Andrzej's "IT Thoughts" Weblog

Moving the Blog to Wordpress

alipka — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:13:32 GMT

I am moving my blog to http://alipka.wordpress.com. The reason is ... you may be surprised: I am leaving Microsoft, and going to work in another company (you will probably hear soon on that from my new blog).

I will still work with Microsoft technologies, but will not be limited to management products. So the profile of my blog content might change slightly. I don't know when this "old" blog will be retired, hopefully it will stay for some time. But any new posts will be posted only to wordpress.

The good news is, that all old content (except zip attachments (they are moved as links to old blogs) and comments) is migrated! This is thanks to my wife. Shameful to say - I couldn't have done it myself! Maja: lots of kisses and a big thank you!!!

So please redirect your RSS readers to: http://alipka.wordpress.com/feed and your browsers to: http://alipka.wordpress.com.

To encourage you, I posted a new blog entry there: "Displaying distributed application state via SDK in OpsMgr".

SCCM SP1 slipstream setup on SMS 2003 SP2/SP3 site fails to remove SMS_SQL_MONITOR service

alipka — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:38:04 GMT

As the topic of the post suggests, there is a small bug in the SCCM SP1 slipstream setup. This should make into a KB sooner or later.

It occurs ONLY when upgrading from SMS 2003 SP2/SP3 to ConfigMgr 2007 SP1.

Note: Upgrading from SMS 2003 SP2/SP3 to ConfigMgr 2007 RTM is not affected by this issue.

Work around (2 options available):

1. Remove the Service from the command line:

sc delete SMS_SQL_MONITOR

2. OR remove these registry keys from the command line:

REG DELETE “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\COMPONENTS\SMS_SITE_COMPONENT_MANAGER\Component Servers\B21S1M13A\Components\SMS_SQL_MONITOR”

REG DELETE HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SMS\Tracing\SMS_SQL_MONITOR

New (6.0.6278.12) E2k7 OpMGR MP discovery and rule bugs

alipka — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:27:57 GMT

The just released E2k7 MP has two important bugs in it. I communicated this to the product group, and they are working on releasing a fix. Meanwhile workarounds are (thanks to Ake for quick response to this):

1. Discovery discovers E2k3 clustered backend servers as Ex.Common and All Exchange 2007 roles.

To resolve this follow:

1. Create a group in OpsMgr consisting of all the E2003 cluster instances (the target is Windows Server so you need those instances)

2. Disable the Microsoft.Exchange.2007.Microsoft_Exchange_2007_All_Servers_Installation.Discovery for the group

3. Disable the Ex.Common discovery for the group

4. Run remove-disabledmonitoringobject to remove the discovered instances (note that this will remove all instances with discovery disabled, not just the Exchange specific ones). This should remove the all server installation instances and remove the monitoring from the servers.

2. The disk space monitoring rules do not have alert suppression and have a 60seconds frequency. This will result in alert storms when an E2k7 server runs out of disk space.

I worked around it by disabling the disk space related rules and monitors bound to Ex.Common/Exchange 2007 All servers object types.

Since Base OS MP ships with good disk monitoring logic, I decided this is sufficient.

Hyper-V Offline backup script

alipka — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:51:00 GMT

I have created yet another backup script, since the previous one although correct worked only under VMM 2008. And VMM 2008 in its current BETA (+hyper-v patch) is still a bit unstable and the script caused the host to hang for large VM backups.

The script I created is a script that saves, exports VMs (and then starts if VM was running prior to starting the script) to a target local folder. Additionally in the batch file you can add a robocopy command to copy that to a remote location if you need.

The script works currently only locally (though with psexec it should be able to modify it to run remotely as some commands are local folder/file operations) and requires powershell.

Another script I found on the internet is available here: http://mindre.net/file.axd?file=CreateVmBackups.ps1. Unfortunately this was AFTER I worked on mine;)

A ps1 and batch file to launch it are attached.

Writing English documents the "proper" way

alipka — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:42:07 GMT

While working on internal Hyper-V documentation I wrote over 200 pages of content (mostly technical). I got some reviews by Rob Dendtler (thx Rob!), and the most interesting things I learned from him were not technical, but tips regarding writing style. The two common mistakes I made (and they are common in general as I learned):

Using second person instead of third.

