Managing from the Cloud with System Center AdvisorAM B319

Paul MestemakerSr. Program ManagerMicrosoft Corporation

Session Objectives and Takeaways

Session Objectives: Learn about the benefits of Advisor Understand Advisor’s high-level architecture to

understand data security, privacy, and control Learn how to diagnose and troubleshoot Advisor

deployments Key Takeaways:

System Center Advisor is available through Software Assurance

System Center Advisor works with Windows Server and Server Workloads (e.g. SQL, Exchange, SharePoint)

CUSTOMER CONFIGURATIONS

Microsoft Customer

Service and Support

Knowledge BaseBEST PRACTICE CONFIGURATION

The Wisdom of the Cloud

Available as Software Assurance benefit

System Center Advisor Benefits and Features

Proactively avoid problems

Alerts for unpatched, misconfigured, or unsupported configurationsRegular assessment of server configurationAccess from the web

Reduce downtime

Prevent problems experienced by customers similar to youCompare with Microsoft best practicesAccess centralized configuration data

Resolve issues faster

Access current and historical configuration dataShare configuration data with internal or Microsoft support staffGet instant access to guidance

Introduction to System Center Advisor

Paul MestemakerSr. Program ManagerMicrosoft

DEMO

System Center Advisor: How It Works

Proactive KnowledgeAdvisor alerts customers when workloads are: Unpatched (Beyond Microsoft Update,

based on customers need, what CSS wishes customers would deploy)

Misconfigured (Can be simple or complex, May not be what you normally think of as “configuration”)

At risk of data loss (Event log errors that normally cause downtime, we point you to articles with solutions “as if you were calling CSS”)

Unsupported (“Actually that is not supported…” Where can anyone find all of these?”)

A real-time monitoring product (like System Center Operations Manager) will continue to be the recommended alerting solution when server roles are:• Unavailable• Underperforming• Causing LOB downtime / business impact

Recent and Historical ContextAdvisor provides context with historical data: Configuration Snapshot (latest

information about my server, instance, or database)

Configuration History (highlights changes between snapshots)

Examples of Data Basic OS properties (server name, OS

version, IP address, et al) Basic SQL properties

(sys.configurations, sys.databases, SERVERPROPERTY_EX, et al)

This is not an all-inclusive configuration manifest. We started with the common settings that CSS needs to diagnose problems. The type of data collected will continually expand based on CSS and customer feedback (e.g. usefulness, collection overhead, data size, data sensitivity).

Commercial Availability

ANNOUNCEMENT

Advisor and Software Assurance

Advisor is offered as a Software Assurance (SA) benefit

Licensing Customer must have an active SA license for the

workload being monitored by Advisor (SA for Windows Server or SQL Server)

As additional workloads are added, SA licenses for those workloads will be honored

60-day free trial for simple barrier free onboarding Do not need to enter an agreement number

Global Availability

ANNOUNCEMENT

Global Availability

Localized versions and list of languages is still TBD

For the current list, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/online/faq.aspx#international

Geographies (Apr 2012) Australia Austria Belgium Brazil Canada Denmark Finland France Germany Hong Kong

Iceland India Ireland Italy Japan Luxembour

g Netherland

s New

Zealand

Norway Portugal Singapore Spain Sweden Switzerland United

Kingdom United

States

Details

Advisor Workloads

Exchange Server

Support for Exchange 2010

SharePoint Server

Support for SharePoint 2010

SQL Server

Support for SQL Server 2008, 2008 R2 & 2012

Windows Server

Support for Windows Server 2008 & 2008 R2Note: Focus on AD, Hyper-V, and Core OS

Setting up Advisor for the First Time

Paul MestemakerSr. Program ManagerMicrosoft

DEMO

Preparing Your Environment

Setting up your environment only takes 5 minutes, but can take a day in elapsed time to see alerts

TIP: Upload now commands available here…http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/advisor/gg697803.aspx

Top Deployment Issues

Clock Skew Recommendation: Make sure servers’ clocks are synced

with internet time Cannot download registration certificate due to

secure IE on Windows Server Recommendation: Download setup and certificate on a

client OS Work-around: Uncheck “do not save encrypted pages to

disk” in Internet Explorer Properties Agent cannot talk to a remote gateway in a

workgroup Recommendation: have a gateway on each non-domain

joined server

Topology Recommendations

Domain-joined servers Recommendation: 1 agent/server Recommendation: 1 gateway/N servers

Non-domain joined servers Recommendation: 1 agent/server Recommendation: 1 gateway/server Problem: Agents/Gateways on separate servers could not

communicate over machine boundaries through WCF

Topology Example #1 – Domain Environment

Agent

Gateway

Agent & Gateway

Legend

S1 S2 … SN SN + 1

AdvisorService

Topology Example #2 – Workgroup Environment

Agent

Gateway

Agent & Gateway

Legend

S1 S2 … SN SN + 1

AdvisorService

Customization and Collaboration

Paul MestemakerSr. Program ManagerMicrosoft

DEMO

How is Advisor different than Operations Manager?

TOP QUESTION

Advisor and Your Management Solution

Advisor is not a real-time monitoring solution Advisor leverages SCOM 2007 R2 Agent and

Management Pack technology Note: Advisor does not require SCOM, but can work side-

by-side with SCOM via multi-homing Note: Advisor works side-by-side with SCOM 2012

Reusing SCOM technology will … Enable future better-together scenarios with Microsoft’s

management platform investments (e.g. Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, Service Manager)

Minimize duplication of data collection

Wouldn’t having both Advisor and OM be too much overhead for my server?

TOP QUESTION

Advisor Data Collection Details

Recommendation: deploy to test servers and monitor the effect in your environment

Low overhead Agent CPU: < 1% average, occasional spikes Agent Memory: < 75 MB Gateway Upload: ~150KB/server/day

Server management data only Diagnostic data (configuration settings, error logs) Utilization (CPU, IO, Available Memory, etc.) [*] Workload throughput (transactions/day, GB served/day)

[*] No customer data or custom workload data

Isn’t sending data outside of my environment bad?

TOP QUESTION

Data Privacy & Handling Sensitive Data

Complete Privacy Statement available Advisor only has visibility into servers with Agents deployed

on them (+ data queried from Active Directory about objects associated with that server)

Uploads are archived on-premise (5 days by default) for audit trail and to enable you to inspect the data

Upload time is configurable; you can stop uploading at any time

You can close your account and request to remove data from Advisor servers (account cleanup happens within 90 days)

Your organization will be the only non-Microsoft party who will have access to your individual organization’s data

Microsoft will not use this data for sales/licensing validation

Why Try Advisor?

You can prevent problems in your environment that customers similar to you have already experienced

You can easily provision others to see information about your environment without giving them access to your servers (e.g. consultants/TAMs)

If you have SA, you can get this at no additional cost

If you don’t have SA, you can sign up for a 60-day free trial

It only takes 5 minutes to get started

Learn more

System Center Advisor Websites

http://www.SystemCenterAdvisor.com/ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/advisor.aspx

3 minute demo http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/showcase/details.aspx?uuid=32e32209-71c4-43d2-b2ae-

015598bf5b7d Microsoft TechNet

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/5176.what-s-new-in-system-center-advisor.aspx

Blog http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2012/01/26/system-center-advisor-released.aspx

Tweet @PaulMest or #SCAdvisor

What’s New in Monitoring SQL Server 2012 and SQL Azure for IT Operators? AM-B314 - Titian 2206 - Thu, Apr 19 - 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM

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© 2012 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries.The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.