System Center Advisor System Requirements

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What do you need in order to use System Center Advisor? Check out the following information to prepare for Advisor:

  • Supported operating systems

  • Required software

  • Supported browsers

  • Supported technologies for analysis

  • Requirements for using Advisor as an attached service in System Center 2012: Operations Manager

Supported operating systems

Agents and gateways are supported on the following 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012:

  • Windows Server 2012

  • Windows Server 2008 Datacenter

  • Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

  • Windows Server 2008 Standard

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter without Hyper-V

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise without Hyper-V

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard without Hyper-V

  • Hyper-V Server 2012

  • Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

Required software

The Advisor on-premise software requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1.

For Windows Server 2008, you can download this package from https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=131605.

For Windows Server 2008 R2, you can enable the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 feature by using Server Manager. For more information see https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=133158.

The agent can be installed on Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 or the Server Core installation option of Windows Server 2008 R2 after you enable .NET Framework 3.5.1. Use the following command to install the .NET Framework:

DISM /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx3-ServerCore-WOW64

After you have installed the .NET Framework 3.5.1 on Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 or the Server Core, install your Advisor software from the command line, as described in Install the Gateway and Agent from the Command Line.

Supported browsers

The following browsers are supported:

  • Windows Internet Explorer 7 (or a later version)

  • Mozilla Firefox 3.5 (or a later version)

Regardless of the browser you use, you must also install Microsoft Silverlight 4.

Supported technologies for analysis

Advisor analyzes the following workloads:

  • Windows Server 2012

  • Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2:

    • Active Directory

    • Hyper-V Host

    • General operating system

  • Hyper-V Server 2012

  • SQL Server 2008 and later

    • SQL Engine

  • Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

  • Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

  • Microsoft Lync Server 2010

  • Microsoft Lync Server 2013 (new in October 2013)

  • System Center 2012 SP1 – Virtual Machine Manager

For SQL Server, the following 32-bit and 64-bit editions are supported for analysis:

  • SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Enterprise

  • SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Standard

  • SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Workgroup

  • SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Web

  • SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Express

In addition, the 32-bit edition of SQL Server is supported when running in the WOW64 implementation.

Requirements for using Advisor as an attached service in System Center 2012: Operations Manager

You can use Advisor as an attached service in System Center 2012 SP1 or R2: Operations Manager. This enables you to use the Operations console in Operations Manager to view Advisor alerts and configuration information. When you use Advisor as an attached service in Operations Manager, the agent communicates directly with the management server, which in turn talks to the Advisor service. You can continue to use Advisor as a standalone service, using the Advisor gateway for communication with the service; using Advisor as an attached service in Operations Manager simply extends the value of Advisor to Operations Manager.

Using Advisor as an attached services has the following prerequisites:

  • System Center 2012 SP1: Operations Manager Update Rollup 2. This update needs to be applied to the management server, agents, and Operations console for the Advisor as an attached service scenario to work.

  • System Center Advisor Connector preview. You can download the connector from https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=311952.

See the Viewing System Center Advisor Alerts topic in the Operations Manager TechNet library for the installation and configuration instructions.

If you want to view Advisor alerts about SharePoint Server 2010, Lync Server 2010 or 2013, or System Center 2012 SP1: Virtual Machine Manager, you need to configure a Run As account for those workloads. See the following information:

See Also

Concepts

Deploy System Center Advisor
Welcome to System Center Advisor