If you are a Microsoft System Center administrator who manages System Center environments and utilizes the console for management, then this book is ideal for you. This book is also for System Center users who now want to learn to manage systems using PowerShell.

Part of a series of specialized guides on System Center, this book focuses on Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. For the seasoned professional, it covers the role of the Operations Manager product, the best practices for working with management packs, how to use the reporting feature to simplify managing the product, how to thoroughly troubleshoot, and how to use and install Operations Manager in the Microsoft Azure Public Cloud environment.

Part of a series of specialized guides on System Center - this book shares real-world expertise for using Configuration Manager capabilities to deliver more effective IT services. Series editor Mitch Tulloch and a team of System Center experts provide concise technical guidance as they step you through key deployment and management scenarios.

Part of a series of specialized guides on System Center - this book delivers a focused drilldown into designing runbooks for Orchestrator workflow management solutions. Series editor Mitch Tulloch and a team of System Center experts provide concise technical guidance as they step you through key design concepts, criteria, and tasks.

Microsoft Azure Essentials from Microsoft Press is a series of free ebooks designed to help you advance your technical skills with Microsoft Azure. The second ebook in the series, Microsoft Azure Essentials: Azure Automation, introduces a fairly new feature of Microsoft Azure called Azure Automation. Using a highly scalable workflow execution environment, Azure Automation allows you to orchestrate frequent deployment and life cycle management tasks using runbooks based on Windows PowerShell Workflow functionality. These runbooks are stored in and backed up by Azure. By automating runbooks, you can greatly minimize the occurrence of errors when carrying out repeated tasks and process automation. Watch Microsoft Press’s blog and Twitter (@MicrosoftPress) to learn about other free ebooks in the Microsoft Azure Essentials series.

Part of a series of specialized guides on System Center - this book provides focused guidance for deploying and customizing Service Manager, an integrated platform for automating and adapting an organization’s IT service management best practices. Led by series editor Mitch Tulloch, a team of System Center experts step you through key technical scenarios and tasks.

Microsoft Azure Essentials from Microsoft Press is a series of free ebooks designed to help you advance your technical skills with Microsoft Azure. The first ebook in the series, Microsoft Azure Essentials: Fundamentals of Azure, introduces developers and IT professionals to the wide range of capabilities in Azure. The authors - both Microsoft MVPs in Azure - present both conceptual and how-to content for key areas, including: Azure Websites and Azure Cloud Services Azure Virtual Machines Azure Storage Azure Virtual Networks Databases Azure Active Directory Management tools Business scenarios Watch Microsoft Press’s blog and Twitter (@MicrosoftPress) to learn about other free ebooks in the “Microsoft Azure Essentials” series.

Design, implement, and improve your infrastructure administration with System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2's automation process About This Book Learn about the components of Orchestrator, the design and implementation process, and the way it interacts with your environment to create outstanding automation processes Gain an in-depth understanding of Runbooks, while exploring its security and troubleshooting aspects Follow this step-by-step guide at your own pace and get yourself in the frontline of the Orchestrator world Who This Book Is For This book is targeted for those who want to gain time in their administrative tasks and profit from it to improve also their environment by reaching a more autonomous infrastructure. Experience with other System Center family products as well as Active Directory and other core datacentre components would be useful to help you understand and execute the information given in this book. What You Will Learn Plan, assess, design, and implement Orchestrator 2012 R2 in a corporate environment Master the Runbook Designer and discover all about the Runbook creation process Import and integrate more technologies through new imported functionalities and learn what they bring to your environment Extend your possibilities and interaction with your environment while you get a hand of the best practices for this system Implement high-availability, security, backup, and recovery procedures and fine-tuning of the platform Familiarize yourself with the Runbook design and its implementation with an insight into the methodology for a more dynamic Datacenter In Detail With the increasing complexity of systems in our infrastructure designs, administrating these systems has become more complex and repetitive. This ultimately translates into an inefficient environment and loss of time. System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2 is the tool that can help you regain that time again, by simplifying repetitive tasks (or complex ones) into a simple one that will require minimum intervention from you, or even none. This technology will drive you one step forward towards a more dynamic infrastructure and can also be used to make a customized Private Cloud environment setup. Starting off with the fundamentals of Orchestrator, this book helps you to learn the configuration and deployment of the Orchestrator 2012 R2 in a corporate environment to successfully deploy and mitigate real-life issues that you might encounter. You'll learn the most used part of Orchestrator, the Runbook Designer, with all its components and mechanisms to help you efficiently design and implement your Runbooks from top to bottom. Additionally, you will also get familiarized with configuring key Integration Packs available for Orchestrator to extend its functionality and enhance the automation solution. Furthermore, you will explore the possibilities of extending and integrating Orchestrator with other parties and learn to set up core infrastructure administrative tasks that can save time and effort when automated with Orchestrator. You finally round off by gaining insights on the maintenance aspects of Orchestrator, while simultaneously covering the troubleshooting, backup, and recovery features. Style and approach Written in a step-by-step guide format, the chapters are organized in a sequence of what you need to know first to move on to the next component. Each chapter contains a broad explanation of what we are working on at that moment and the tips provided are based on real-world experience.

