Microsoft 70-246: Monitoring and Operating a Private Cloud..

Learn how System Center 2012 components, service manager, orchestrator, VMM, Operations Manager, and Configuration Manager, unify to manage cloud across SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS with performance, time, and quality KPIs.

Explore Microsoft orchestrator and run book designer to automate IT tasks in private cloud infrastructure, integrating service manager, virtual machine manager, and operations manager through drag-and-drop run books.

Explore how server manager provisions the tenant end user interface for cloud services, enabling self-service access, group-based permissions, and centralized incident, change, and capacity management across the private cloud.

Launch the Service Manager console, verify connectors and templates, and customize management packs and run books to support incident, problem, change, and service request workflows in a private cloud.

Start the data protection manager services and access the DPM console. Use bare metal recovery, policy-driven protection, instant recovery, auto discovery, and email alerts for servers and desktops.

Explore Hyper-V server 2012 as a standalone hypervisor with a small footprint, supporting failover clustering, and license per virtual instance.

Duplicate the built-in operations manager incident template, link it to the service management configuration library, rename it for stock trader web servers, and set default values.

Configure security for a business unit by defining user roles and run as accounts, then validate domain credentials and enforce scoped delegated administration within the private cloud.

Configure a private cloud's business unit security with high availability, storage and OS configuration, and automated deployments using pre-install and post-install scripts, naming conventions, quotas, and resource packages.

Launch the orchestrator console, deploy integration packs via the deployment manager, and create a bogus incident to test configuration; deploy System Center integration pack for operations manager and verify logs.

Learn to add properties to a run book, publish the ticket id, and configure starts with criteria, then test run books with the run book tester and synthetic incidents.

Filter active alerts in operations manager to identify incidents like web and server unavailability, note IIR 116, set alert status to service affecting, and verify runbook execution.

Create and test a remediation runbook that restarts the web site and logs an incident, using orchestrator, IIS manager, and the runbook tester to verify availability.

Create a business unit user role for the service desk, granting end users access to selected queues, groups, and management packs to resolve incidents and manage service applications.

Publish an incident service offering by creating a new request offering in the service catalog, selecting the dinner now price problem incident template, and routing for review and implementation.

Create a minor change request using the change management node, selecting the minor change template. Submit the request and track its status from new to in progress.

Deploy and monitor resources with System Center by deploying agents, discovering network devices, and configuring management packs to support a healthy private cloud, with dashboards and application performance monitoring metrics.

Restart the web server and system center management APM to apply end-to-end monitoring, verify dot net monitoring discovers the dinner now applications, and confirm performance counters in operations manager.

Enable client side monitoring for the dot net application production, review two incompatible pages, and adjust thresholds by removing localhost addresses and setting exception and performance thresholds to 1.

Create a stock trader web application transaction monitoring pack, test the web address, and set up the Wotcher node with a custom template for monitored servers.

Monitor a three-tiered distributed application using a management pack and the distributed application designer, adding the dinner now database and sql express, with the agent installed and design saved.

Explore end-to-end monitoring of distributed applications using Microsoft operations manager, focusing on client perspective, tiered layers, and management packs that cover Unix/Linux, .NET performance monitoring, and TCAP port monitoring.

Set up management packs to monitor network devices at the network layer, servers, virtualization processes, and application health through Systems Center to ensure service availability per the service level agreement.

Implement service level management by configuring SLA management, setting incident queues, and analyzing SLA metrics in Excel with pivot tables, dashboards, and scorecards, and the analysis library.

Create metric for incident response time with created date as start and first response as end, then define service level objective using cloud queue and extended operating hours calendar.

Review service level management setup, including calendar hours, response time metrics, and the service level agreement, and validate data warehouse integration with the analysis library and report permissions.

Connect the data warehouse cubes to Excel, using pivot tables and charts on the service manager work item cube to analyze incident metrics such as active and resolved incidents.

Learn to build performance point analytics reports in SharePoint by connecting to analysis services and using the dashboard designer to add data sources and visualize incident metrics.

Configure data connections to SQL Server Analysis Services in service manager, register the data warehouse, and build a performance point report using the service manager work item cube.

Configure a governance risk and compliance baseline in a private cloud using service manager, and create a credit card processing compliance program.

Configure a governance risk and compliance program, define the scope for selected objects, and prepare authority documents and controls for the program’s objectives and activities.

Select the pci dss authority document for credit card processing, review control objectives and activities, create manual controls, and publish the compliant program to move from data draft to published.

Review the reporting workspace to run control management reports, monitor outstanding and running jobs, and assess compliance and baselining as data transforms and warehouse processes complete.

Assign baselines for updates on a private cloud by creating a baseline, applying it to a virtual machine, and running a compliance scan to confirm updates are installed.

Create a new protection group for the stock trader database, web app, and order processing servers, add system state and perf logs, and enable consistency checks.

Configure replicas on application server, start AP One VM, and use DPM recovery pane to verify protected data and that stock traders database replicas show OK status.

Enable self-service recovery of the stock trader database by creating a customer recovery role, specifying the sequel server instance, and allowing recovery to another sequel instance.

Practice configuring automatic protection of key data through self-service requests, approving activities, and tracking statuses from in progress to completed in the data protection manager console.

Explore updating distributed applications with DPM by configuring protection groups, verifying healthy protection states, and monitoring health via the operations manager dashboard.

Review cloud governance, risk, and compliance and create manual metrics using System Center data, including Operations Manager and business intelligence, while implementing backup and recovery, baselines, dashboards, and update management.