Setting Up a Service Manager 2012 Lab Environment with Production Data

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Applies To: System Center 2012 R2 Service Manager, System Center 2012 SP1 - Service Manager

This section explains how to create a lab environment and populate it with production data so that you can perform and test an upgrade before you perform the upgrade in the production environment. The linked procedures in this section describe how to configure System Center 2012 – Service Manager Service Pack 1 (SP1) in a lab environment with production data. You then perform an in-place upgrade to Service Manager in System Center 2012 R2. It is important to follow the steps in this section in sequence.

  1. How to Install an Additional Management Server in the Production Service Manager Management Group

  2. On the secondary management server, install any cumulative updates that you installed on the primary management server.

  3. How to Copy the Workflow Assembly Files

  4. How to Disable Service Manager Connectors in the Production Environment

  5. How to Disable Email Notifications in the Production Environment

  6. Disable all workflows in the production environment that you do not want to be running in the lab environment.

  7. How to Stop Service Manager Services on the Secondary Management Server

  8. How to Back Up the Production Service Manager Database

  9. How to Enable Service Manager Connectors in the Production Environment

  10. How to Enable Email Notifications in the Production Environment

  11. Enable all workflows in the production environment that you disabled in step 6.

  12. How to Restore the Service Manager Database in the Lab Environment

  13. How to Prepare the Service Manager Database in the Lab Environment

  14. If possible, block communications to SQL from the secondary management server to the production Service Manager database server.

  15. How to Start Service Manager Services on the Secondary Management Server

  16. Verify that the lab environment works. Try to start the console on the secondary management server and determine whether you can connect to the console. Confirm that data warehouse and reporting do not appear.

  17. How to Promote a Secondary Management Server in a Lab Environment

  18. How to Enable the Connectors in the Lab Environment

    Note

    Do not enable or delete the System Center Operations Manager alert connector in the lab environment. This will cause the alert connector in the production environment to fail.

  19. If you want to test the email notification and incoming email functionality, use a separate Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) instance to send email messages to eliminate flooding the inboxes of users with test email. To test the incoming email feature, you can point to a test share and drop the eml files into this share when you are ready to test.

  20. How to Install a New Data Warehouse Server in the Lab Environment

  21. How to Register the Data Warehouse Server in the Lab Environment

  22. Back up this lab environment. For example, back up the database and encryption keys and the virtual machine snapshots. This gives you the ability to recover if the upgrade fails.

  23. Attempt the in-place upgrade of Service Manager in System Center 2012 R2.

  24. Test everything. Document any discrepancies and fixes. Send feedback through the Microsoft Connect website.

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For additional resources, see Information and Support for System Center 2012.

Tip: Use this query to find online documentation in the TechNet Library for System Center 2012. For instructions and examples, see Search the System Center 2012 Documentation Library.
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