Learn the fundamentals of PowerShell to build reusable scripts and functions to automate administrative tasks with Windows About This Book Harness the capabilities of the PowerShell system to get started quickly with server automation Learn to package commands into a reusable script and add control structures and parameters to make them flexible Get to grips with cmdlets that allow you to perform administration tasks efficiently Who This Book Is For This book is intended for Windows administrators or DevOps users who need to use PowerShell to automate tasks. Whether you know nothing about PowerShell or know just enough to get by, this guide will give you what you need to go to take your scripting to the next level. What You Will Learn Learn to verify your installed version of PowerShell, upgrade it, and start a PowerShell session using the ISE Discover PowerShell commands and cmdlets and understand PowerShell formatting Use the PowerShell help system to understand what particular cmdlets do Utilise the pipeline to perform typical data manipulation Package your code in scripts, functions, and modules Solve common problems using basic file input/output functions Find system information with WMI and CIM Automate IIS functionality and manage it using the WebAdministration module In Detail Windows PowerShell is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language designed specifically for system administration. Built on the .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell helps IT professionals and power users control and automate the administration of the Windows operating system and applications that run on Windows. PowerShell is great for batch importing or deleting large sets of user accounts and will let you collect a massive amount of detailed system information in bulk via WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation). Getting Started with PowerShell is designed to help you get up and running with PowerShell, taking you from the basics of installation, to writing scripts and web server automation. This book, as an introduction to the central topics of PowerShell, covers finding and understanding PowerShell commands and packaging code for reusability, right through to a practical example of automating IIS. It also includes topics such as installation and setup, creating scripts, automating tasks, and using Powershell to access data stores, registry, and file systems. You will explore the PowerShell environment and discover how to use cmdlets, functions, and scripts to automate Windows systems. Along the way, you will learn to perform data manipulation and solve common problems using basic file input/output functions. By the end of this book, you will be familiar with PowerShell and be able to utilize the lessons learned from the book to automate your servers. Style and approach A practical learning guide, complete with plenty of activities, examples and screenshots.

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager’s SQL Server database contains valuable information about your users, computers, hardware, operating systems, applications, compliance status, and much more. Microsoft has provided excellent tools for extracting this information in meaningful ways, including SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and SQL Server Data Tools Business Intelligence (SSDT-BI). System Center Configuration Manager Reporting Unleashed shows you how to make the most of these tools. World-renowned System Center reporting guru Garth Jones and his expert coauthors guide you through all facets of custom reporting with System Center. You’ll walk through installing and configuring SSRS, using SQL views to find the data you need, writing SQL queries, creating basic and advanced reports, and using role-based administration to securely deliver those reports to the correct individuals. Jones brings together reliable, comprehensive, and up-to-date System Center reporting techniques you’ll find in no other book or website. Using this guide, you can consistently retrieve the right information to solve immediate problems and quickly respond to management concerns. Detailed information on how to... • Install and configure SQL SSRS for optimal System Center reporting and easier troubleshooting • Understand the data stored in the ConfigMgr site database • Efficiently retrieve ConfigMgr data by writing SQL queries in SQL Server Management Studio • Learn best practices for developing and designing System Center reports • Create report templates, customize content with report parameters, and embed charts • Customize logos, color palettes, and other report elements for your own organization • Construct advanced drillthroughs to provide deeper understanding • Strengthen report security by integrating ConfigMgr role-based administration into SQL queries • Leverage reporting to measure KPIs and gain a better understanding of your environment • Tailor your reports to the needs of end-users or management • Foreword by Wally Mead, Principal Program Manager, Cireson The only book entirely dedicated to Configuration Manager reporting, this guide complements Meyler's System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Unleashed, offering far more in-depth coverage of reporting than the single chapter in that book. Most of the content in this new guide will be equally valuable in both System Center 2016 and 2012 environments.