Microsoft’s “Solution” to SCSM Console Performance – Buy a GPU!

If you’ve ever used System Center Service Manager, you know there are many challenges with the product. One of those being the performance and responsiveness of the Console.

A few days ago, November 24th specifically, Microsoft wrote a post entitled “Improving SM console responsiveness with GPU”. They have since taken it down, presumably due to the overwhelming negative response to the article itself! Thankfully, we have the Internet, and once something is online, it stays there.

Here is a link to the cached version of the article: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2015/11/24/improving-sm-console-responsiveness-with-gpu.aspx

In summary, the article relates that you can “increase” the responsiveness of the SCSM Console a whole 2.5 seconds, IF you have a GPU that can render through ‘Tier 2’ of the DirectX pipeline. To quote the article: “To speed up console UI rendering we needed to use Tier 2 rendering. For this we installed the console on a machine that had a GPU (NVIDIA Quadro 600 in our case) and immediately noticed an improvement in the console responsiveness.”

In case the cached copy of the article disappears, here’s a screenshot of it.

SCSM Article Screenshot

Some of the comments in response are interesting as well.

Understandably, “some” systems may have a GPU at the level mentioned, but not all. And especially if you factor in having/using the SCSM console on the SCSM server(s) themselves, it is very unreasonable to expect, let alone recommend, the installation of a GPU into a server!

It is really sad that this is a “recommendation”. Service Manager is great as a CMDB, especially since it can correlate data from SCCM and SCOM that when you are troubleshooting a system issue, you can effectively see all the patches applied, reboots, and other various technology alerts. It’s just too bad that it wasn’t built from the ground up, instead of just a new interface on top of SCOM code!

We’ll see what the future brings by way of ITSM and Service Manager.

First Experiences With the NEW Service Manager (SCSM) HTML5 Portal!

Microsoft has released its latest Update Rollup (UR) for System Center Service Manager.

With this UR, comes the long awaited (and newly designed) HTML5-based Portal! Despite the initial reports of issues (see this blog post: Microsoft Releases SCSM UR8 With the New HTML Portal – But Don’t Install It Yet!), I decided to install it in my lab environment to check it out.

 

Prerequisites

The first thing to note, despite the incorrect documentation, is that your Service Manager environment needs to be at Update Rollup (UR) 7 before installing the new portal. Note also, that traditionally UR releases culminate all other previously released updates (i.e. You don’t have to apply UR1, then UR2, all the way up to the latest. You just need to apply the latest UR to obtain all updates released to that point).

In the case of UR8, this does not appear to be the case. Not only since one of the pre-reqs is UR7, but also since UR8 does not have any installation against the other Service Manager components (i.e. the Management Server, or the Data Warehouse).

 

Import the Portal.MPB Management Pack

According to the instructions from Microsoft (Deploy the New Self-Service Portal), we need to first import the Portal.mpb Management Pack Bundle into Service Manager.

When I attempted to do so, I received the same message that everyone else has, that “the management pack already exists”. However, upon further investigation, note the Version number. The UR8 MPB has a version of 7.5.3079.509, whereas the SCSM installation (with UR7) has a version of 7.5.3079.0. So just slightly different.

SCSM UR8 – Portal MP Already Exists

After successfully importing the Portal.MPB file, it’s onto the Web Server role.

 

Install the Web Server (IIS) Role

The next pre-req is to install the Web Server (IIS) Role, plus a few additional configurations.

According to the instructions, the IIS Role is required, along with following additional elements:

• .NET Framework > ASP.NET 4.5
• Security > Basic Authentication
• Security> Windows Authentication
• Application Development > .NET Extensibility 4.5
• Application Development > ASP and ASP.NET 4.5

Now, you could following the instructions and use the GUI, or you could use the following PowerShell command:

Install-WindowsFeature -Name Web-Server, NET-Framework-45-ASPNET, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-Net-Ext45, Web-ASP, Web-Asp-Net45, NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45, NET-Framework-Core, Web-Mgmt-Console

Note: Microsoft’s instructions do not include the IIS Management Console. I have included this also in the PowerShell command.

 

Install the NEW HTML5 Portal

Now we are ready to install the new Portal.

Start by running the SetupWizard.exe as Administrator. Notice that there is only 1 option, to install the Portal.

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – Splash Screen

Of course, we get the standard License terms agreement.

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – Product Registration

Then we get to decide where to install it. Notice that the default location is in C:\iNetPub\wwwRoot\ directory, which of course makes sense seeing that it is a website.

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – Installation Location

Then comes the big pre-req check. One thing that failed on my pre-req check was HTTP Activation for the .NET Framework 4.5. This was not specifically mentioned in the Microsoft instructions, but I have since circled back and added it to the PowerShell command.

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – PreReq Check

Once the Prerequisites check completes successfully, we can continue with the configuration. By default, the installer will look for an SSL certificate. This is optional though, so if you uncheck the “Enable SSL encryption” checkbox, you will also need to modify the Portal Port.

UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that on this screen we need to specify the Service Manager server.

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – Configure Portal Server

Next we need to set the Account that the Portal will use. Note that it says this will be the context that IIS will run under, and that this account should be a Service Manager Administrator.

Important: As of this writing, there is a bug where this account will be the account used to create and assign the Service Manager ticket, and not the user that is logged into the portal. See my post: Microsoft Releases SCSM UR8 With the New HTML Portal – But Don’t Install It Yet!.

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – Configure Portal Account

We also have the new screen about Diagnostic and Usage Data. Notice that this option is “on by default”. So if you want to turn it off, you’ll have to do so under Settings.

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – Diagnostic and Usage Data

Further, we have the option to opt-in with Microsoft Updates to keep the Portal component(s) up to date. Notice that the wording says “Microsoft System Center Technical Preview 4 Service Manager” (which as of this writing isn’t available yet).

Also, I personally opt-out of this option. Maybe because I’m originally a SCOM guy, and the UR’s are required to be applied in a specific order. I don’t want some of my components updating with me knowing, and potentially causing issues with mis-matched version levels.

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – Microsoft Updates

Finally, we are at the Summary screen, and we are ready to install.

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – Summary

My initial installation attempt failed. My log file was called “SCSMInstall01.log” and was located in C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Local\Temp\2

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – Install Failed

I noticed in the Log file that it doesn’t like that .NET Framework 3.5.1 is not installed. Again, this is not included in the original list from the Microsoft installation instructions. I have since circled back (again) to include this in the PowerShell command.

Note: You will need the Windows Server ISO, or Internet access to install the .NET Framework 3.5.1.

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – Log File

After installing the .NET Framework 3.5.1, and re-initiating the installation (the “Retry” button didn’t actually do anything), the installation did complete successfully.

SCSM UR8 – Portal Install – Install Complete

Microsoft also provides the following command line example for installing the new portal:

SetupWizard.exe /Install:SelfServicePortal /silent /accepteula /CustomerExperienceImprovementProgram:No /EnableErrorReporting:No /SDKServerName:<SDK Server Name> /PortalWebSitePort:<PortNumber> /PortalAccount:<domain>\<user>\<pwd>

 

Complete The Installation?

Microsoft’s instructions state that to complete the installation you need to “In the Service Manager installation folder, navigate to the Bins folder, and copy the files to their respective paths.”

I find this step unclear, so I attempted to proceed without it.

When I launched the portal in Internet Explorer, but without having it in “full screen” view, I found that the menu text/display is garbled and impossible to read.

SCSM UR8 – Portal – Non-Full Screen View

Also, clicking on any of the menu items throws an error. I determined this was because the install was on a new server, and the UR8 Portal installation does not prompt for any information about the Service Manager DB or DW, so how can it know about it?

I have sent this feedback to Microsoft, and will update this article (or post a new one, if they release a bunch of changes) accordingly.

SCSM UR8 – Portal – Error

 

Conclusion

Aside from the reported issues (mentioned in my ‘Microsoft Releases SCSM UR8 With the New HTML Portal – But Don’t Install It Yet!‘ article), there are still some gaps in the documentation, functionality, installation, etc.

I have heard from Microsoft that they are tracking all of the reported issues, and are working on fixing the documentation. So, in short, stay tuned.

Microsoft Releases SCSM UR8 With the New HTML Portal – But Don’t Install It Yet!

Yesterday (November 10, 2015), Microsoft released Update Rollup (UR) 8 for System Center Service Manager. With this update, comes the long awaited (and very welcomed) new Self-Service Portal!

This new portal is completely HTML based, and does not use Sliverlight.

Here is a screenshot supplied by Microsoft showing what the new portal looks like.

Although this is very exciting, beware!

There have been reports (from other MVPs) of several issues with this new portal/update, including:

• Reference to KB3096383, although the specific KB does not exist
• No Update Rollup (UR) 8 for the other Service Manager components (i.e. Management Server, and Data Warehouse Server); basically UR8 is the install of the new portal only
• Unable to install the new Portal on the Data Warehouse Management Server
• Unless you run the installer “As Administrator”, you will encounter an error about Internet Information Services (IIS) 7 not being installed
• The installation documentation states that System Center 2012 R2 Service Manager Update Roll-Up 8 or later is required; although there is no UR8 for the rest of the Service Manager components
• The Update Rollup download includes a file called “Portal.mpb”, but when attempting to import it, you receive a message stating that it is already installed
• Some links within the setup refer to the “Technical Preview” documentation
• Incident’s created through the new portal are logged under the Service Account, instead of the user that is logged into the portal
• Service Requests cannot be cancelled
• The default language is set to French (even on an English system)

I have not installed the new portal yet, but will test these issues as well. For now, I’d recommend not installing the new portal in Production, and wait for these issues to be corrected.

For reference, the build/version number of the UR8 in question is: 7.5.3079.507.

Stay tuned while I install the new portal and post about my experience.