Server Manager

How Server Manager embodies the Microsoft Design Principles

2012-09-20T17:57:00Z

With this installment of the Server Manager Video Blog, we’ll give you a behind-the-scenes look at how the User Experience team works, and what it took to design the new Server Manager for Windows Server 2012. MIKE PELL , a Sr. UX Designer on the Windows Server 2012 team takes us through the thinking and approach for this newly redesigned tool for remote multi-server management. PRINCIPLED DESIGN APPROACH The Windows Server 2012 User Experience team is made up of both Researchers...(read more)

Managing Downlevel Windows-based Servers from Server Manager in Windows Server 2012

2012-09-11T01:26:00Z

Greetings once again, Server Manager and Windows Server 2012 fans. Server Manager test engineer Imran Farooqui has written a great post about how to add servers that are running older versions of Windows Server to the new Server Manager in Windows Server 2012. Here's what Imran has to say:

The multi-server-managing Server Manager that ships in Windows Server 2012 (and in its corresponding Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 8 package) can be used to manage remote, downlevel servers that are running the following operating systems:

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (either full server or the Server Core installation options)
Windows Server 2008 SP2 (full server only)

To manage these servers from Server Manager in Windows Server 2012, you need to install Windows Management Framework 3.0 (WMF 3.0) and its prerequisites on the managed servers (remote servers that are running the downlevel operating systems). No configuration is required on the client (the computer on which you’re running Server Manager).

Suppose you want to manage two downlevel servers in Server Manager, and these servers do not have WMF 3.0 and its prerequisites. On the first server, the installed operating system is Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, while on the second server, the installed operating system is Windows Server 2008 SP2. Both servers are in the same domain as the client (the computer on which you’re running Server Manager).

The following table is a step-by-step guideline to ensure that downlevel servers are manageable from Server Manager. I will discuss both installation options of downlevel servers, full server and Server Core.

Managing downlevel servers that are running the full server installation option

Step	Action	Operating System-Specific Details		Comments
Step	Action	WS08 R2	WS08	Comments
1	I added my existing WS08 R2 & WS08 SP2 servers to Server Manager and received a manageability status alert.	The manageability status in Server Manager: "Online – Verify WinRM 3.0 service is installed, running, and required firewall ports are open"	The manageability status in Server Manager: "Target server not accessible"	When you added the downlevel servers, Server Manager attempted to connect to the Windows Remote Management (WinRM) port (if that fails, then the DCOM port) of the target server. If either the WinRM or DCOM connection is successful (depending on firewall settings, and whether WinRM is installed), Server Manager checks whether WMF 3.0 is installed on the target server. On the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 server, the WinRM connection attempt failed because either the WinRM service was not running, or WinRM inbound firewall rules were not enabled. The DCOM connection was successful, and Server Manager determined that WMF 3.0 is not installed on that server. So Server Manager displayed the manageability status of that server as “Online – Verify WinRM 3.0 service is installed, running, and required firewall ports are open.” On the Windows Server 2008 SP2 server, the connection attempt to both WinRM and DCOM ports failed (due to firewall restrictions, or no earlier WinRM version was installed), so Server Manager was unable to connect and retrieve data from the target server, and displayed manageability status as “Target server not accessible.”
2	Ensure the most current service pack for each operating system is installed.	WS08 R2 Service Pack 1 (or newer)	WS08 Service Pack 2 (or newer)	To get the major version of an installed service pack, open Command Prompt on the downlevel server, and run the following command: wmic OS Get ServicePackMajorVersion
3	Ensure .NET Framework 4 (or newer) is installed.	For servers that are running the full installation option of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, see Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Standalone Installer). For Server Core, use Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Standalone Installer) for Server Core.	For servers that are running the full installation option of Windows Server 2008 SP2, see Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Standalone Installer). For Server Core, use Microsoft .NET Framework 4 (Standalone Installer) for Server Core.	You can use Knowledge base article 318785 to find out which version of .NET Framework is currently installed.
4	Install Windows Management Framework 2.0.	Not applicable	Applicable
5	Install WMF 3.0 on downlevel servers.	Applicable	Applicable	Before this step, you’ll need to complete the last three prerequisite steps; they must be done in order. If you try to run the WMF 3.0 installer without performing the first three steps, the installation fails with an error message similar to the following:
6	Install the performance update associated with Knowledge Base article 2682011 on downlevel servers.	Applicable	Applicable	To get performance counter data in the Server Manager console for servers running previous versions of Windows Server, you need to apply this update.
7	After installing all the prerequisites on a downlevel server, make sure that the WinRM service is running, and that its inbound firewall rules are enabled on each server.	Applicable	Applicable	This can be easily done by using command winrm qc in a command prompt window (which was run as Administrator on the downlevel server). If the WinRM service is not running on the downlevel server, or if the incoming connection attempts to WinRM service are denied by the firewall, when you add the downlevel server (with prerequisites) to the Server Manager server pool, the connection attempt fails as described in step 1 in this table.
8	Enable Windows PowerShell remote management on each server.	Applicable	Applicable	To support Best Practices Analyzer (BPA) operations, Windows PowerShell remoting should also be enabled on the downlevel server. This can be done by running the command Enable-PSremoting -Force in a Windows PowerShell window (that was opened with administrative rights on the downlevel server). For more information about how to enable Windows PowerShell remote management on downlevel servers, see Configure Remote Management in Server Manager, or download the Server Manager Quick Reference Guide.

