Since I’m currently working with System Center Operations Manager 2012 (also often referred to as SCOM 2012 or OpsMgr 2012), I needed a testing environment.

Because time is precious, I want to minimize the time and effort needed to set it up. This is what I did:

1. Install and configure Hyper-V on my Windows 8 laptop.
2. Deploy a VM with Server 2012 Datacenter edition.
   Configure a static IP address.
   Configure AD DS / domain controller role.
   Configure DHCP server role.
   Configure DNS server role (if desirable, include DNS forwarder for internet DNS queries).
3. Download and extract the pre-configured SCOM 2012 SP1 beta VHD (running Server 2012 Datacenter edition). System Center 2012 SP1 adds Windows Server 2012  SQL Server 2012 Support.
4. Create a new VM for SCOM and configure it to use the downloaded pre-configured VHD.
   Configure it with sufficient virtual CPUs and memory  for the DB and the SCOM components.
5. Start the SCOM VM, and follow the onscreen instructions. NOTE: First time configuration took about 1-2 hours, but this might be related to my hardware. Still it might be smart to plan the installation.
6. Convert the Server 2012 Datacenter edition from ServerDatacenterEval to ServerDatacenter by running an elevated CMD as administrator and issuing the following command:
   DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerDatacenter> ProductKey:<productkey> /AcceptEula
   Reboot.
7. Replace the SCOM 2012 evaluation license with your own license using Operations Manager Shell:
   Set-SCOMLicense -ProductId “yourlicensekey“
   Reboot
   Check the license using the Operations Manager Shell:
   Get-SCOMManagementGroup | ft skuforlicense, version, timeofexpiration –a
8. Shut down your SCOM 2012 VM.
9. Shut down your AD DS / domain controller VM.
10. Create a snapshot and/or export of both VM’s so you can more easily revert to a good starting point.

Also be sure to read Stefan Stranger’s blog post that goes into more detail with regards to the domain controller and automating the task for setting it up. It also includes screenshots to give you a better idea of the process.

PS: I love how Microsoft provides these pre-configured VHD’s. This has been great in the past, but now with client Hyper-V 3.0 in Windows 8 it saves me even more time because I don’t have to boot to Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2012 for Hyper-V.