System Center Orchestrator 2012 SP1 All in one install

So I thought it about time I started to get to grips with Orchestrator 2012. It’s a product I’ve been aware of and known a bit about since Opalis (pre-Microsoft) days and as someone who frequently uses other Microsoft System Center and server products I know it’s capabilities and how useful it can be to an enterprise set-up. Eventually I got around to installing it in a virtual lab environment so I can ‘play’ around with it and see what I can learn.

I’ve put it in an existing LAB environment which is all Windows Server 2012 with a 2012 DC and a SQL 2012 server, I’ve also installed all Orchestrator roles on the one server as I’m in a lab set-up. I thought I would put up the screenshots for those who are maybe thinking about doing it and want to know how involved it is or what to expect. So here goes…

Pre-reqs

You can see the full requirements here on technet but I’ll give you a ‘to the point’ list below to get you up and running.

A basic spec Windows Server – 2008 R2 and upwards.
SQL 2008 R2 and upwards – local or remote with a collation of SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS.
.NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (installed for you)
.NET Framework 4.0
IIS (installed for you)
A low privilege ‘Orchestrator Management Service’ account – See here for full details

There are other requirements if you want to split the roles across servers but I’m not going to explore those in this post, another time maybe. Check the technet links I’ve put in there for full information.

Run SetupOrchestrator.exe from your installation media and you’ll be presented with the License Terms which of course you’ll have to agree to if you want to continue.
Next up you’ll need your product key if you have one. If not then you can install the product as an evaluation only and that will get you 180 days of usage before you’ll need to either buy a key or stop using the product.
Now you can choose the features you want to install, as this is a lab I did an all in one install. At this stage if you don’t have any of the required pre-requisites, the set-up process will go away and install them for you.
At this stage you’ll need the Orchestrator Management service account. As this is an all in one install it’s the only account that is required. If you were splitting the roles across different servers i.e. in production, then you would also need to use an Orchestrator Runbook Server Monitor and a Orchestrator Runbook service account. In this installation the Management service account will automatically be used as the Runbook Server Monitor account.
Next up is the installation location. I would always recommend you keep this default unless you have an overwhelming reason not to.
Now you can choose the ports for your IIS site to use. Again, I would leave them as is unless you really need to.
By default the installation will create a local group called OrchestratorUsersGroup. You can also allow those users access to the Runbook Designer from a remote machine if required. For further information about groups in Orchestrator 2012 SP1 see this link to technet.
Now you can choose the Orchestrator database name which by default is ‘Orchestrator’. Go ahead and change it if you need to otherwise I’d leave it the same for ease of use and getting support from error message etc. If you have an existing Orchestrator database you can also connect to that at this point.
Now you should specify the SQL server and instance (if required) you wish to use. In my lab my SQL 2012 server is named SQL1, communication is over the default TCP port of 1433. You must ensure that the account you are installing this with has administrative privileges on that SQL server. Test the connection before continuing.
If your server has internet access then I’d recommend you allow Microsoft Updates to be applied automatically to your installation. If not then just be aware of this in case of any issues when using the product.
Now you have the CEIP and Error Reporting Options, again if you have internet access on the server then I would always recommend you do this to assist Microsoft in making this an even better product.
And that’s about it, the summary is there for you to check everything you’ve selected. All there is for you to do now is hit Install and wait for a few minutes. This took around 10-15 minutes to complete in my 1CPU 2GB RAM lab VM.
The progress indicator shows you where it’s up to with each component.
When completed you’ll see this success screen, note the tick boxes at the bottom which will launch windows update, the online documentation and the Runbook Designer. You might not want to do this if you’re in a lab like me.