The architecture of Orchestrator is, at its base, quite simple and light. At the very beginning you'll find yourself in need of a multiple server Orchestrator deployment for performance and High Availability, and in the end, apart from the High Availability, you won't feel the need for a big Orchestrator infrastructure.

At this point, we'll address a single-server architecture with the database in a separate SQL cluster. For this, the requirements are as follows:

As you can see, the requirements for the Orchestrator architecture following a single-server deployment are not really that demanding. However, let's observe the requirements per component for a multi-server deployment:

Usually, the multi-server deployments are in fact connected to the High Availability questions, but keep with mind that the Management Server is a single component that can't be deployed in High Availability, even though the Runbook Servers are able to execute the Runbooks without that component.

On the Active Directory (AD) side, you'll need to also fulfill some requirements:

The next screenshot shows these accounts and groups in Active Directory, and in the end you should have something quite similar in your environment. The users and groups don't need to be named exactly the same as the examples we give here; they can be adapted to your standards, but keep these in mind for your reference for the rest of this book.

On the network side, we'll need the following exceptions on the firewall:

All the ports above can be configured to better suit your environment.

Now, in terms of the scalability of the Orchestrator, we can have redundancy in the Orchestrator Web Service / Console, Runbook Servers, and Orchestrator Database. However, we won't be able to have more than one Management Server.

You might consider having the components divided between servers due to service availability, but there's also the Runbooks workload expected and the number of simultaneous Runbooks that you'll have running to consider, as well as their importance.

Our advice would be to have one single-server deployed for the Runbooks development and preparation, and then for production, a redundant deployment of Runbook Server, Orchestrator Web Service / Console Server, and the Orchestrator Database under a SQL cluster. This way, you'll cover any need of simultaneously executing some Runbooks and High Availability.

Good! Now that we've defined all the requirements, and since all are in place, we'll do a sanity check so we can see if we're ready to go forward.

So, to move on to the next point, on installing the Orchestrator architecture you've decided to go with, you'll need to achieve the following steps:

Don't forget that some of the OS roles and features are only required for some of the Orchestrator components. Check the list to see which component needs which piece of software.

Also, it's not on this list, but we're assuming you have a SQL cluster or a single-server in place to accommodate your Orchestrator database. Don't forget the permissions on that SQL server for the account running the Management Server.

The OS roles and features prerequisites can all be installed using PowerShell in order to achieve a faster single-server deployment. In order to do so, you can execute the following command:

Import-Module ServerManager
Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core,NET-Framework-45-ASPNET,NET-WCF-Services45,NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45,NET-WCF-TCP-PortSharing45,Web-Server,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Static-Content,Web-Health,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Log-Libraries,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Http-Tracing,Web-Performance,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Security,Web-Filtering,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-App-Dev,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Net-Ext45,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Asp-Net45,Web-CGI,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console –source D:\Sources\sxs

As discussed in the previous section, we can use a single-server to host all the components of Orchestrator if we're targeting a small environment and/or we have the objective of having an Orchestrator for the development and quality assessment of our Runbooks before getting them into production. If you jumped straight into this part, we strongly suggest you read the Planning the Orchestrator architecture section before proceeding.

As of the time of writing, Windows Server 2012 R2 has been out for quite a while and it's the OS selected to host our Orchestrator. So, once you have chosen the OS and deployed it, and after having joined to the domain and having done the basic configurations, we can move on with deploying the prerequisites:

All these steps can be automated with Powershell. The following is a sample of the command line to execute in order to install it in an unattended way with the Orchestrator in a single-server:

D:\Setup\Setup.exe /DbServer:SQLSERVER\INSTANCE /DbNameNew:Orchestrator /WebServicePort:81 /WebConsolePort:82 /OrchestratorRemote /UseMicrosoftUpdate:1 /SendCEIPReports:0 /EnableErrorReporting:never /Components:all /ServiceUserName:DOMAIN\scorchmssvc /ServicePassword:IWontTellYou /OrchestratorUsersGroup:(Group's SID) /Key:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXX /Silent

As we're setting up only one server, we're only going to use the Management Service account for the Management Service and for the Runbook Service. In this type of deployment, only one account is required. The Runbook Server service account will be used for any additional Runbook Servers that we may like to deploy in the future, and it's best practice to separate the two services into separate accounts to avoid a single point of failure in the future.

