by kurtvh
Importing data into SCSM (part 1) – the SCSM AD & SCCM connectors
November 4, 2009 at 10:40 pm in Uncategorized by kurtvh
The Service Manager database contains information about the environment. After a fresh installation, we have an empty database. This SCSM database can be easily populated with different entries (configuration items for SCSM) with the use of connectors. In the SCSM console, you have four different connectors that can be configured.
Active Directory Connector: This connector enables the import of users, groups, printers, and computers from Active Directory as configuration items (CI) into the Service Manager database. Complete domain, OU or a selection of different objects are source configurations that can be set during installation of the connector.
Configuration Manager Connector: This connector enables the import data from Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Site Database into the System Center Service Manager database. The ConfigMgr connector can enable a couple of functions:
- Importing assets by using a Configuration Manager Connector can add details about a configuration item that has already been imported by using an AD Connector, or add new configuration items that do not exist in Active Directory.
- Importing configuration baselines from ConfigMgr and then use that to automatically generate incidents for non-compliant configuration items.
Operation Manager Alert Connector: The OpsMgr alert connector is used to automatically generate incidents that are based on Operations Manager alerts.
Operation Manager CI Connector: The CI connector imports discovered objects from Operation Manager as configuration items into the SCSM database.
This first blog post will cover the installation and configuration of the AD & ConfigMgr connector.
Installation of the Active Directory Connector
Pre-requisites:
- Connector account with read rights in Active Directory
Installation of the connector
In the Service Manager console, click Administration.
In the Administration pane, expand Administration, and then click Connectors.
In the Tasks pane, under Connectors, click Create Connector, and then select Active Directory Connector.
The Active Directory Connector Wizard starts…
On the Before you Begin page, click Next.
On the General page, in the Name box, type a name for the new connector. On this page, we can enable or disable the connector.
On the Domain or Organizational Unit page, we have two configuration options:
- Select Use the domain: <domain name> for complete domain import
- Or select Let me choose the domain or OU and then click Browse to choose a domain or an organizational unit (OU) in your environment. (I have selected a specific OU “Accounts” in this example setup.)
In the Credentials area, click New or select an existing Run As account from the drop down list.
Configuration made on this page can be tested using the Test Connection button.
On the Objects page, we can configure the connector to import “All computers, printers, users, and user groups” or alternatively to import only selected items with selecting “Select individual computers, printers, users or user groups”.
On the Summary page, make sure that settings are correct, and then click Create.
On the Completion page, make sure that Active Directory Connector successfully configured appears, and then click Close.
Go back to the Administration pane, expand Administration, and then click Connectors.
Select the just created AD connector and navigate to the Tasks pane, under AD Connector, click Synchronize Now.
Wait a few moments and you can see that the discovered objects from AD are imported as configuration items in SCSM. To check the import, just navigate to the Configuration Items in the SCSM console, expand Configuration Items and select for example All Computers. The CI’s are listed in the results pane.
(Example of the imported Configuration items)
Next step is to configure the Configuration Manager Connector. This will import more meta-data information for the imported configuration items from AD. (or add new configuration items)
Installation of the ConfigMgr Connector
The following procedure can be used to import data from ConfigMgr 2007.
Pre-requisites:
- Connector account that must be a member of the smsdbrole_extract and the db_datareader groups on SCCM site database.
Installation of the connector
In the Service Manager console, click Administration.
In the Administration pane, expand Administration, and then click Connectors.
In the Tasks pane, under Connectors, click Create Connector, and then select Configuration Manager Connector.
On the Before you Begin page, click Next.
On the General page, in the Name box enter a name for the new connector and provide a description if needed. On this page, we can enable or disable the connector.
On the Select Management Pack page, in the Connector Management Pack list, select System Center Configuration Manager Connector Configuration, and then click Next.
On the Connect to System Center Configuration Manager Database page, specify the name of your SCCM server and the name of the SMS database.
In the Credentials area, click New or select an existing Run As account from the drop down list.
Note: Account must have rights in the SCCM database to import object information like it is specified in the pre-requisites.
On the Collections page, select the appropriate collection, and then click Next. I have enabled the configuration for “All Systems” collection. This can be changes at a later stage…
On the Schedule page, in the Synchronize list, set how often, and at what time, synchronization should occur, and then click Next.
On the Summary page, confirm the connector settings you made, and then click Create.
On the Confirmation page, make sure that You have successfully completed the System Center Configuration Manager Connector Wizard is displayed, and then click Close.
Go back to the Administration pane, expand Administration, and then click Connectors.
Select the just created SCCM connector and navigate to the Tasks pane, under SCCM Connector, click Synchronize Now.
In production environments where many objects are defined in ConfigMgr, it can take several hours to complete the import. A status of the import procedures is displayed on the connector result pane.
When the import is finished, we have detailed information available on the objects imported via the AD connector.
To check the import, just navigate to the Configuration Items in the SCSM console, expand Configuration Items and select for example All Computers. The CI’s are listed in the results pane. You can see that after the import a more exhaustive list of information is available for each configuration item.
Next blog post will cover the configuration of the OpsMgr connectors…
Enjoy,
Kurt Van Hoecke
scug-admin said on November 5, 2009
Nice post Kurt!
Russ said on November 30, 2012
Hey Kurt,
When you say it takes several hours on the SCCM connector – i’m curious what you’ve seen in the field? Would you say it’s normal for a 23000 client environment to take around 8 hours to sync each day?
Thanks
kurtvh said on December 9, 2012
Hello Russ, this is possible…and normal. I assume you have first configured the AD connector and after that the SCCM connector. In this way all SCCM information needs to be added to current information. That can take some time. That this takes every day 8 hours is strange. Can you verify the history on some objects?