Managing downlevel servers that are running the Server Core installation option

WMF 3.0 can also be installed on the Server Core installation option of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. But it cannot be installed on the Server Core installation option of Windows Server 2008 SP2. Downlevel servers that are running the Server Core installation option of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 can be managed remotely from the new Server Manager. The installation process of Windows Management Framework 3.0 on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Server Core is exactly the same as that for full server (already described above). However, before going through the aforementioned prerequisites, you must install or enable certain features in Server Core by using Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) commands. The command names for the features are as follows:

MicrosoftWindowsPowerShell
MicrosoftWindowsPowerShell-WOW64
NetFx2-ServerCore
NetFx2-ServerCore-WOW64

You can enable these features in Server Core by running the following command. Remember, DISM is case-sensitive:

Dism /online /enable-feature: <Feature Name>

After these features are installed on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Server Core, the installation process of Windows Management Framework 3.0 is same as that for full server (already described above).

For the Server Core installation option of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, the system administrator can choose to uninstall Windows PowerShell, if it has been installed. If that’s the case, we get a manageability status for the Server Core server (without Windows PowerShell) as follows:

After you have the prerequisite packages installed on your downlevel servers, if you haven’t already done so, you’re ready to add them to the pool of servers that you manage in the new Server Manager console. You can do this by clicking Add Servers on the Manage menu of the new console. For more information about how to add your servers, now that they’re prepped for management with Server Manager, see Add Servers to Server Manager.

Thanks to Imran Farooqui for this detailed step-by-step guide to preparing your downlevel servers for Server Manager. If you're still having trouble adding and managing older server operating systems by using Server Manager in Windows Server 2012, try looking at the Server Manager Troubleshooting Guide, or posting about your difficulties on the Server Manager forum.

More documentation for Server Manager starts right here: Manage Multiple, Remote Servers with Server Manager.

The Case of the Missing Role and Feature Management Tools

2012-08-13T18:31:00Z

For IT professionals who manage Windows-based servers, mysteries surrounding the whereabouts of their key role or feature management tools aren’t fun. When you install roles and features on a server, you expect to find the graphical management tools, command-line utilities, and Windows PowerShell modules and providers that you use to manage those technologies on that server.

I’d like to introduce you to someone who actually enjoys IT pro management-related mysteries. In fact, she thrives on them. Detective Michelle Power is here to show a frustrated administrator how to find his missing role and feature management tools.

First page of comic:

Second page of comic:

The difference between installation methods

As part of our strong investment in making Server Core the default and recommended installation option for Windows Server 2012, we’ve made more roles and features available on the Server Core installation option. We’ve also made it much easier to switch between the full and the Server Core installation options, a process that included separating roles from management tools, which generally require a GUI to run. For most roles, this means that installing the role doesn’t automatically install its management tools; you must install them by adding them to your command explicitly.

