.*, ins.*, att1.*, att1.AttributeTime from SMS_StatusMessage as stat left join SMS_StatMsgInsStrings as ins on stat.RecordID = ins.RecordID left join SMS_StatMsgAttributes as att1 on stat.RecordID = att1.RecordID inner join SMS_StatMsgAttributes as att2 on stat.RecordID = att2.RecordID where att2.AttributeID = 401 and att2.AttributeValue = "P01200ED" and stat.SiteCode = "P01" and att2.AttributeTime >= ##PRM:SMS_StatMsgAttributes.AttributeTime## order by att1.AttributeTime desc

Click OK, and complete the wizard.

Now we’re ready to launch the Query:

Select the date and time (default 1 hour ago), and click OK.

And now we’re ready to monitor the deployment like we did in the good old CM07 days J

Enjoy.

The group photo of the System Center 2012 Configuration Manager MVP’s attending the Microsoft 2012 MVP Global Summit in Redmond/Bellevue.

Looking forward to see most of you again at MMS in Las Vegas next month.

The Configuration Manager documentation team has recently published the survival guide on the TechNet wiki. The Survival Guide is a wiki topic meant to capture all the best information on the Web.

Check it out here:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/7075.system-center-2012-configuration-manager-survival-guide.aspx

Step into the System Center Virtual Labs for Free
No complex setup or installation is required to try out System Center running in the full-featured TechNet Virtual Lab. You get a downloadable manual and a 90-minute block of time for each module. You can sign up for additional 90-minute blocks any time.

Right now the following labs are available:

System Center 2012 Configuration Manager:

• Introduction to System Center 2012 Configuration Manager
• Application Management
• Content Management
• Managing Clients
• OS Deployment Bare Metal
• Advanced Software Distribution
• Basic Software Distribution
• Software Updates
• Endpoint Protection
• Migrating from Configuration Manager 2007

System Center 2012 Operations Manager:

• Infrastructure and Application Performance Monitoring

System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager:

• Building Your Cloud Infrastructure
• Building a Service Template

All available labs: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/bb539977

Microsoft is getting ready for a new System Center release, and the requirement for licensees has changed. Read all about it and make sure that you organization is ready for the changes:

Licensing details:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/1/1/11128EC7-2BE7-480C-9D46-4ECECA9E481A/System%20Center%202012%20Licensing%20Datasheet.pdf

Two month ago, I had the honor of presenting at Microsoft Campus Days 2011 in Copenhagen.

I had two sessions, and both sessions topics was about software distribution in System Center Configuration Manager 2012.

The sessions was recorded (In Danish), and is now available on Microsoft TechNet.

Session I15: System Center Configuration Manager 2012: Application Lifecycle Management Part 2 of 2

Download slides from the presentation here from.

Enjoy.

Two month ago, I had the honor of presenting at Microsoft Campus Days 2011 in Copenhagen.

I had two sessions, and both sessions topics was about software distribution in System Center Configuration Manager 2012.

The sessions was recorded (In Danish), and is now available on Microsoft TechNet.

Session I15: System Center Configuration Manager 2012: Application Lifecycle Management Part 1 of 2

Download slides from the presentation here from.

Enjoy.

The current supported configuration of SQL Server for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager, is Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 and Cumulative Update 4. I always use unattended installation of SQL (and anything else if possible). Here are the command lines I uses to setup SQL for ConfigMgr 2012:

SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM Setup:

setup.exe /q /ACTION=Install /ERRORREPORTING="False" /FEATURES=SQLENGINE,RS,AS,IS,SSMS,TOOLS,BIDS,ADV_SSMS,CONN /INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER /INSTANCEDIR=D:\MSSQL\ /SQLSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS="BUILTIN\ADMINISTRATORS" /SQLSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /AGTSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM" /AGTSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /RSSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /RSSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /ASSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /ASSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Disabled /ASSYSADMINACCOUNTS="BUILTIN\ADMINISTRATORS" /ISSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /ISSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Disabled /ASCOLLATION="Latin1_General_CI_AS" /SQLCOLLATION="SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS" /TCPENABLED="1" /NPENABLED="1" /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms

SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Setup:

SQLServer2008R2SP1-KB2528583-x64-ENU.exe /Action=Patch /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms /AllInstances /Quiet

SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 CU4 Setup:

SQLServer2008R2-KB2633146-x64.exe /Action=Patch /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms /AllInstances /Quiet

SP1 and CU4 downloads links:

SQL Server 2008 R8 Service Pack 1:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26727

Cumulative Update 4 for SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2633146

Register for Event here.

Starts: 30 November 2011 13:00
Time zone: (GMT) GMT, London
Duration: 4 hour(s) 30 minute(s)

13:00-13:45 System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager

This 45 minute session will dive into the latest release of Microsoft’s multi-hypervisor management technology, System Center Virtual Machine Manger 2012.

‘VMM’ 2012 will allow you to optimise your existing investments by managing multi-hypervisor environments including Hyper-V, Xen and VMware! You can pool and dynamically allocate virtualised datacenter resources (compute, network and storage) enabling the self-service infrastructure experience your business demands. This is all delivered with flexible role based delegation and access control

13:45-14:30 System Center 2012 Operations Manager

It’s all about the App! In this 45 minute session we will cover how Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2012 can bring intelligent heterogeneous monitoring and management of your line of business applications, business services and the underlying infrastructure fabric including servers (physical and virtual), SANs and switches along with other datacentre resources.
Learn how business services can be measured against SLA’s and how this information can be surfaced to business and application owners.

14:30-14:45 Break

14:45-15:30 System Center 2012 Configuration Manager

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2012 makes it easier for you to empower users to be productive with a unified infrastructure that delivers and manages rich user experiences across corporate and consumer devices.

During this 45 minute session we will demonstrate the capabilities of the latest version of our flagship System Center technology which dates back 17 years to SMS 1.0

Patch/Application/OS deployment, power management, asset intelligence & mobile device management will all be covered through live demonstration.

15:30-16:15 System Center 2012 Service Manager and Orchestrator

Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010 is Microsoft’s ‘best of breed’ ITIL & MOF service delivery tool. By integrating with the other System Center technologies as well as Active Directory & Exchange, SCSM can handle all problem, change & incident requirements generated in today’s fast paced world of ICT.

By working in conjunction with Microsoft System Center Orchestrator (formerly Opalis), we can easily automate a lot of the day to day manual tasks an IT organisation face. This will enable you to build a cost-effective and flexible private cloud infrastructure that responds to incidents, problems and change requests on the fly with minimal if any ‘IT touch’.

16:15-16:30 Break

16:30-17:15 System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager

Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 continues to build on the legacy of providing unified data protection for Windows servers and clients as a best-of-breed backup & recovery solution from Microsoft, for Windows environments. Data Protection Manager provides the best protection and most supportable restore scenarios from disk, tape and cloud — in a scalable, manageable and cost-effective way.

Already a critical part of Microsoft private cloud infrastructures, Data Protection Manager provides the capability to protect virtual machines in your IT environment, as well as the applications running on them. With the 2012 release Data Protection Manager grows these existing capabilities with support for item level recovery, even when Data Protection Manager is running in a virtual machine