Example of second person: "When you use Hyper-v to create a Virtual Machine, you ..."
Example of third person: "When using hyper-v to create a Virtual Machine, ..."
Third person is more formal and objective
More details on this: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/Section/What-are-the-first-person-second-person-and-third-person-points-of-view-Which-is-used-for-formal-essays-.id-305408,articleId-7622.html

Using passive voice instead of active too often.

Example of passive voice: “There are several ways in which VMM and Hyper-V can move a virtual machine depending on the underlying storage infrastructure and technologies.”
The same sentence in active voice (sounding way better): “VMM and Hyper-V move Virtual Machines in many ways, depending on the storage infrastructure and technologies."
So why active voice is better? Active voice seems to be more action-oriented and generally needs less words to describe the same. Which means it is easier to read. Of course there are some uses of passive voice, but people writing documents tend to abuse the passive voice (and the same happened with me).
More details on this: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/passive-vs-active-voice/

Remembering those two rules, can make your documents more objective and clear. At least that helped me a lot.

Off-topic things and some Hyper-V goodies (resources, backup and AzMan scope scripts)

alipka — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:26:00 GMT

Lately it's been very quiet on my blog. There are a couple of things to that. First and foremost there was recently a lot going on in my private life, and therefore I had little time to focus on anything else then family (well, I still had and HAVE to work;))

The news is I am getting married:) to my long-time fiancee Maja. Actually I still think that its not that big of a change, because we have been living together for a long time. But others seem to point that it still is a more then just a formal change. We'll see;)

As for work, I finished an internal Hyper-V virtualization training. During preparing of this training I learned a lot about Hyper-V and Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Unfortunately I had little time to blog about these technologies. Below I share couple of things:

List of useful blogs and resources on virtualization that I used while preparing the training (listed below - note that some of the links may become outdated as I used them over the last 4 months, and in that time Hyper-V went from BETA through RC0, RC1 to RTM)
A VMM 2008 simple backup script that saves VMs, copies them to a disk and starts (I used external USB) - attached (bat that fires the powershell can be used in Task Scheduler).
A VBScript shared by David Shiflet that allows setting and getting AzMan scopes on VMs in Hyper-V. (GetSetScopeScripts contains 2 vbscripts). First create an AzMan scope (give it some name, say SCOPENAME) and then use the scripts in this way:

Get Scope: cscript //nologo GetScope.vbs VMNAME
Set Scope: cscript //nologo SetScope.vbs VMName SCOPENAME

Hyper-V and VMM resources:

Blogs regarding virtualization:

http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization

http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy

http://blogs.technet.com/vm

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward

http://blogs.technet.com/rakeshm

http://blogs.technet.com/m2

http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/natashamocke

http://blogs.msdn.com/mikekol

Architecture:

Microsoft Virtualization short podcast series http://weblog.infoworld.com/podcasts/2007/10/microsoft/

Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) initiative: http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2007-09-11-a.html

HyperCall API: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=91E2E518-C62C-4FF2-8E50-3A37EA4100F5&displaylang=en

VHD Specification: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/techinfo/vhdspec.mspx

Planning

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide – Windows Server Virtualization http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb897507.aspx, http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=100915

Core IO Team Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/io/default.aspx

Microsoft IO websites: http://www.microsoftio.com/coreio.aspx, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/infrastructure/default.aspx

Microsoft Virtualization ROI Tool: http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/ROItool/default.mspx

Deployment

Implementing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V Release Candidate 0 (RC0) on HP ProLiant servers" Integration Note: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01286554/c01286554.pdf

Microsoft Assessment and Planning

MAPS Team Blog (Virtualization) http://blogs.technet.com/mapblog/archive/2008/04/23/how-to-series-for-microsoft-assessment-and-planning-part-1-server-virtualization.aspx

Storage

Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Primer http://www.snia.org/education/storage_networking_primer

SNIA Storage Tutorials http://www.snia.org/education/tutorials

Storage options for Hyper-V blog entries: http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/02/14/storage-options-for-windows-server-2008-s-hyper-v.aspx, http://blogs.technet.com/josebda/archive/2008/03/06/more-on-storage-options-for-windows-server-2008-s-hyper-v.aspx

Microsoft Storage Technologies: https://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/default.mspx

Deploying iSCSI SANs http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/4/b/94ba64d1-959e-44b8-b221-206297e832bb/Deploying iSCSI SANs.doc

Deployment Automation

How sysprep works: http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/fd2f79c9-3049-4b8c-bcfd-4e6dc5771ace1033.mspx?mfr=true