The experiences we’ve designed in both the Add Roles and Features Wizard and the Server Manager deployment cmdlets help IT Pros install their management tools easily. By default, in the Add Roles and Features and Remove Roles and Features wizards, if you’re installing on a server that’s running the full installation option or the Minimal Server Interface, management tools are installed with the role. But for the deployment cmdlets, you must add the IncludeManagementTools parameter to the command to include management tools, whether you’re installing or uninstalling. Here are examples:

Installation example:

Install-WindowsFeature -Name AD-Domain-Services -ComputerName ContosoDC01 -IncludeManagementTools

Uninstallation example:

Uninstall-WindowsFeature -Name AD-Domain-Services -ComputerName ContosoDC01 -IncludeManagementTools

When you’re installing roles and features on Server Core, whether you’re using the GUI-based wizard or the deployment cmdlets, the installation process limits the management tools that are automatically installed to non-GUI tools. This prevents the installation process from automatically converting your target server to the full installation option (that is, the installation option with the full GUI) just to install GUI-based tools. Although you can certainly install a GUI-based management tool on the Server Core installation option, doing so installs the full graphical shell as a dependency, and the target server installation option becomes the full server installation option.

The best way to solve the case of the missing tools

Because the tools aren’t really missing at all, in a remote server management scenario, the best solution is to install Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 8 on the computer from which you plan to manage your servers: your desktop or laptop.

In the Windows 8 release of Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT), management tools are tucked into the fully-customizable Server Manager Tools menu. Tools for managing Hyper-V and Web Server (IIS) are already available as part of Windows 8; there’s no need to install RSAT to get them.

Indeed…the HELP. There’s step-by-step documentation to help you get started installing or uninstalling roles and features, whether you’re using Server Manager or Windows PowerShell.

There’s much more about provisioning and managing your roles and features on the Windows Server 2012 TechCenter.

Deploying Windows 8 Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT)

2012-07-30T19:03:00Z

Update: Windows 8 RSAT RTM is now online.

Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) enables IT administrators to do Windows Server management remotely. Since Windows Server 2008, RSAT has been a free download for Windows client-based operating systems. RSAT is the evolution of the Administrative Tools pack (also known as Admin Pack) that was available to manage roles on Windows Server 2003. Going forward, RSAT is always going to be released the same time as Windows client.

RSAT for Windows 8 enables IT administrators to manage roles and features that are installed on computers that are running Windows Server 2012 from a remote computer that is running Windows 8. RSAT for Windows 8 includes Server Manager, Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-ins, consoles, Windows PowerShell cmdlets and providers, and command-line tools for managing roles and features that run on Windows Server 2012. In limited cases, the tools can be used to manage roles and features that are running on Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2003. You can find a complete table of all tools and what versions of roles and features they will manage on the TechNet Wiki.

We recommend using RSAT to remotely manage your servers. One of the benefits is to use the GUI to manage servers that run the Server Core installation option of Windows Server. All tools and features in RSAT for Windows 8 can be found in Windows Server 2012. Basically, we pick the tools from Windows Server 2012 and package them to be installable on Windows 8. Users should expect minimal differences between remotely managing roles and features from another server running Windows Server 2012 and from computers running Windows 8 with RSAT installed. In Windows Server 2012, we make Server Manager a great tool to manage multiple servers remotely. For more information about Server Manager, please refer to the Introduction to Server Manager in Windows Server 2012 blog post from my colleague, Wale Martins.

Based on your feedback, we’ve changed the installation experience of RSAT for Windows 8. Instead of a two-step installation process where you ran the installer, and then manually picked and enabled tools to use, as in RSAT for Windows 7, all features and tools in RSAT for Windows 8 are installed and enabled by default, after the installer is finished running. After RSAT installation, “Server Manager” and “Administrative Tools” shortcuts are pinned on the Start screen.

All RSAT tools are found in the Administrative Tools folder. They can also be launched from the “Tools” menu in Server Manager. This can make the “Tools” menu long and difficult to use. My colleague, Kriti Jindal, has posted a blog entry on how to customize the Tools menu in Server Manager.

