RAP as a Service

for Failover Cluster

Last modified: March 15th, 2017

Prerequisites Download the latest prerequisites from:

[Link]

How to prepare for your RAP as a Service for Failover Cluster.

The Tools machine is used to connect to each of the servers in your environment and retrieve
configuration and health information from them. The Tools machine retrieves information from
the environment communicating over Remote Procedure Call (RPC), Server Message Block (SMB),
and Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM). Once data is collected, the Tools machine is
used to upload the data to the Microsoft Premier Services portal for automated analysis, followed
Internet connectivity is up by manual analysis by one of our expert engineers. This upload requires internet HTTPS
needed to: connectivity to specific sites. Alternatively, you can also export the collected data from the Tools
machine and use a different machine to submit it. You need to ensure the machine used to
 Access the RAP as a
upload the data also has the RAP as a Service client tool installed and has internet connection.
Service portal
 Activate your At a high level, your steps to success are:
account 1. Install prerequisites on your Tools machine and configure your environment
 Download the 2. Collect data from your environment
toolset 3. Submit the data to Microsoft Premier Services for assessment

 Submit data A checklist of prerequisite actions follows. Each item links to any additional software required
for the Tools machine, and detailed steps included later in this document.

Checklist
Data submission to
Please ensure the following items have been completed before accessing the RAP as a Service
Microsoft online servers Portal for the first time and starting your engagement.
and displaying your
results on the online 1. General Use
portal uses encryption  A Microsoft Account is required to activate and sign in to the RAP as a Service portal.
to help protect your If you don’t have one already, you can create one at [Link]
data. Your data is • To learn more about Microsoft Accounts, see: [Link]
analyzed using our US/windows-live/sign-in-what-is-microsoft-account
RAP expert system.  Ensure access to [Link]
 Ensure the Internet browser on the data collection machine has JavaScript enabled.
Follow the steps listed at How to enable scripting in your browser. Internet Explorer 9,
Internet Explorer 10 and Internet Explorer 11 are the supported and recommended
browsers for this offering. Most other modern HTML5 based browsers will also work.
 The site [Link] provides access to the Support Forum and Knowledge
Base Articles for RAP as a Service.
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2. Activation
 Ensure access to [Link]
 Ensure access to [Link]

3. Data Collection
a. Tools machine hardware and Operating System:
 Server-class or high-end workstation machine running Windows Windows 7/Windows 8/windows 10, or Windows
Server 2008/Windows Server 2008 R2/Windows Server 2012/Windows Server 2012 R2/2016
Note: Windows Server 2003 is not supported as Tools machines.
Note: The Operating System of the Tools machine should be equal or higher than the cluster being reviewed.
 Minimum: 8GB RAM, 2Ghz dual-core processor, 5 GB of free disk space.
 Joined to the same domain as the environment servers or a trusted domain.
 Windows PowerShell 2.0 engine should be installed on Server 2012 or Server 2012 R2/2016.
 DO NOT USE a cluster node as the machine to install the data collection toolset on. This will cause additional items to
be identified as the cluster nodes will not have matching software installed. This tool also will use system resources
that can negatively affect the performance of the machine that it is running on.
 Disjoined domain names are not supported.
 Only a single tools machine is supported, collecting from multiple machines will exclude each others data collection.

b. Software for Tools machine:

 Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 installed
 Windows PowerShell 2.0 or later installed
 PowerShell Execution policy set to RemoteSigned

c. Account Rights:
 Member of the local Administrators group on all cluster nodes in the environment being reviewed.
 Unrestricted network access from the Tools machine to all cluster nodes in the environment being reviewed. Active
Directory access is required as well to check cluster related computer accounts.

d. Additional Requirements for Windows Server 2008 (and later) servers:

 Configure all server firewalls for “Remote Event Log Management”

The Appendix Data Collection Methods details the methods used to collect data.

4. Submission
 Internet connectivity is required to submit the collected data to Microsoft.
 Ensure access to *.[Link]
this URL is used to authenticate the data submission before accepting it.

The rest of this document contains detailed information on the steps discussed above.

Once you have completed these prerequisites, you are ready to use the RAP as a Service Portal to begin your assessment.

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 Machine Requirements
and Account Rights
1. Hardware and Software

Server-class or high-end workstation computer equipped with the following:

 Minimum single 2Ghz processor — Recommended dual-core/multi-core 2Ghz or higher processors.

 Minimum 8 GB RAM.
 Minimum 3 GB of free disk space.
 Windows 10 (preferred), Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Server 2012/Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server
2016, or Windows Server 2008/Windows Server 2008 R2. .
Note: Server 2003 is not supported as a data collection machine.
To successfully gather Performance data, ensure the data collection machine’s Operating System (OS) matches, or is
a higher version of the highest versioned OS target machine used within the environment. Typically, this means that
Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012/2016 is acceptable to use.
Note: Windows Storage Server Clusters are not supported for Failover Cluster RAP as a Service.
 Can be 32-bit or 64-bit operating system.
 At least a 1024x768 screen resolution (higher preferred).
 A member of the same domain as the servers being reviewed or a member of a domain in the same forest.
 Microsoft® .NET Framework 4.0 — [Link]
 Windows PowerShell 2.0 or higher
 Windows PowerShell 2.0 is part of the Windows Management Framework —
[Link]
 The execution policy for PowerShell should be set to RemoteSigned on both the tools machine and the servers
 The execution policy settings can be verified using “Get-ExecutionPolicy –list” in a PowerShell command window
 Networked “Documents” or redirected “Documents” folders are not supported. Local “Documents” folder on the data
collection machine is required.

