Book Image

Microsoft System Center 2012 Orchestrator Cookbook

By : Samuel Erskine, Andreas Baumgarten, Steve Beaumont
Book Image

Microsoft System Center 2012 Orchestrator Cookbook

By: Samuel Erskine, Andreas Baumgarten, Steve Beaumont

Overview of this book

<p>Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 simplifies the process of automating systems administration tasks. Originally a third-party product named Opalis, which Microsoft acquired in 2009, Orchestrator provides a simplified way of building complex automation. System Center Orchestrator is a complete solution that goes beyond basic automation.</p> <p>"Microsoft System Center 2012 Orchestrator Cookbook" will teach you how to plan, create and manage powerful runbooks to help you automate mission-critical and routine administration tasks.</p> <p>In this practical Cookbook you will learn how to master System Center 2012 by creating runbooks to control and automate every feature possible. You will start by learning how to efficiently install and secure System Center Orchestrator.</p> <p><br />You will then learn how to plan and create functional and fault-tolerant System Center runbooks to automate daily tasks and routine operations. Diving deep into runbooks, you will learn how to create powerful and practical runbooks for the entire System Center family of products.<br /><br />Unleashing your inner control freak, you will then master System Center automation by creating IT Service Management process runbooks and advanced runbooks to help you control every feature imaginable of System Center. If you want to save time and energy automating mission critical tasks with System Center 2012 Orchestrator, then this book is for you!</p>
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Microsoft System Center 2012 Orchestrator Cookbook
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Disabling user accounts in Active Directory


It is a common security policy of an organization to disable inactive user accounts. This might happen for a number of reasons, for example an employee on a long break.

Instead of using an Initialize Data activity at the start of the Runbook we will use a different approach to automate the process. The business process to disable user accounts in Active Directory is described in the following diagram:

Getting ready

We need a shared folder (on the SCORCH 2012 server or access to shared on another server) as this Runbook would be triggered by monitoring a folder. Create and share the folder if required.

In addition to the preparation in the introduction of this chapter we need to create a new Runbook in the Runbook Designer.

  1. In the Runbook Designer expand the connection to the SCORCH 2012 server.

  2. Right-click on Runbooks and click on New (you can also right-click on a folder in Runbooks).

  3. Right-click on the newly created Runbook and rename it to Disable...