Microsoft Configuration Manager Integration

In addition to being able to run instructions from the Tachyon explorer, Tachyon also has Configuration Manager Console extensions which allow you to run Tachyon instructions directly from the Configuration Manager console. There is great value in this functionality as it allows you to target specific collections rather than having to set coverage parameters within Tachyon. 
This ConfigMgr integration is enabled via the Tachyon Toolkit installer (which will need to be installed on any machine where the Configuration Manager console is installed).

In our environment, we already have the ConfigMgr console installed on the 1ETRNCM server.

The Configuration Manager console may be installed and used by any user that is configured as an Administrative User. There are several Security Roles that may be given to the user and not all of these roles are permitted to use Configuration Manager to make changes that affect the network. When configuring the corresponding Tachyon user, you should take this into account when assigning the Tachyon Roles. For example, it would be unusual for a user with just the Read-only Analyst role in Configuration Manager to be granted the global Actioner role in Tachyon and therefore be able to perform Tachyon actions on all the devices in a particular collection but not be able to use Configuration Manager to perform any other tasks.

When in ConfigMgr, the role based security configured in the console will dictate what the user has access to. Tachyon will dictate what permissions a user or group has based on Tachyon's role based security, thus you must configure both very carefully to ensure the right access is provided to the users you are granting the ability to use Tachyon through the ConfigMgr console.

In the following exercises, we will configure the Tachyon back end for the ConfigMgr integration. Once configured, we will install the Tachyon Toolkit on the server with the ConfigMgr console, and lastly, we will configure a ConfigMgr administrative user with permissions in Tachyon.

Configuring the Consumers

Configuring the Integration/Consumers

1. Logged in as 1ETRN\AppInstaller, launch the Settings Application and navigate to Configuration – Consumers
2. Note the consumers that are installed, Explorer, Platform, Inventory, Guaranteed State, Patch Success, RunInstructionUI , CmConsoleExtensions, TachyonRunInstruction, Experience, Nomad, AppClarity and ApplicationMigration. These were installed when Tachyon was installed some are the default consumers others because we selected to install them.
3. Select RunInstructionUI , Click Edit and set the Maximum simultaneous instructions setting to 250
4. Check the Use Windows Authentication and Enabled boxes at the bottom (if not already)
5. Click Save
6. Repeat steps above for CmConsoleExtensions
7. Note that there are 12 consumers configured in Tachyon
8. Navigate to the Permissions - Users tab in the Settings Application
9. On the right side, click on the Add button to add a user
10. In the select user field, type in 1ETRN\SCCMADMIN and select SCCM Admin in the suggestion list. Click the Add button
11. Click the 1ETRN\SCCMAdmin account to edit the role
12. Click the Edit button on the right side
13. Select Global Actioners and Nomad Administrators click Save
14. You will see in the User: SCCM Admin page that it has been permissioned with the Global Actioners and Nomad Administrators roles

Installing the Tachyon Toolkit

15. Log into 1ETRNCM as SCCMADMIN
16. Ensure the ConfigMgr console is closed
17. Open an explorer window and navigate to \\1etrnap\temp\tachyonplatform.v5.2.5.165\Installers and copy TachyonToolkit.msi to c:\temp
18. From a command box, switch the working folder to c:\temp and run the following command

msiexec /i TachyonToolkit.msi /l*v TachyonToolkit.log

19. On the Welcome page click Next
20. On the License Agreement page, select I accept the terms in the license agreement and click Next
21. On the Custom Setup page, click Next
22. On the Tachyon Server page, input Tachyon.1etrn.local and click Next
23. Click Install
24. Once installed, click Finish
25. Browse to c:\Program Files (x86)\1E\Tachyon and note that a Toolkit folder now exists with a subfolder

Using Tachyon through the ConfigMgr console

Now that we have installed the Toolkit and with it the ConfigMgr console extensions, as well as having configured the two consumers required for the ConfigMgr integration, we are ready to use Tachyon through the ConfigMgr console.

Start the Config Man Client Service

26. Still logged into 1ETRNW73 as 1ETRN\Tachyon_AdminG




27. Click Start and type in Services.msc. Click on the Services.msc applet
28. Click on any service and type in SMS. Stop the SMS Agent Host service
We will now use a Tachyon instruction from the Config Man console to start the Config Man Client Service

29. Logged in as 1ETRN\SCCMADMIN, launch the ConfigMgr console from the taskbar
30. Click the Assets and Compliance pane on the left and select Devices
31. Right-click 1ETRNW73 and at the bottom of the pop-out menu, select 1E Tachyon
32. We will now use a Tachyon instruction from the Config Man console to start the Config Man Client Service

33. Click on Start ConfigMgr Client Service. Click Yes
34. Launch Live Mail from the Start menu and click Send/Receive
35. Get the authentication code from the latest email and input it into the Authentication code box which appeared when the action was initiated
36. Click OK on the Tachyon pop up

37. Logged into 1ETRNW73 as 1ETRN\Tachyon_adminG, launch the Tachyon Portal if not already open and navigate to the Explorer Application - notifications page
38. Note the action initiated from the ConfigMgr console has an approval request waiting
39. Click Start and type in Services.msc. Click on the Services.msc applet
40. Click on any service and type in SMS. Note the SMS Agent Host service is in a Stopped state
41. Return to the Explorer Application and approve the request
42. Browse to c:\programdata\1E\Client and open the 1E.Client.log file
43. Note that the action we just approved has begun to execute, there may be a delay but the log will say this, wait for the delay to complete