Please refer to the download page for RSAT for Windows 8 for more information about installing and uninstalling the tools. RSAT for Windows 8 is designed to work best when managing roles and features that are installed on computers that are running Windows Server 2012.

We love feedback. Do you have any things you’d like to see in the RSAT package going forward?

Stephen Liu
Program Manager
Windows Server 2012

Customize Tools menu in Server Manager

2012-07-09T23:58:00Z

What if you could consolidate all of your tools in a central location, and not have to leave Server Manager to perform administrative tasks? The new Tools menu in Server Manager offers just that capability!

Tools menu as seen when Server Manager is opened for the first time

The Tools menu supports folder structure, and by default, includes basic system and administrative tools. As you install roles and features on the local server, the menu grows to accommodate installed management tools.

Let’s find out how the menu is populated. We’ll also discuss how to customize the Tools menu to display your favorite tools or PowerShell scripts!

The Tools menu in Server Manager is essentially an alternative path to the Administrative Tools folder under System and Security in Control Panel. The Administrative Tools folder offers a list of shortcuts or .lnk files to available management tools, such as snap-ins or Properties dialog boxes. Server Manager reads these .lnk files to populate the Tools menu, and copies the folder structure of the Administrative Tools folder. By default, tools in the Administrative Tools folder are arranged in a flat list, sorted by type and by name. In Server Manager’s Tools menu, items are sorted only by name, not by type.

To personalize the Tools menu, put shortcuts to your favorite/frequently-used tools in the Administrative Tools folder. You can also organize your shortcuts in folders, which results in cascading menus in the Tools menu. Let’s look at an example where you create shortcuts for two PowerShell scripts, and then place them in a custom folder in the Admin Tools folder.

1. Have your tools ready

In this case we’ll create shortcuts for two PowerShell scripts: Script1 and Script2. These scripts are on the C drive in a folder named PSScripts.

Note: We recommend that only the shortcuts, and not the original executable file or tool, should reside in the administrative tools menu.

2. Create the folder in which you want to store the shortcut to the tool

This is optional. You could just copy the shortcut to the Administrative Tools folder and not in a subfolder.

Because of the restrictive user rights assigned to the Administrative Tools folder, you are not allowed to create a new folder directly in the Administrative Tools folder; you must create a new folder elsewhere, then copy the new folder to Administrative Tools. For example, create a folder called MyTools in another folder, such as on the Desktop, and then copy MyTools to the Administrative Tools folder in Control Panel -> System and Security -> Administrative Tools.

Note: You need to be a member of the Administrators group on the computer, unless explicitly allowed otherwise, to make changes to this folder.

3. Create shortcuts to your tools

Create shortcuts to the two PowerShell scripts in the PSScripts folder on the C drive, and then move the shortcuts to the folder MyTools that you created in Step 2. Now if you open the Tools menu in Server Manager, you can access the scripts from there!

4. Setting permissions on custom tools

By default, the tools found in the Administrative Tools folder can be read by everyone. There might be times when you don’t want anyone else messing around with your scripts and tools. You just want them available for yourself, so you restrict access to these tools like any other file or folder.

There are two ways to restrict access to your personal tools or scripts:

a) Edit permissions on the file

You can restrict access to the tools that show up in the Tools menu by editing the permissions. These permissions should be set on the original executable file or tool and not the shortcut in the Administrative Tools folder.

Let’s take the example of Script1 in the PSScripts folder on drive C. Say you don’t want to allow access to a local user of the computer, User1. It is ok for this user to see the scripts in the Tools menu, but he should not be able to access or read the contents of the file. On the Security tab of the script’s Properties dialog box, for User1, clear check boxes for Read & execute, Read, and Write permissions. These permissions are inherited by the script’s shortcut in the Administrative Tools folder.

When User1 opens the Tools menu in Server Manager, he can see Script1 in the menu, but gets an Access is denied error if he tries to open the file.