If you choose to go with the command-line installation, don't forget to retrieve the Scorch_Admins group SID. If you don't want to specify the group, it will use the default one locally called OrchestratorUsersGroup. If you would like to install Orchestrator into another directory, you can use the InstallDir() function and specify the directory.

In any case, you need to verify the installation logs. They will be under C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Microsoft System Center 2012\Orchestrator\Logs.

With this complete, you will have a fully functional Orchestrator 2012 R2 deployment.

As mentioned previously in the Planning the Orchestrator architecture section, we can use a multi-server deployment to separately host the components of Orchestrator if we're targeting a highly available environment or if we have a huge demand for Runbooks running at the same time. If you jumped straight into this part, we strongly suggest you read the Planning the Orchestrator architecture section before proceeding.

Import-Module ServerManager
Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core -source D:\Sources\sxs
D:\Setup\Setup.exe /DbServer:SQLSERVER\INSTANCE /DbNameNew:Orchestrator /OrchestratorRemote /UseMicrosoftUpdate:1 /SendCEIPReports:0 /EnableErrorReporting:never /Components:ManagementServer /ServiceUserName:DOMAIN\scorchmssvc /ServicePassword:IWontTellYou /OrchestratorUsersGroup:(Group's SID) /Key:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXX /Silent

Import-Module ServerManager
Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core –source D:\Sources\sxs
D:\Setup\Setup.exe /DbServer:SQLSERVER\INSTANCE /DbNameExisting:Orchestrator /UseMicrosoftUpdate:1 /SendCEIPReports:0 /EnableErrorReporting:never /Components:RunbookServer /ServiceUserName:DOMAIN\scorchmssvc /ServicePassword:IWontTellYou /Key:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXX /Silent

Runbook Designer

To achieve a successful installation on the Runbook Designer, you'll need to get .NET 3.5 SP1 and Silverlight installed. The Runbook Designer can be installed independently whether or not you have a Management Server and the proper database setup already, but it will be rather useless without it.

Before proceeding with this installation, please complete either a single-server or a multi-server implementation:

1. On the machine selected to install the Runbook Designer, enable the feature .NET 3.5 SP1 (if not already enabled).
2. Install Silverlight. If you don't install it now, you'll be prompted to install it if you have access to the console.
3. Launch the installation using the SetupOrchestrator.exe. Select Runbook Designer under the Standalone installations on the System Center 2012 R2 Orchestrator Setup section of the wizard.
4. On the Product registration page, enter your organization's details and product key, and then click on Next.
5. Take your time to read the license terms, and if you accept them, continue the installation by clicking on Next.
6. Click on Select the installation location and proceed with Next.
7. On Help improve Microsoft System Center Orchestrator, select your preferences and proceed with Next.
8. Review Installation Summary, and if everything's OK, click on Install to start the process.
9. Once the installation completes, you'll be given the status of the installation along with a few options to consider before finishing the setup:
   1. Launch Windows update.
   2. Visit System Center Orchestrator Online.
   3. When Setup closes, start the Runbook Designers.
10. As with all the other components of Orchestrator, you can also run the Runbook Designer installation in an unattended fashion. For that, you'll need to execute the following commands:

    Import-Module ServerManager
    Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core –source D:\Sources\sxs
    
    D:\Setup\Setup.exe /SendCEIPReports:0/EnableErrorReporting:never /Components:RunbookDesigner /Key:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXX /Silent
    

When you start the Runbook Designer for the first time from a remote location (a workstation or server that's not the Management Server), you'll be presented with an error message saying Could not find Orchestrator Management Service on 'WORKSTATION'.

Confirm with OK, and then click on Actions. Select Connect... and insert the Management Server name into the box.

In the Connection window, insert the name of the Management Server that you'll be connecting to. This is a one-time setup for your user.

Once connected, you'll see Runbook Designer completely available.

Before you can use the Orchestrator Console option in Runbook Designer, you'll have to define it. To do so, go to Options | Orchestrator Console and insert the proper URL.

In our example here (with the multi-server implementation), the URL is http://PACKTSCORCHW:82.

After that, press Finish and you'll have everything configured as it should be.

So far, we've seen how to plan and deploy our Orchestrator architecture and the requirements and prerequisites for deploying successfully each component of Orchestrator in a single-server environment or multi-server environment.

All the actions completed on this chapter are essential for the successful usage of Orchestrator in your environment, so we recommend you plan your Orchestrator architecture thoroughly.

Welcome to Orchestrator! The journey has just begun...