2. Accounts Rights

 A domain account with the following:

 Local Administrator permissions on the tools machine and on all cluster nodes in the environment being reviewed.
 Unrestricted network access from the Tools machine to all cluster nodes in the environment being reviewed. Active
Directory access is required as well to check cluster related computer accounts.
 Ability to run PowerShell scripts on the machine running the RAP as a Service Client. The Windows PowerShell Execu-
tion Policy must be set to RemoteSigned or a
policy that provides an equivalent ability to run local scripts —
[Link]

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 WARNING: Do not use the Run As feature to start the RAP as a Service client.
Some collectors might fail. The account starting the RAP as a Service client must
logon to the local machine.

 A Microsoft Account for each user account to logon to the Premier Proactive
Assessment Services portal ([Link] This is the
RAP as a Service portal where you will activate your access token, download the
toolset and fill out the operational survey. This is also the URL that hosts the web
service that coordinates the data submission
Internet connectivity is  If you don’t have one, you can create one at [Link]
needed in order to complete  Contact your TAM if the token in your Welcome Email has expired or can no
longer be activated. Tokens expire after ten days. Your TAM can provide new
this RAP as a Service offering activation tokens for additional people.

You will require access to the following

3. Network and Remote Access
sites and URLs:
 Ensure that the browser on the Tools machine or the machine from where you
activate, download and submit data has JavaScript enabled. Follow the steps
For general use: listed at How to enable scripting in your browser.
[Link]
 Internet Explorer is the recommended browser for a better experience with the
portal. Ensure Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (ESC) is not
For token activation and blocking JavaScript on sites. A workaround would be to temporary disable
authentication: Internet Explorer ESC when accessing the [Link]
[Link] portal.
[Link]
 Unrestricted network access from the Tools machine to all cluster nodes in the
For data collection: environment being reviewed. Active Directory access is required as well to check
[Link] cluster related computer accounts.

 This means access through any firewalls and router ACLs that might be
limiting traffic to any of the servers. This includes remote access to DCOM,
For data submission
Remote Registry service, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
[Link] services, and default administrative shares (C$, D$, IPC$). File and printer
[Link] sharing must be enabled.
[Link]
Note: Some of these URLs cannot be  Ensure that the machine you use to collect data has complete TCP/UDP
opened using a web browser. access, including RPC access to all servers.

 The following services must be started on the target servers:

 Windows Management Instrumentation

Review the article below for complete  Remote Registry
information regarding these URLs:  Server
[Link]  Workstation
knowledgebase/articles/120616-what-  Performance Logs & Alerts
do-i-need-to-open-in-my-firewall-proxy
-to-use

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 Configure the server firewall to ensure all servers running Windows Server 2008/R2 and higher have “Remote Event Log
Management” enabled: RAP as a Service Client might be unable to collect event log information from a Windows Server
2008/R2 if “Remote Event Log Management” has not been allowed. When “Remote Management” is enabled, the rules
that allow Remote Event Log Management are also enabled.

To test if the tool will be able to collect event log data from a Windows Server 2008/R2 host you can try to
connect to the Windows Server 2008/R2 server using [Link]. If you are able to connect, collecting event log data is
possible. If the remote connection is unsuccessful you may need to enable the Windows built-in firewall to allow “Remote

Event Log Management”.

 Connectivity Testing

 Event Log: To test if the tool will be able to collect event log data from a Windows Server 2008 R2 server, you can try
to connect to the Windows Server 2008/R2/2016 server using [Link]. If you are able to connect, collecting
event log data is possible. If the remote connection is unsuccessful you may need to enable the Windows built-in
firewall to allow “Remote Event Log Management”.
 Registry: Use [Link] to test remote registry connectivity to the target servers (File > Connect Network Registry).
 File: Connect to the C$ and Admin$ shares on the target servers to verify file access.

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Appendix: Data Collection Methods
RAP as a Service for Failover Cluster uses multiple data collection methods to collect information. This section describes the
methods used to collect data from your environment. No VB scripts are used to collect data. Data collection uses workflows
and collectors. The collectors are:

1. Registry Collectors
2. LDAP Collectors
3. EventLogCollector
4. Windows PowerShell
5. FileDataCollector
6. WMI
7. Custom C# Code
8. System Performance Data

1. Registry Collectors
Registry keys and values are read from the RAP as a Service data collection machine for all the Failover Cluster nodes. They
include items such as:
 Detailed information from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Cluster.
 This allows to determine where the Failover Cluster database and log files are located on each node and get detailed
information on each of the resources relevant to the proper functions that are highly available. We do not collect all
services, only the ones relevant to Failover Cluster.
 Operating System information from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
 This allows to determine Operation System information such as Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2,
Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2016.

2. LDAP Collectors
LDAP queries are used to collect data for the Domain, DCs, nTDSSiteSettings objects, Partitions and other components from
Failover Cluster itself. For a complete list of ports required by Failover Cluster, see:
[Link]

3. EventLogCollector
Collects event logs from Failover Cluster nodes. We collect the last 7 days of Warnings and Errors from the Application and
System event logs.

4. Windows PowerShell
Collects various information, such as:
 SYSVOL details which is looking for the content of the SYSVOL folder.

5. FileDataCollector
Enumerates files in a folder on a remote machine, and optionally retrieves those files.

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6. Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
WMI is used to collect various information such as:
 WIN32_Volume
Collects information on Volume Settings for each node in the cluster. The information is used for instance to determine
the system volume and drive letter which allows RAP as a Service for Failover Cluster to collect information on files
located on the shared drives.
 Win32_Process
Collect information on the processes running on each node in the cluster. The information provides insight in processes
that consume a large amount of threads, memory or have a large page file usage.
 Win32_LogicalDisk
Used to collect information on the logical disks. We use the information to determine the amount of free space on the
disk where the database or log files are located.

8. Custom C# Code
Collects information not captured using other collectors.