User1 can read Script2, because we didn’t edit the permissions for this file.

b) Edit permissions on the folder

You can also edit permissions on your custom folder in the Administrative Tools folder that contains the shortcuts to your custom tools. For example, if you deny Read & execute permissions for User1 on the MyTools folder (from the example illustrated in Step 2), then User1 will not see the folder in the Tools menu at all.

Note: If you edit access permissions for a user while he/she is using Server Manager (or Server Manager is open), then your changes will not be shown in the Tools menu until that user restarts Server Manager.

Hidden files and folders in Administrative Tools folder are always displayed in the Tools menu in the Server Manager. Do not use this option to hide your custom tools from other users. Instead edit permissions for the folder in the Administrative Tools folder or for the original executable file or tool to restrict access.

Remember: Deny permission always overwrites an Allow permission.

For more information about sharing and ACLs, see File and Folder Permissions on Microsoft TechNet.

Organization of contents in Administrative Tools menu

By default, tools that ship with Windows (system, administrative and roles & features management tools) are not arranged in folders in the Administrative tools folder. Consequently, the Tools menu in Server Manager displays a flat list of available tools. It is recommended that you organize your custom tools in folders to prevent a giant list that’s difficult to use and control.

We recommend that you do not reorganize system and administrative tools, or especially the management tools associated with roles and features installed on the local server. Moving the management tools prevents successful uninstallation of role/feature management tools – when you uninstall a role or a feature, a dead link to the tool remains in the Administrative Tools folder under your custom folder and consequently under the Tools menu. Later, if you reinstall the role, the old link is activated and you also get a duplicate link to the same tool in the list.

Please keep in mind that the Tools menu is available to all the authorized users on the machine. Any changes in the organization of the content will be consistent across all the users.

Different types of shortcut links for PowerShell scripts

We often create custom shortcuts to run scripts with PowerShell or PowerShell ISE. This could be a script which personalizes our console before we begin using it, or more generally, any script at all.

For those who are not familiar with this, you can create a custom shortcut by making a shortcut to, say PowerShell ISE in this case, -file <path to your .ps1>. You can do this by either creating a shortcut to powershell_ise.exe and then going back and editing the shortcut to add "-file <path to .ps1>" or by doing it all in one step in the Create Shortcut wizard. For example, the Target of the shortcut would look like this -

%windir%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell_ise.exe C:\Temp\foo.ps1

Similarly, you can create a custom shortcut for PowerShell to open and run the script in PowerShell.

You could also create shortcuts for the script itself and change the default program for the file type .ps1 to an editor other than Notepad, such as PowerShell ISE, to open and run the script.

1. Open Control Panel and navigate to Programs à Default Programs à Set Associations

2. Select the extension .ps1 from the list and click on Change program..

3. Look for PowerShell ISE in the Open with dialog and Click on Ok

Note: We recommned that you do not set the default program for .ps1 files to PowerShell.exe. It poses a security risk as it makes it easier for a malicious PS1 script to be invoked without the user’s knowledge.

To wrap things up, the new Tools menu in Server Manager is entirely customizable and a one stop shop for system, administrative, management and your favorite tools! You can also take advantage of custom shortcuts. This makes using the scripts from the Tools menu more convenient. You could either open these scripts in PowerShell or you could capitalize on the rich scripting environment offered by PowerShell ISE.

Kriti Jindal

Program Manager

Windows Server 2012

Server Manager – Power of Many; Simplicity of One

2012-06-27T17:13:00Z

Introduction

Welcome to the Server Manager Blog, where we will discuss in depth the features and capabilities of Server Manager in Windows Server 2012. I am Wale Martins, a program manager and feature team lead on the Server Manager team. The team is super-excited about this release of Server Manager, and we will be using this blog to tell you all about the new and exciting scenarios it enables.

Erin Chapple, group program manager for the team that develops Server Manager, recently wrote a great overview of the investments we’ve made in managing Windows-based servers: Rocking the Windows Server “8” Administrative Experience. In this post, I’ll do a double-click on the Server Manager section of Erin’s blog post, and provide you a more in-depth view into the new Server Manager.