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2008 download: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=112437

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Team Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/msdeployment/

TechNet Web Cast: Windows Server 2008: Server Virtualization Solution Scenario (Level 300) http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032336484&CountryCode=US

Storage IT Toolbox: http://storage.ittoolbox.com/

Introduction to SAN IBM Redbook: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg245470.pdf (352 pages of information on SAN concepts)

Implementing Hyper-V on HP ProLiant Servers http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01286554/c01286554.pdf

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide (including VMM 2008 IPD) – still BETA at 17/06/2008: https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=14&DownloadID=7925

Windows Server 2008 Performance Tuning Guide: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/Perf_tun_srv.mspx

Manage and Automate

WMI resource center: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa286547.aspx

Hypervisor Design Guide: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb969686.aspx

Blog with many samples on how to use powershell to manage hyper-v VMs: http://blogs.technet.com/jamesone/

VMM 2008 General Overview: http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/f/8/6f8a7125-041a-46f9-a9ec-362b13fe0445/VMM2008_White_Paper_Draft3.6_FINAL.pdf

VMM Video: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm/flash/SCVMM.html

Interoperability

VHD Compatibilty blog entry: http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/02/28/are-vhds-compatible-between-hyper-v-and-virtual-server-and-virtual-pc.aspx

Hyper-V vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 hypervisor: http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/5/f/95f42c38-8095-48ed-ba9a-716387b0719e/Comparing_Hyper_V_to_RHEL_Hypervisor.pdf

Security

Delegate permissions to hyper-V with AzMan: http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/01/17/allowing-non-administrators-to-control-hyper-v.aspx

How to install Hyper-V on Server Core: http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/2008/03/30/how-to-add-the-hyper-v-role-to-a-windows-server-2008-server-core-machine.aspx

Security Configuration Wizard Documentation: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=903FD496-9EB9-4A45-AA00-3F2F20FD6171

Virtual Computing Security Technical Implementation Guide: http://iase.disa.mil/stigs/draft-stigs/Virtual-Computing-STIG-V1R01.doc

Bitlocker Hyper-V recommendation podcast: http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/c/b/5cb1943c-751d-4fd4-a897-38926e90a86f/BrandonBakerHyperVSecurity2Podcast.wma

High Availability

Build a HA cluster for Hyper-V step-by-step instructions: http://blogs.technet.com/roblarson/archive/2007/12/17/building-a-host-cluster-with-hyper-v-beta-1.aspx

Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Software v2.06: https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=12CB3C1A-15D6-4585-B385-BEFD1319F825&displaylang=en

Quick Migration with Hyper-V http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/B/5/3B51A025-7522-4686-AA16-8AE2E536034D/Quick%20Migration%20with%20Hyper-V.doc

How to setup a failover cluster with Server 2008 core:

http://blogs.technet.com/aralves/archive/2008/03/31/building-a-failover-cluster-with-server-core-part-3.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/aralves/archive/2008/03/31/building-a-failover-cluster-with-server-core-part-2.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/aralves/archive/2008/03/31/building-a-failover-cluster-with-server-core-part-1.aspx

Hyper-V Clustering step-by-step guide: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=CD828712-8D1E-45D1-A290-7EDADF1E4E9C

WS08 Cluster setup: http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/bb9ab149-6585-423b-9d24-e68fb116d8291033.mspx?mfr=true

Windows Server 2008 High Availability Program information http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=71684

Certified for Windows Server Logo Program for Software http://www.innovateonwindowsserver.com/

List of application vendors who meet Certification requirements http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/results.aspx?bCatId=1372&ocID=20

Hyper-V Guest clustering setup http://blogs.technet.com/pfe-ireland/archive/2008/05/16/how-to-create-a-windows-server-2008-cluster-within-hyper-v-using-simulated-iscsi-storage.aspx

[off-topic] new 2008 MTB season started!

alipka — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:41:17 GMT

So a new season for mountain biking started. Actually for me it never ended, since we had a really mild 2007/2008 winter in Poland. But during the time from october 2007 till april 2008 I didn't do any racing, except one 2-day "orientation race" with my dad - it was lots of fun, but did not push myself to the limit like on standard MTB races, and 1 winter race.

So this year I already managed to start in 5 races. What can I say? I'm totally "hooked" into MTB marathons. And it's just beginning. In a week I am going to Istebna for a 4-day, probably polish toughest MTB marathon: http://www.mtbtrophy.com/ in a really magical place on the border of 3 countries.