44. Return to the Services applet and refresh the view. Note that the SMS Agent Host service is now running

45. Returning to the ConfigMgr console, move from the Devices workspace to the Device Collections workspace
46. Right click on the Lab Workstations collection, and select 1E Tachyon → Instruction Runner

47. Click on the History and Content tabs. Note that they do not have any information as we have not run any instructions through the Instruction Runner yet
48. Return to the Instruction tab
49. Expand Processes, and select What processes are running?
50. Note the Approximate Target based on the collection we chose
51. This is essentially our coverage, defined by the collection membership
52. Click Ask this Question
53. Note the Tachyon Instruction Runner change to the History tab. Click on the Content tab
54. Note the results being returned
55. Click the Create Collection button. Note the ability to create a collection based on the results returned. Click Cancel
56. The create collection functionality can be very valuable for targeting specific deployments via Config Man. For example, you might run a Tachyon Instruction querying for something specific on all your clients, and the ones that return a value could quickly be put into a collection and have a patch or package deployed to. This collection will be using a direct membership rule so much more efficient on the processing side of Config Man

57. Return to the Explorer Application on 1ETRNW71
58. Expand the Instructions node, and click on History
59. Note the different instructions listed here. At the top of the list is the instruction we just initiated through ConfigMgr
60. Click on the instruction to take you to the Content page
61. Note the data presented in the same manner that instructions executed directly from the Explorer Application are presented

Create the Config Mgr Connector

Create the Config Mgr Connector

This connector will pull data from Config Mgr into Tachyon for use by other applications

62. Navigate to Settings → Configuration → Connectors
63. Click on Add and select System Center Configuration Manager from the Connector Type dropdown
64. In the Repository type Inventory will be shown
65. In the Connector Name field type in Config Mgr
66. In the SCCM Database Server field type in 1ETRNCM
67. In the SCCM Database field type in CM_PS1
68. Delete any entries that are in the SCCM SQL Server User Name or Password fields
69. Check the box next to Use Windows Authentication
70. Do not Check the box next to Run Consoliidation Reports
71. Click Add

Test the Config Mgr Connector

72. Select the Config Mgr Connector that we just created
73. Click the Test button on the right
74. Navigate to Monitoring – Process Log to see the results
75. Wait for it to be successful and then continue on with the exercises

Sync the Connectors Manually

In a production environment you will want to create schedules to run your syncs each week. The proper order is Config Mgr, Tachyon, then Generate Report – ETL. In our lab we will perform a manual sync of the connectors so that we can wait for them to finish and speed up the process

76. Navigate to Configuration – Connectors – Click the Execute button at the top
77. In the Execute Action box select Default Inventory in the Repository field
78. In the Action field choose Sync Data – Config Mgr. Click Execute
79. Navigate to Monitoring – Process Log and wait for everything to complete
80. Navigate to Configuration - Schedules
Notice the Tachyon Schedule in the Schedules list. Since we are using Tachyon Powered Inventory our Tachyon Sync schedule has been created for us by the system. This is gathering the responses from an instruction. The instruction runs every 24 hours, polling all devices connected to Tachyon during that time

Reprocess the Cube Data

We need to run our ETL Report manually. This will populate our BI dashboards.

81. From Settings – Configuration – Connectors. Click the Execute button at the top
82. In the Execute Action dialog box Repository field click the drop down and select Default BI
83. In the Action field select Generate Report - ETL
84. Click Execute
85. Navigate to Monitoring – Process Log for status. Once the Generate Report shows a green check in Status continue with the lab
Once the sync completes details can be viewed in Monitoring – Sync Log. You will also be able to see events in the SLA-BI database, BI.Event Log table. Right click the database and choose Select top 1000 rows from the 1ETRNAP – SQL Management Studio, if you would like to take a look.

Lab Summary

In this lab, we configured Tachyon to integrate with ConfigMgr, allowing us to execute instructions directly from the Config Man console. First, we configured two Consumers in Tachyon, RunInstructionUI and CMConsoleExtensions. This allows ConfigMgr consoles to connect to Tachyon as consumers. Next, we added an administrative user in Tachyon to allow that user to execute instructions from Config Man.   Once configured, we ran an instruction from Tachyon to stop the SMS services on a machine. Since this was an action and not just a question, it required the 2-factor authentication as well as approval. Lastly, we queried which files exist under a specified path, which required no approval.  We configured the ConfigMgr integration with Tachyon, and we now have the ability to execute instructions directly from the ConfigMgr console.  This is very valuable because we can target specific collections in ConfigMgr which would be otherwise hard to define in Tachyon. Finally, we validated the data from the instructions run from ConfigMgr is also displayed in the Tachyon explorer, thus allowing to fall back onto the explorer for reviewing data once the instructions have been run from ConfigMgr.

Finally we created an Config Mgr Connector, configured it, tested and then synced to obtain the data.

Next Page
Ex 7 - Tachyon v5.2 - Install and Configure - Consumer Application Configuration