Preparing Windows Azure Pack and System Center Components for Service Reporting

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 R2 Service Reporting

The following software is used to collect and report inventory and metering data, which aggregates and summaries Information as a Service (IaaS) data for IT hosting service providers.

• System Center 2012 R2 Virtual Machine Manager

• System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager

• System Center 2012 R2 Service Provider Foundation

• Windows Azure Pack for Windows Server

• System Center 2012 R2 Service Reporting

The following process describes how data flows from source systems and results in reports for IaaS resources hosted in your environment.

1. Data is collected in System Center from Virtual Machine Manager and Operations Manager.

   1. Virtual Machine Manager collects data for all virtual machines and hosts that it manages. Such data includes CPU, memory, storage, network, started and stopped metrics. This data is stored for a short period.

   2. Virtual Machine Manager sends its performance data to Operations Manager by using the VMM to OM connector.

   3. Operations Manager saves the raw data in the Operations Manager data warehouse.

   4. Every hour the Operations Manager data warehouse moves the raw data to the hour dataset for long-time storage.

2. Data is collected by Windows Azure Pack and Service Provider Foundation.

   In Windows Azure Pack for Windows Server, the Collector service collects data for its various Resource Provider services. Each Resource Provider has a list of data sets that it collects.

   1. The Usage Collector collects usage data from every service provider and saves it into the collector database, which is part of Windows Azure Pack.

   2. The Usage Collector for VM Clouds uses Service Provider Foundation to collect data for the VM Resource Service provider.

   3. The Data Collection module for VM Clouds in Windows Azure Pack calls Service Provider Foundation for needed data such as CPU utilization, memory utilization, and disk utilization.

   4. Service Provider Foundation calls Operations Manager data warehouse and returns the data to the Windows Azure Pack Collector service.

   5. Windows Azure Pack Usage Collector saves the data for VM clouds in the Usage Collector database, where it saves the data for one billing cycle, an estimated 40 days.

3. Data is analyzed by Service Reporting and stored long-term.

   1. Service Reporting uses ETL (Extract, Transfer Load) to collect data.

   2. The extract process contacts the Windows Azure Pack Usage REST API to extract data.

   3. Windows Azure Pack REST API queries the Collector database and returns the data to the extract process.

   4. The Service Reporting data warehouse stores the data indefinitely and it is transferred to a data cube and loaded for analysis.

   5. You can analyze the data in Excel or SharePoint Performance Point.

The following diagram depicts this process.

Before you configure VMM and Operations Manager, ensure the following conditions are met.

1. Virtual Machine Manager is already installed.

2. Operations Manager is already installed.

3. At least one cloud is created in Virtual Machine Manager.

4. All service accounts for Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager are running under a domain account.

For Operations Manager to monitor and discover clouds, hosts and VMs, the VMM Management pack needs to be imported into Operations Manager. The VMM Management pack has a list of management packs that it depends on such as SQL, IIS and Windows Server. In order to make this easier, a PowerShell script is available to import the management packs. These management packs are located on the Virtual Machine Manager Server under the installation folder. For example, InstallationDrive\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Virtual Machine Manager\ManagementPack.

To import VMM and dependent management packs into Operations Manager

1. Copy the Dependencies folder from the Virtual Machine Manager server to the Operations Manager temp folder.

2. Start the Operations Manager console as Administrator.

3. Select the Administration workspace.

4. In the Administration Explorer view, select Management Packs.

5. Select Import Management Packs.

6. Click Add and the select Import from disk.

7. Click No.

8. On the Operations Manager management server, navigate to the folder where you copied the Management Pack folder previously.

9. Select all files and then click Open.

10. Select Install.

11. Select the Monitoring workspace.

12. Verify that the following views appear in the monitoring views:

    • Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager

    • Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager PRO

To ensure that Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager can exchange information, both components need to have administrative access to each other. To verify that the service accounts have the correct access, perform the following procedure.

To share VMM and Operations Manager service accounts to VM and OM Admins security groups

1. Open Services on the Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager servers.

2. On the Virtual Machine Manager server, verify that the user for System Center Virtual Machine Manager is running under a domain account. For example, CONTOSO\!vmm.

3. On the Operations Manager server, verify that the user for System Center Data Access Service is running under a domain account. For example, CONTOSO\!om_das.

4. If Operations Manager administrators are managed with an Active Directory security group, then add the VMM Service Account to the OM Admins security group using Active Directory Users and Computers. For example, add the CONTOSO\!VMM user to the OM Admins Security Group.

5. If VMM Administrators are managed with an Active Directory security group, then add the VMM Service Account to the OM Admins security group.

6. Open the VMM console as an administrator.

7. Select Settings and then click System Center Settings.

8. Type the fully qualified domain name of the Operations Manager server.

9. Use default Service Account that is suggested, and then click Next.

10. Specify the Service Account for Operations Manager that was added to the VMM security group previously and then click Next.