In the weeks ahead, and as we get ready to roll out the final release of Windows Server 2012, look for blog posts from me and other members of the Server Manager team to provide more detailed “how-to” information. We want this to be a two-way conversation, and I encourage you to engage with us in the comments section. We will respond to questions, take note of comments and feedback, and also capture ideas for more topics you would like us to write about.

Let’s get started!

Server Manager Overview

When we released the first version of Server Manager in Windows Server 2008, it was an instant hit with server administrators, as they embraced the one-stop-shop console. We’d eased the pain they experienced launching individual management tools for the roles and features they manage. From that warm reception emerged the #1 feature request for the next release in Windows Server 2008 R2: the ability to target Server Manager at a remote server from a Windows client-based source computer. Administrators, like other information workers, tend to use a client-based computer for their daily work. In the Windows Server 2012 release of Server Manager, we maintain these legacy scenarios and add much more. Before I go into these, I’ll briefly discuss two relevant items.

Server Manager Conceptual Framework

The diagram in figure 1 below provides a conceptual framework of Server Manager. I don't intend to describe this in depth; instead I have placed it here as a reference point that you can go to at any time as we discuss the new scenarios enabled by Server Manager.

Figure 1 - Conceptual Framework

The Voice of the IT Professional

From a manageability perspective, if we were to tune in to the voice of the IT Professional after he’s had a chance to use Windows Server 2012, this is what we'd expect to hear:

“As an IT pro, I increasingly need to manage my estate more efficiently as the size, number, and complexity of my data centers increase. I need to manage workloads consisting of components that span multiple servers (physical/virtual), rather than managing individual servers. The in-box management tools and solutions in Windows Server 2012 better match the way I need to work—enabling me to manage change across computers, and respond with greater speed and agility to business-critical issues.

The management solutions in Windows Server 2012 provide me with comprehensive management capabilities from my desktop and home environments. I no longer need to visit the data center to resolve problems with individual computers because all my management tasks can be done remotely. A unified console helps me understand how workloads fit together, how they are deployed across computers, and their overall status.”

Core Server Manager Scenarios

Now let’s discuss the core scenarios lit up in this release of Server Manager.

Managing from “my client”: As with WS08 R2, we expect most administrators are managing servers from a Windows client-based computer, so this release of Server Manager is included in the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT) download package for the Windows 8 client operating system. Also, similar to earlier versions, Server Manager is available by default in Windows Server 2012 (except in the GUI-free Server Core installation option), and this availability makes a Windows Server 2012 installation a valid client from which to manage other servers, if needed.

Selecting “my servers” to manage: As an administrator’s personal tool, Server Manager in Windows Server 2012 allows you – the administrator – to select the servers for which you are responsible from among any number of servers in your organization. Whether those servers are physical or virtual, on-premise or off-premise, one or many, it does not matter as long as each one is running a release of Windows Server that’s no older than Windows Server 2003. How do I select these servers? In the Add Servers dialog box (Manage > Add Servers), you have three options to find servers to add to your server pool (see figure 2):

Active Directory: If you are in a domain environment, you can use the default Active Directory (AD) tab and either specify an AD organizational unit (OU) in which to look for servers, or search for a particular server by specifying all or part of its name.
DNS: If you prefer, or if you don’t have AD set up in your environment, search by using DNS properties: a computer name or IP address.
Import: This option enables you to add many servers at once by importing a list of server names in a text file into the list of available servers in the Add Servers dialog box.

Figure 2 - Add Servers dialog

Understanding “my estate”: After you select all of the servers you want to add to your server pool and click OK, Server Manager opens connections to and starts inventory collection from those servers. Significant among the inventory it collects are the roles and features installed on each server. Server Manager creates a role group for each unique role found across all your servers (refer to figure 1) and displays the role group as a thumbnail on its dashboard. Server Manager also creates an All Servers group that contains all of the servers in your Server Manager pool; this group lets you manage any server in your pool that does not yet have a role installed. From the dashboard, you are immediately able to answer questions about your server estate: How many servers am I managing? What roles are installed across those servers? What is the number of servers I have running a specific role?

