Section 8.1. Installation

8.1. Installation

In addition to calculating the SystemCenterReporting database starting size, you must also choose the configuration of SQL 2000 Reporting Services and install it. For the scope of this chapter, one server will host all of the MOM database roles. Specifically, homemomserver3 will be the database and reporting server.

SQL Reporting Services is a separate product from MOM 2005 and it enjoys great popularity. SQL Reporting Services scales from a single server configuration with all components existing on a single machine, to a web farm in which components are distributed across multiple load- balanced web frontend and database backend machines. A single instance of SQL Reporting can support the reporting needs of multiple applications, resulting in a shared SQL Reporting environment. However, planning a distributed, shared SQL Reporting installation is beyond the scope of this book.

SQL Reporting services come in four versions : standard for an all-in-one machine deployment, enterprise for large-scale deployment or when all features are required, developer for authoring reports, and an evaluation edition. The evaluation and developer editions cannot be licensed for production use, so don't even consider those in your planning. In addition to providing support for a scalable web farm solution, the enterprise edition has the ability to generate reports and send them to various destinations (e.g., email and file shares) in varying formats based on address entries that you create and maintain in SQL. This is called a data-driven subscription. For this chapter, the standard edition of SQL Reporting is used (this can install on SQL 2000 Developer, Standard, or Enterprise) and all examples will be based on it. Fortunately, there is only one version of MOM 2005 reporting to install on top of SQL Reporting, so there is no decision to be made there.

8.1.1. SQL 2000 Reporting Services

All of the services necessary to support MOM Reporting will be installed on one dedicated server. This server will host both the ReportServer and SystemCenterReporting databases. Since this server will also host the Reports web site, IIS 6.0 is installed with ASP.NET support.

At the time of this writing, SQL 2000 SP4 and SQL Reporting Services SP2 are released. If you build your all-in-one reporting server with these service packs installed, the MOM 2005 Reporting component will not install and will fail at the prerequisite checker. It is not capable of recognizing patch levels above SQL SP3A or SQL Reporting Services SP1 until MOM 2005 SP1 is installed. The easiest upgrade path is to install MOM and MOM Reporting on the SQL SP3A and SQL Reporting SP1, apply MOM 2005 SP1, and then upgrade to SQL 2000 SP4 and SQL Reporting SP2.

Once SQL 2000 is installed and patched to SP3A, you can begin the SRS installation. Surprisingly enough, the SRS installation doesn't begin with the typical welcome page, so don't be thrown off by that. It begins with the end-user license agreement (EULA) and then proceeds through a component update and prerequisite checker for pages two and three. Page four then is the expected welcome page.

During the prerequisite check, if Visual Studio .NET 2003 has not been installed on the reporting server (it does not have to be), Setup will display a warning telling you that it is not present, as shown in Figure 8-1.

Figure 8-1. SQL Reporting Services install prerequisite checker warning

This warning can be safely ignored. Visual Studio .NET 2003 is used to author and alter reports and is, therefore, not necessary on the production reporting server. Instead, it is better to install the SRS report designer and other client components on a workstation that already has Visual Studio .NET 2003 installed. When this is done, a report project wizard is made available in Visual Studio.

As a MOM administrator, you shouldn't have to create reports; the reports that come with the management packs have all been predefined and you will only need to import them. It is helpful, though, to understand the three components of a report:

The database that SRS will connect to in order to extract the data. This is called the data source.
The SQL query returns a set of data that reports are built from. These queries can be very complex and require a deep knowledge of both the query language and the structure of the data source.
Define the layout of the report. There are a number of templates available to assist you with this.

All three components can then be wrapped up into a report definition language file (.rdl) and imported directly into the ReportServer database using the Report Manager, or placed into XML format, as has been done for the MOM management pack reports. Report definitions that are in XML format need to be imported using the management pack import/export wizard or the rptutil.exe tool.

Following the welcome and registration pages is the component selection page (see Figure 8-2).

Figure 8-2. SRS component installation for an all-in-one configuration

The SRS installation consists of server components and client components. The server components are the report server services and the Report Manager, which is the reporting web site. The client components include the report designer (not pictured here because Visual Studio is not installed), administrative tools, and the online books and samples. For this installation everything but the report designer will be installed.

On the next page you are prompted for the first of two sets of credentials. This first set is used to run the SRS service on the reporting machine (in this case homemomserver3). In Figure 8-3, you have the option to use the network service account (because this is on Windows Server 2003), the local system account, or a domain service account. For this example, a domain service account was created (SRSSA) and given local administrator rights on homemomserver3. Also, you can (and should) configure the service to start automatically.

Figure 8-3. Selecting the credentials that the reporting service will run as

The next page (see Figure 8-4) allows you to change the default configuration for the virtual directories for report server, to redirect browsing to the default web sites, and to require SSL connections. Because this will be a dedicated server, the default values for the virtual directories are unchanged. In addition, because this server is not exposed to the Internet, SSL encryption will not be required.

On the next page, you identify the server that will house the report server database, the name of the database, and the credentials that the report service will use to connect to the report server database. In Figure 8-5, the local SQL Server instance has been accepted as well as the default database name. For the credentials used to connect to the database, the previously created homelab\dasaccount is specified. There is only one account for all database access across all of the MOM servers.