11. Click Finish to enable the integration.

To verify integration between Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager

1. Open the VMM console as an administrator.

2. Select Settings and then click System Center Settings.

3. Double-click Operations Manager Server.

4. Verify that the connection status is OK.

5. Select Management Pack and verify that management packs in the list are version 3.1.6011.0 or higher.

6. Open the Operations Manager console as an administrator.

7. Select Monitoring, click Monitoring, and then click Virtual Machine Manager Views.

8. When the diagram view is fully displayed, expand Managed Resources and then expand All Clouds.

9. You should see an expanded view of clouds.

To verify that data is being stored in the Operations Manager data warehouse

1. Open SQL Management Studio.

2. Connect to the SQL instance that hosts the Operations Manager data warehouse database.

3. Select the OperationsManagerDW database.

4. In the Object Explorer pane, expand the database and expand the Tables folder.

5. Select the Perf.PerfHourly_ table.

6. Right-click Perf.PerfHourly_ table then click Select Top 1000 rows.

7. In the results pane, verify that records are displayed.

Before you configure Service Provider Foundation and Windows Azure Pack, ensure the following conditions are met.

1. Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager integration has been configured and is working.

2. Service Provider Foundation has been installed and configured to work with VMM.

3. Windows Azure Pack has been installed and configured.

4. At a minimum, at least one Windows Azure Pack plan has been configured.

For Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager to integrate, you perform the following procedures.

1. Register the SPF usage metering endpoint with the Operations Manager operational database

2. Resister the SPF Metering Endpoint in the Windows Azure Pack Administration Portal

3. Verify that data is stored in the Collection Database

To register the SPF usage metering endpoint with the Operations Manager operational database

1. Log on to the Service Provider Foundation server as the Usage App Pool account.

2. Verify that the App Pool account for the Usage web endpoint is running as a domain account.

3. Ensure that the Usage App Pool account is added to the SQL Login and granted execute permission to where the SCOM Data Warehouse database is installed.

4. Open PowerShell with administrative privilege.

5. Type Import-module spfadmin

6. Save the following PowerShell script as RegistrespfwOMDW.ps1 on the Service Provider Foundation server.

   # Provide server name to the OM DW instance  
   $OMDWSqlServer = <OMDWConnectionString>  
   # Provide server name to the OM instance  
   $OMServer = <OMManagementServerName>  
   # Provide the account for Windows Azure Pack to access the SPF usage web endpoint  
   $UsageUser = <Domain\Username>   
   # Register the SCOM Data Warehouse instance to SPF usage metering  
   $server = New-SCSPFServer -Name $OMServer -ServerType OMDW   
   $setting = New-SCSPFSetting -Name $OMDWSqlServer -SettingString "Data Source=$OMDWSqlServer;Initial Catalog=OperationsManagerDW;Integrated Security=True" -SettingType DatabaseConnectionString –Server $server   
   # Ensure the caller account can access the SPF usage web endpoint  
   Net.exe localgroup SPF_Usage /add $UsageUser  
   

7. Update variables in the script that resemble <Variable> with those needed for your environment.

8. Run the script on the Service Provider Foundation server by typing ./RegistrespfwOMDW.ps1

To register the SPF Metering Endpoint in the Windows Azure Pack Administration Portal

1. Log on to the Windows Azure Pack Administration Portal as an administrator.

2. Select VM Clouds.

3. Select Register Service Reporting Provider.

4. Specify the URL of the Service Provider Foundation Usage Metering web endpoint that you configured previously. For example, https://<ServiceProviderFoundationServiceRoot>:8090/Usage/ Note the /usage/ portion of the URL.

5. Provide credentials to access the Service Provider Foundation Usage endpoint, which you configured previously.

6. Verify that the registration completes successfully.

To verify that data is stored in the Collection Database

1. Wait at least 1 hour after registering the Service Provider Foundation endpoints and then open SQL Server Management Studio.

2. Connect to the SQL instance that hosts the Windows Azure Pack Collection database.

3. In the Object Explorer, expand Databases and then select the Microsoft.MgmtSvc.Usage database.

4. Expand the database then expand Tables.

5. Right-click [usage].[Records] and then click Select Top 1000 rows.

6. Verify that records are showing in the Results view.

After you have prepared System Center 2012 R2 components and prepared Windows Azure Pack, you are ready to install and configure Service Reporting. The following procedures describe how to install and configure Service Reporting.

1. How to Install Service Reporting

2. How to Configure Service Reporting for Windows Azure Pack and System Center

After you have Service Reporting deployed and configured it with other System Center 2012 R2 components and Windows Azure Pack, your infrastructure should resemble the following diagram. In the diagram, System Center components are shown in green where some data originates. Windows Azure Pack services are shown in blue where other data originates. Reporting components are shown in purple where usage and inventory data is ultimately displayed.

The Windows Azure Pack Usage Service and resource providers are shown as part of the diagram for completeness, however not every item in the diagram is used to collect or show usage or inventory information. Additionally, the REST API is present in the diagram to show the flow of information between computer systems and its functionality is more fully documented at Windows Azure Pack Usage Service.

Service Reporting in System Center 2012 R2
Planning for Service Reporting