How I passed my Configuring and Deploying a Private Cloud with System Center 2012 70-247 exam.

I recently sat this exam and I wanted to talk a little about how I passed the exam. Basically what you are tested on can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/exam.aspx?id=70-247 

Its an exam on almost everything System Center and a little bit of Hyper-V, oh and lets not forget storage. The subject matter is a mile wide and an inch deep (Gregg Shields gave me that quote). Its not an easy exam as you are basically answering a bunch of high level questions "what if" scenarios.

I have put together a little help section below that helped me pass the exam. I used a lab with VMware and some very kind Server 2008 R2 images that my gracious employer gave me. So get a hypervisor and complete the following in your lab the hard way. This isn't easy so therefore is totally and utterly worth doing.

1. Understand the Microsoft Private Cloud Architecture and Components. There are 8 of these that make up the system center suite. You will use 7, SCCM isn't really utilized here.
TIP: Private Cloud is NOT Hyper-V.

2. Install Hyper-V on Windows 2008 R2. System Center products Pre-SP1 aren't supported on Server 2012. So don't waste time installing it.

3. Install VMM2012. Learn VMM, Love VMM, Keep VMM close.

4. Configure Your Logical Networks in VMM and Storage Arrays.

5. From VMM, Create a Hyper-V Cluster (if you have more than 1 host) and Create a Private Cloud. There is a button that says "Create Cloud" so don't stress.

6. Working with the VMM 2012 Library: Profiles and VM Templates. Making a Private Cloud is basically the beginning. Play around with templates and profiles to lay the foundations of automation.

7. Configure VMM User Roles and the Self-Service Portal. The VMMSSP is obsolete come SP1, but its on the exam.

8. Create Virtual Application Packages with the Server App-V Sequencer. This is relatively simple and fun actually.

9. Work with VMM 2012 Services and Service Templates. Play around with these, they offer the capability of automatic VM provisioning

10. Create a 3 Tier Service. This is not easy and it took me 4 days to figure it out properly.

11. WSUS on VMM 2012. Easy to up and important to learn.

12. From VMM figure out how to automate the deployment of Hyper-V Hosts - Again, not simple but a massively valuable skill once you have learned it.

13. Install and play with App Controller.

14. Install SCOM and figure out how to integrate Cloud Monitoring from SCOM via VMM 2012.

15. Service Manager integration with all things system center.  Fairly simple and worth spending the time doing.

16. Install DPM and SCORCH. Play with runbooks, and set up some simple backups via DPM.

17. Azure. Understand what it is, and how to use it via App Controller, that's it.

There is a lot to learn but ensuring that only the minimum requirements are met and they are deployed in their simplest form is the key here. You do not need to have in dept knowledge of all the components.

All the help and support is out there, TechNet, MSDN and blogs, all this achievable in a about 5-10 days.

Good Luck.

Free 90 Day Windows Azure Trail

Hello all,

Just a quick note, Windows Azure has a free trail available.

Follow this link : http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/

Enjoy.

DPM 2012 SP1 Agent Upgrade Fail on DPM 2 DPM

I’m with a client today installing DPM 2012 SP1, it’s an upgrade from DPM 2012 onto Server 2012.

So long story short, installed SP1 on the 2 servers, Server 1 was backing up SharePoint 2007 and SQL 2005, Server 2 was backing up Server 1. All of the agent upgrades on Server 1 was a success.

However there was a slight hiccup when trying to upgrade the Agent on Server 1 from Server 2.

Error: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion (0x8007041D))

So trying to uninstall and then re-install the agent failed, (you need to remove all your protection groups prior to uninstallation by the way).

Here is how I finally fixed it.

1.    I tried to run DPMRA.exe on Server 1 from "C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012\DPM\DPM\bin\DPMRA.exe"  and it gave me an error saying “VssRequestor.dll” was missing. 

2.    That made it a little easier to solve and I located the VssRequestor.dll file on a client with the DPM 2012 SP1 agent installed in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\DPM\bin\VssRequestor.dll" 

3.    I then copied it to Server 1 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012\DPM\DPM\bin\VssRequestor.dll”

I did also find that some of the historic data was still kept from the previous DPM instance, so ensure you remove any old SQL relics that may still lurk around in your previous server.

Hope this helps.