Migrating from SCOM R2 CU#5 to OM12. Part I: The environment

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Postings in the same series:
Part II   - Prepare yourself
Part III – Pre Upgrade Tasks for Operations Manager
Part IV – Upgrade Tasks for Operations Manager
Part V  – Upgrade Tasks for Operations Manager, continued
Part VI – Wrapping Up 
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As promised I will start a new series of blog postings all about migrating from SCOM R2 CU#5 to OM12. This is the first posting in this series.

Especially for this series of postings I have build myself a whole new SCOM R2 environment in my test lab. The first posting in this series will describe this environment in more detail. This way we know what were ‘up against’ when we start the migration. It’s very important to know what you have before starting the migration. Otherwise one might end up in a bad situation where the migration goes wrong and results into a wrecked SCOM/OM12 environment. So let’s start.

What we have
Since resources are limited I have build a small and yet a representative SCOM R2 environment, which resembles (in the basics!) many distributed SCOM R2 environments.

There are two different forests in place, without a trust. In one forest (SCOM2OM12.local), there is a DC, a RMS, a MS and a SQL server in place. Also a PKI is in place and fully configured. In the other forest (NTE.local), there is a DC, a dedicated Gateway Server and a member server in place. The Gateway Server communicates with the MS server using certificates. The servers behind the Gateway Server, communicate with it using Kerberos.

In total 7 servers are running, based on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with the latest patches and updates applied. SQL server is based on SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 CU#4. SCOM R2 is installed with CU#5 applied. These are the server names and their functionality:

Forest: SCOM2OM12.local (boy, do I have some imagination…)

1. SCOM-DC01: AD Controller for forest SCOM2OM12 and Enterprise PKI;
2. SCOM-DB01: SQL Server with SSRS;
3. SCOM-MS01: RMS;
4. SCOM-MS02: MS.

Forest: NTE.local

1. NTE-DC01: AD Controller for forest NTE;
2. NTE-GW01: SCOM R2 Gateway Server;
3. NTE-SV01: Member Server.

In a simplified Visio drawing the environment looks like this:

What MPs are loaded
All basic Microsoft MPs are in imported and fully configured:

1. Server OS;
2. AD;
3. DHCP (oink!);
4. DNS;
5. IIS;
6. SQL;
7. Windows Terminal Services;
8. Windows Remote Desktop Services;
9. GPO;
10. DFS Namespaces;
11. DFS Replication;
12. SMB;
13. File Services;
14. Certificate Services.

On top of it, I have also imported these free MPs, which really add value to any SCOM R2 environment:

1. OpsLogix Ping;
2. SCC Health Reports;
3. PKI Verification MP.

Even though IMO the xSNMP Suite MP rocks, with OM12 this MP isn’t needed any more (I hope). And for another thing, the SNMP module in OM12 is totally rewritten, from the ground up. So the xSNMP isn’t compatible with OM12 anymore. At least, that’s what I expect from it.

On top of it I have created some bogus Distributed Applications, DA 01 and DA 02. Also some wizard based monitors are in place:

1. Process Monitor. Process HealthService.exe is being monitored;
2. TCP Port Monitor. Checks port 80 on the RMS;
3. Web Application Monitor. Checks the availability of the SCOM Web Console;
4. Windows Service Monitor. Checks the availability and running state of the service MSDTC on the RMS.

Also some additional Views and Roles are created and a SMTP Notification Channel is in place. This way we have a good environment in place for the migration. In the next posting of this series I’ll talk about the upgrade path, the documentation which is available, the preparations and the lot. See you all next time!