Figure 8-4. Configuring virtual directories

Figure 8-5. Specifying the SQL instance, the database name, and the credentials for the report sever database

On the next page, you designate the SMTP server to be used for forwarding subscribed reports as well as the From address. This can be any server that is running SMTP and is configured to perform SMTP relay. Exchange servers can do this just fine. For this all-in-one installation, the SMTP component of IIS on homemomserver3 is installed (the reporting server) and the From address was set to reportmaster@homelab.lab. The remaining pages cover choices on licensing (per seat or per processor) and the usual Ready to Install and Completed Successfully pages.

Once setup completes successfully, launch your browser and open http://<servername>/reports to confirm that the report manager is accessible. Since connectivity is just being tested, there won't be any reports or folders here yet. Figure 8-6 shows the Report Manager page on homemomserver3 at the end of SRS installation.

Figure 8-6. The empty, but functioning, reporting services site

At this point, don't forget to install SRS SP1 on your reporting server. After installing SP1, you can confirm that the patch applied correctly by looking at the SRS version number. To see this, browse to /reportserver">http://<servername>/reportserver. If the upgrade was applied successfully, version number 8.00.878.00 will be displayed. If not, the RTM version number 8.00.0743.00 is displayed.

8.1.2. MOM 2005 Reporting

The installation process instantiates the SystemCenterReporting database and creates the necessary links between the OnePoint, SystemCenterReporting, and Report Server databases. Because it touches two machines (at a minimum) and three different databases, you should perform the install using a domain administrator account. You will have to provide several pieces of information for the setup process to complete successfully. The steps in the installation process are summarized in the following list.

To start the installation, run the setup from the MOM 2005 CD and select the Install Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Reporting link on the setup Tasks tab.
Proceed through the Welcome page.
Accept the terms of the EULA and proceed through.
On the Registration information page, enter the username and organization information and proceed through.
On the Destination folder page, specify where you set the installation path for the MOM 2005 Reporting to be installed. By default this is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Systems Center Reporting. In preparation for the merging of data warehouse data from MOM and Microsoft Systems Management Sever (SMS) into a single product called Systems Center, the MOM data warehouse and reporting solution have already been branded as System Center (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/systemcenter/default.mspx).
On the SQL Server Reporting Services Server page in Figure 8-7, you need to indicate the name of the Reporting Services server. In this case it is homemomserver3. Here you also instruct the setup process to either auto-detect the report server virtual directories (Reports and ReportServer) or if you have customized these values during the SRS installation, enter the correct paths here.

Figure 8-7. Identifying the SQL Reporting server to the MOM Reporting Service installation process
The Prerequisite Check page checks for the correct versions of OS, SQL, SRS; if there is sufficient processor, memory, and disk space; and for other items like MDAC version and presence of the correct .NET framework version. It always generates a log that you can view regardless of the pass/fail status. If the prerequisite checker fails, the log will tell you specifically at what point failure occurred.
On the MOM Database Server instance page, enter the name of the server and the SQL instance (if there is one) where the OnePoint database is. This database will be the source for all data that flows via DTS to the SystemCenterReporting database. Again, since this is an all-in-one configuration, homemomserver3 is named.
On the SQL Server Database instance page, indicate the SQL server and instance where the SystemCenterReporting database is to be created (homemomserver3).
On the Database and Log File Information page in Figure 8-8, refer back to the data warehouse sizing calculations performed in Chapter 2. The size of the Systems Center Reporting database is set to 2,048 MB.

Figure 8-8. Configuring the SystemCenterReporting database
Next is the Data Transfer Task Account page. Chapter 7 introduced the DTS package that is responsible for copying and transforming data from the OnePoint database to the SystemsCenterReporting database. This task must have a security context to run in. Since the dasaccount already has access to all the databases concerned (OnePoint and SystemCenterReporting), this is the logical choice. You are prompted for the account name, password, and the domain name if it is a domain account, see Figure 8-9. A local account can also be used.

Figure 8-9. Identifying the account to be used for executing the DTS package
The Reporting User Account page is next. Just as the reporting service needs a set of credentials to connect to the ReportServer database, a set of credentials is required to connect to the SystemCenterReporting database. The homelab\dasaccount is again used here. This page is almost identical to the Data Transfer Task Account page.
On the Operational Data Reports Settings page you can choose to have operational reports forwarded to Microsoft. There is no direct benefit to doing so other than the satisfaction of knowing that information about your MOM environment will be used to improve future releases of MOM.
Proceed through the Ready to Install page.
On the Installation Completed successfully page, selecting the "Transfer data from the MOM database server now" option invokes the scheduled DTS task on the reporting server. Select this to have the available operational data copy over, and the reports will immediately contain something instead of waiting for the 1:00 a.m. transfer. This can take a long time if it is the first transfer and there is a large amount of data. The transfer could fail, but there is a fix for this in MOM 2005 SP1.

Upon successful completion of the setup, browse to the Report Manager Home page (/reports">http://<servername>/reports) to confirm that the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting folder and the SCDW data source objects have been created. The Report Manager page should now look like Figure 8-10.

Figure 8-10. The SQL Reporting Services Report Manager Home page after successful installation of MOM 2005 Reporting