Determining issues and their priorities: Dashboard thumbnails indicate issues in your server environment that might require attention with red rows, and with numbers indicating the instance count for any issue type raised (refer to figure 3). By clicking the thumbnail rows, you can get more details about issues or problems, helping you to make faster, informed triage decisions. The at-a-glance thumbnail status is particularly useful when multiple issues occur at once (something many administrators will tell you is par for the course).

Figure 3 - Notice the red Services row and its instance number in the Fax Server thumbnail

Sometimes, I really do need more data: Yep, we thought so! Beyond the at-a-glance data shown on the dashboard, Server Manager remotely gathers detailed data about servers in your pool, and provides you views to these within the console. We’ve already discussed one type of data that’s represented on the dashboard (the installed roles inventory), but there are more, including inventories of services, events, Best Practices Analyzer results, and performance counters. Another inventory type includes properties for the server, such as IP address, installed memory, and product activation status. Navigating to a role or group page in the console enables you to view the full set of inventoried data about your servers.

Whoa – that’s a lot of data! How can I make sense of it? Rich controls! As you select a single server in the Servers tile, the data displayed in other tiles (such as Events, Services, Best Practices Analyzer, Performance, and Roles and Features) changes scope to show only data for the selected server. To see and compare data across two or more servers, multi-select them; the remaining tiles’ scope changes to show data for only those servers you’ve selected. Cool, eh! Each tile includes controls that let you filter data, sort or group by various columns (as shown in figure 4), and create and save custom queries to help you perform analyses and comparisons. Lastly, you can resize a tile–and widen, add, remove or rearrange its columns –to bring more data into view or to organize the data in a way that makes sense to you.

Figure 4 - The user has grouped the data in the Events tile by Server Name and also filtered the events to only those containing string '1008'

Where do I find and perform administrative tasks? There are three ways to access tasks in Server Manager:

Contextual Tasks

We’ve learned that the first place that administrators typically look for tasks is in a right-click contextual menu for an object. Right-click on a server in the Servers tile, and tasks that affect the remote server, such as Restart, are exposed. Other management tools, such as a Windows PowerShell console targeted at the remote server, are also available on this menu. You can multi-select objects, and the tasks that apply to all objects in your selection are available to run against all selected servers.
On each tile, a task menu provides tasks that you can run on the tile or the data that it’s displaying, such as tile-specific configurations or refreshes

Non-contextual Tasks: At the console level, the menu bar provides actions you can take on the entire Server Manager console, such as change the console’s refresh interval by using the Server Manager Properties command, or start the Add Roles and Features Wizard.
Non-contextual Tools: You can also access administrator tasks that are not integrated into the console by opening tools from the console’s Tools menu. Some pertinent points on tools:

When File and Storage Services, Remote Desktop Services; or IP Address Management is installed on any server in your server pool, Server Manager offers more pages of management surfaces, in addition to generic role home pages. For roles and features that do not yet have these integrated management pages, you can open their management tools from the Tools menu

Figure 5 - Entry points for contextual tasks/tools (arrows 1 & 2), non-contextual tasks (3), and non-contextual tools (4)

Deployment! Deployment!! Deployment!!! Because trends indicate that administrators will likely be performing more deployment tasks than before, in this release of Server Manager, we have made significant improvements to the deployment experience, including new deployment scenarios that enable you to perform deployment tasks faster and with more options. [Note: deployment refers here to installation of roles and features and not OS deployment.]

Improvements:

Consolidation of the role and feature deployment into a single wizard. In one wizard session, you can install both the roles and features that you want on a server. For example, you can install the File and Storage Services role on a new file server that you are provisioning, and in the same task flow, install the Failover Clustering feature to help you deliver File Services in your organization.
Server Manager now enables you to perform role and feature deployments to a remote server by using the Server Manager GUI. In WS08 R2, you could only do remote deployments from the command line.
The initial server configuration experience has been simplified and integrated with the Server Manager console. Gone is the Initial Configuration Tasks (ICT) window. Initial configuration tasks are available in the Properties tile of the Local Server page in Server Manager, when Server Manager is running directly on a Windows Server 2012 installation.
The Server Manager installation wizard is no longer modal. This enables you to do other things within the console while you are performing an installation.

