OM12 and SQL Collation Settings: ONLY ‘SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS’ Works

Since SCOM 2007 became RTM there was some confusion about the supported collation settings. But from day one there was only ONE supported collation setting:

SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS.

None the less, I bumped in many SCOM (R2) environments running the wrong collation settings. Even made the mistake myself once which took me many hours to correct it since the only way is to remove the SQL instance and to reinstall it. Makes you wonder what such a thing does to an existing SCOM (R2) installation…

With OM12 the same collation setting is still a requirement and the only supported collation setting as well. So

SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS

is the way to go here, and nothing else. When you don’t have that collation setting in place these MPs will give you some real issues:

1. Windows Server OS MP
   The Report Windows Server Operating System Reports\Performance by Utilization won’t work and give you this kind of error message about a conflicting collation, like between "SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS" and "Latin1_General_CI_AS".
   
   
2. Exchange Server 2010 MP
   Like I already blogged about here. The reporting part is very picky about the correct Collation settings.
   
   
3. Veeam MP for monitoring VMware
   The reporting component requires the correct collation settings as well. (Mind you this is NOT a Veeam issue but a pure OM12 issue!)

One would assume Microsoft is very clear about this collation setting so the documentation should reflect that. How ever, in real life one is too easily taken of the right track resulting in all kinds of errors shown in you OM12 environment. Let’s take a look at the different websites:

1. OM 12 Supported Configurations, Minimum Software Requirements:
   
   This makes one think there are other supported collation settings as well…
   
   
2. System Center Service Manager Engineering Blog:
   
   So this a clear statement. Only SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS is supported…
   
3. KB958979, a rapid publishing article:
   
   
   So only SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS is the way to go…

Already I heard from some people the expectation that SP1 for SC2012 will change all this. However, until the mentioned MPs will be modified as well, it won’t change anything.

So again, when installing SCOM R2 or OM12 (I hope the latter ), there is only ONE correct collation setting for your SQL server instance:

SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS

Hopefully this will save you all a lot of frustrations AND hard work to make it right when you’ve made the wrong selection…