Strategy for checking Failover Cluster - Part 2

In this article, I will continue the discussion by showing you how to use System Center Operations Manager to test failover clusters through the deployment of management agents for each cluster node.

In Part 1 of this series, I showed you how to deploy System Center Operations Manager. You also know where to download management packages to allow System Center Operations Manager to check for a failover cluster. This is the time to deploy agents for the machines that we will test.

Deploy agents

Although System Center Operations Manager can perform several levels of management without installing agents on the server, we really need them to be able to use all the features of System Center Operations Manager. To start deploying agents, go to the Administration tab, then click Device Management from within the tree console. After performing the above operation, the panel to the right of the screen will list some required configuration tasks, as shown in Figure A.

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Figure A: The window lists some of the configuration tasks required

Continue the process by clicking on the link labeled Required: Configure Computers and Devices to Manage . Meanwhile, Windows will launch Computer and Device Management Wizard . The initial screen of the wizard will ask you about the type of device you want to manage. You will have several options: Windows computers , UNIX / Linux computers or Network devices (using SNMP) as shown in Figure B. In a real environment, you will definitely manage Windows computers, network devices or Unix and Linux devices are available on your network. However, since this series only focuses on the failover cluster, we will not introduce much of UNIX / Linux. With that in mind, continue by selecting Windows Computers and clicking Next .

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Figure B: System Center Operations Manager can manage a variety of devices

There will now be a request to ask if you want to perform automatic computer discovery or advanced discovery, as shown in Figure C. The search mechanism will automatically query Active. Directory to retrieve information about Windows computers in the network. Advanced Discovery will allow you to make advanced choices like managing servers, clients or just servers or just clients. You can also specify the name of the management server you want to use. It is also possible to verify whether computers have been found to be able to perform communications.

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Figure C: Advanced discovery or Automated computer discovery can be selected

Click Next , and you will be prompted for the search method you want to use. The default search method will perform Active Directory scans, but you can browse or type the names of the computers you want to manage.

If you decide to scan Active Directory, you must click the Configure button, then enter some parameters to perform the scan. The wizard will allow you to specify the computer name, owner and roles. For a comprehensive search, simply enter an asterisk (*) in the Computer Name field and set the Role option to ' Any '. The Owner field can be blank.

If you like browsing or typing the computer name, the easiest thing to do is click the Browse button, then Advanced . When Windows displays the Select Computers screen, make sure the Object Type is set to Computers and Options Locations is set to Entire Directory (or to the item you want to scan). Click the Find Now button, Windows will display a list of all computers that match your search criteria, as shown in Figure D. You can then select the computers on the list.

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Figure D: You can use the Select Computers option to select the computer you want to manage

After you have selected the search method, you must set up the Windows account used during the detection process. The default behavior is to use the selected Management Server Action Account as shown in Figure E. However, depending on how to set up System Center Operations Manager, you need to specify a domain administrator account. After specifying the account you want to use, click Next .

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Figure E: Must specify the account you want to use during the computer search process

At this point, click the Discover button. The wizard will then launch the search process. The time to complete the process depends on the Active Directory size.

When the search process is complete, the wizard displays newly discovered unmanaged devices, as shown in Figure F.

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Figure F: Must select the objects to manage

There are two things to note in the image above before continuing. The first is managing all detected devices by clicking the Select All button. However, before doing so, be aware that you must have a subscription for each device. You must ensure that the number of devices you choose does not exceed the number of registrations.

Another problem that you need to consider is that isolated cluster nodes will be listed (such as ExchNode1 and ExchNode2 in the picture), but the cluster itself is not listed. This is not a problem but it is something you should keep in mind. The reason why this is not a problem is because this list is used to control where agents will be installed. Agents will be deployed on separate cluster nodes, not at the cluster level.

Click Next , we will see the summary screen, this is the screen of the number of agents to be deployed. This screen will give you the opportunity to change the agent installation directory and the certificates that will be used during agent installation.

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Figure G: Summary screen confirming the number of agents to be deployed

Click Finish , the agents will be deployed to the server you selected. This process may take several minutes to complete.

Conclude

In this article, I have discussed the process of deploying agents in System Center Operations Manager for failover cluster nodes. Now that the setup tasks are basically done, we can move on to the cluster testing process. In Part 3, we will show you how to verify that the agents you have deployed are working well. In addition, an introduction to how to configure the test process.