New Deployment Scenarios:

Deploy to an offline VHD: With the excitement around virtualization, we know administrators prefer not having to start up a VM to deploy roles and features to it. The Add Roles and Features Wizard in Server Manager lets you deploy to an offline VHD the same way you would deploy to an online server. No compromise!
Reduce footprint by removing unwanted source files aka Features on Demand: If storage space is a concern – especially on virtual servers –a nifty option in Windows Server 2012 called Features on Demand helps you remove unwanted source files for any server in your environment. Imagine a scenario where I am running five print servers: I know that this is going to be their long-term purpose in my environment, so I don’t need source files on those servers for installing other roles or features. Server Manager’s Uninstall-WindowsFeature cmdlet lets me remove any source files I don’t need from managed servers, and reclaim the storage space they consume. To install roles or features whose source files have been removed, both the Add Roles and Features Wizard in Server Manager and the Windows PowerShell cmdlets for Server Manager let me specify an alternate source file path. You can have a central repository of source files, and never have duplicate source files across your server environment. Loving it yet? – There’s more! :)
Deployment configuration templates: Imagine you are completing a deployment on one of your servers. At the end, you know that you’ll need to repeat the deployment, either on other servers, or on the current target server, if you need to re-provision it in the future. A command link on the Confirm installation options page of the Add Roles and Features Wizard lets you export configuration settings. This command saves the configurations you’ve chosen as you stepped through the wizard as an XML file that you can reuse repeatedly in Windows PowerShell deployment scripts. Because this can be done before you’ve clicked OK on the wizard’s confirmation page; you can export the XML configuration file without actually performing a deployment on the current target server.

Batch deployment via automation: Assume you need to provision 10 new web servers for your company. You run once through the deployment wizard, selecting the options you want as you install the Web Server (IIS) role; and then you export the configuration settings. In a Windows PowerShell session, you are able to run this simple command in a loop (Windows PowerShell provides several loop options to choose from) to target each of the 10 servers, as well as specify the path to the configuration file you just saved. Install-WindowsFeature -ConfigurationFilePath <string> [-ComputerName <string>]

Distributed deployment: The RDS team found that most of the issues customers experience with using and managing Remote Desktop Services stem from errors made during the deployment of the role. Deployment of RDS typically requires distributing multiple parts of the role across more than one server to deliver the end-user services that RDS offers. In the new Server Manager deployment wizards, RDS provides a deployment experience in this release that helps minimize deployment errors. You can now complete an RDS deployment with discrete parts of the role distributed across multiple servers in a single wizard session, rather than in the piecemeal fashion of past releases. The RDS scenario-based installation is one that I personally find very exciting especially when I consider that we have only just scratched that surface.
GUI is now an installable/removable feature: In previous releases of Windows Server, you had to choose between Server Core (no GUI) and Server with a GUI; and you are locked into that choice throughout the existence of that server installation. In Windows Server 2012, you can dynamically convert a Server with a GUI to Server Core and vice versa, including a Minimal Server Interface option in between. Removing these two Windows features – Server Graphical Shell and Graphical Management Tools and Infrastructure – takes you from Server with a GUI to a Minimal Server Interface and Server Core respectively. Ben Herila has a blog post related to this topic: Configuring the Minimal Server Interface.

Conclusion

In a world where server administrators require the power of multiple servers and technologies to deliver new services and enhance existing ones, we believe that they should not be limited by the complexities of their management tools. Server Manager in Windows Server 2012 steps up as a management tool to enable you to leverage the power of many servers with the simplicity of managing one.

Try Server Manager in Windows Server 8 Beta

2012-03-02T16:15:37Z

Bill Laing just gave Server Manager a shout out in his Windows Server "8" Beta announcement blog post. The Server Manager team is excited about this release. We have lots to tell you about this new version of Server Manager. We’ll use this blog to do just that in the coming weeks and months. Bill and his leadership team will continue to provide high level information on the Windows Server Blog too so stay tuned in.