Using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal for Common Tasks in Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, and Azure

This post is the first in a series focused on making common administrative tasks in System Center and Azure available via the Service Manager Self-Service Portal.

Series

  1. Using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal for Common Tasks in Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, and Azure
  2. Deploying Virtual Machines in Azure using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal
  3. Sync Configuration Manager Collections in Service Manager
  4. Sync Configuration Manager Client and Operations Manager Agent State in Service Manager
  5. Using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal to Manage Configuration Manager Clients
  6. Managing Configuration Manager Collections using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal
  7. Managing Configuration Manager Collection Membership using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal
  8. Using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal to Manage Operations Manager Agents
  9. Enabling the Act as Proxy setting for Operations Manager Agents using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal
  10. Managing Operations Manager Agent Maintenance Mode using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal
  11. Sync Configuration Manager Application Collections in Service Manager
  12. Deploying Software from Configuration Manager using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal

The goal in this series is to demonstrate how Service Manager and Orchestrator can be used together to make common tasks in other technologies available to administrators. There may be scenarios where the System Center Operations Manager team, for instance, might not want to allow the SharePoint team administrative rights to Operations Manager. They do, however, want to allow the SharePoint team to manage the Operations Manager agents on the SharePoint servers including putting them in and taking them out of Maintenance Mode. They also want the SharePoint team to only be able to manage devices and collections associated with SharePoint.

The following scenarios will be covered, all being accomplished using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal and scoped so that the applicable admins will only have permissions to manage the systems they own.

Scenarios

Azure

  • Virtual Machine Provisioning

Configuration Manager

  • Client Management
    • Install
    • Reinstall
    • Remove
  • Collection Management
    • Create a collection
    • Delete a collection
  • Collection Membership Management
    • Add devices to a collection
    • Remove devices from a collection
    • View collection members
  • Application Deployment (Added 3/31/2014)
    • Add Include Rule to “Application Collection”
    • Remove Include Rule from “Application Collection”

Operations Manager

  • Agent Management
    • Install
    • Uninstall
    • Repair
  • Agent Proxy Management
    • Enabled "Act as Proxy" setting for an agent
  • Agent Maintenance Mode
    • Start Maintenance mode
    • Stop Maintenance mode

Prerequisites

The scenarios were designed using the following

  • System Center Service Manager 2012 R2
    • Self-Service Portal configured and working
    • Active Directory Connector configured and working
    • Configuration Manager Connector configured and working
    • Operations Manager CI Connector configured and working
    • Orchestrator Connector configured and working
  • System Center Configuration Manager 2012 R2
    • Discovery configured and working
  • System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2
  • System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2
    • SC 2012 Configuration Manager Integration Pack configured and working
    • SC 2012 Operations Manager Integration Pack configured and working
    • SC 2012 Service Manager Integration Pack configured and working
    • Windows Azure Integration Pack configured and working
    • Configuration Manager Console installed on runbook servers (open the console, make sure you can connect to your site server)
    • Operations Manager Console installed on runbook servers
    • Service Manager console installed on runbook servers
    • Runbook servers configured to allow PowerShell scripts to run
  • Azure Account
    • This is only necessary for the one Azure scenario

 

Continue to the 2nd post in this series: Deploying Virtual Machines in Azure using the Service Manager Self-Service Portal