One of the more fun races was in Karpacz, 1st of May, but we even had some snow on the way! What was also cool, was that professional cameramen where taking pictures during the race, and the end effect is really nice. You can check my photos at: http://alipka.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!FDED5C90960743BD!370.

I hope to write short story soon, but it will probably be in Polish and posted at our team site: http://www.xbox360biketeam.pl.

OpsMgr 2007 "Registered Servers" in Operations Console

alipka — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:49:27 GMT

There is a tab when you select Tools->Connect from Ops Console that is called "Registered Servers". It actually will go into your AD and query for CN=SDKServiceSCP, which is a container that stores information on your Management Groups and RMS servers:

It normally works well, but there are a few gotcha's:

1. if you want to delete old management groups. You can find the RMS computer object in AD and from there find the corresponding SDKServiceSCP:

If you delete the SDKServiceSCP the server and corresponding management group will be gone from the registered servers view

2. If you have a clustered RMS you will notice that you have the SDKServiceSCP ONLY for the 1st node of the cluster. To have the correct cluster RMS name in the registered server, go into the SDKServiceSCP and modify these two attributes to the proper cluster instead of node name:

serviceBindingInformation and serviceDNSName

I was told unofficially that this should be fixed in next SP release for OpsMgr.

I thought I would post the above, as it seems this is nowhere documented.

What makes an ideal OpsMgr administrator/specialist/consultant?

alipka — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:24:59 GMT

Walter posted an interesting entry on his blog about OpgMgr 2007 qualifications and requirements: http://wchomak.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!F56EFE25599555EC!969.entry.

I must say I fully agree with it and can add some additional input.

1. Responsibility and accountability

OpsMgr is a tool that is very powerful. With OpsMgr administrator privilege and agents installed on all Windows servers in the enterprise the OpsMgr administrator could easily halt the whole enterprise to a stop by malicious or inexperienced action, especially if the agent action account is local system or local admin (which is often the case due to overhead in maintenance when using domain accounts).

Therefore OpsMgr administrator must be a trusted, accountable and responsible individual

2. Communication and collaboration skills

Since OpsMgr monitors a lot of technologies the OpsMgr administrator should be able to communicate fluently with other Administrators that administer monitored services (AD, web applications).

Moreover he/she should also communicate well with external partners (consider external MPs) as well as in-house development teams (consider developing custom in-house MPs)

And finally communication with executive IT personnel should be good, since they often require specific reporting on IT services availability, performance and operations metrics.

3. Technical capability to use development techniques

OpsMgr is not only a product, it is a platform. OpsMgr administrator should understand the whole platform and be able to extend it. Building custom monitors, MPs, reports, tools, scripts requires:

knowlege of scripting technologies (Powershell, VBscript, WMI)
knowledge of XML (all MPs are XML based)
knowledge of SQL Reporting Services (for developing custom reports)
understanding of object oriented design and basics of .NET (OpsMgr is itself object oriented plus the OpsMgr SDK is a .NET library)

4. Knowledge and understanding of processes around Operations - ITIL and/or MOF

Implementing and running OpsMgr also means understanding ITIL/MOF processes related to IT management, mainly (but not exclusively) in ITILv3 terminology in these areas:

Service Operation: Problem Management
Service Strategy: Event Management
Service Design: Availability Management, Capacity Management, IT Service Continuity

So just as Walter mentioned this role requires not only "depth" but also "breadth" of knowledge + quite a lot of "soft skills" (communication, collaboration, responsibility).

System Center Visio Connector available for download

alipka — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 12:07:49 GMT

My friend Tomek (http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/tomek/default.aspx) pointed me to the new tool for automatic diagram generation of SCCM and SCOM. It has just shown up on Microsoft Downloads: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=521b3884-1eda-4b9d-8ad7-67d00fe9ce8a&displaylang=en&tm.

Haven't yet time to test it. If it is half as good as the AD Topology Diagrammer (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=cb42fc06-50c7-47ed-a65c-862661742764&displaylang=en) it will be really helpful.

Currently the tool supports alerts and computers for OpsMgr and system information, user groups and patch information for ConfigMgr. It looks to be a good framework for extending it further to other information or systems.

OpsMgr 2007 Notifications - issues, customizations

alipka — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:29:00 GMT

There is a couple of things about OpsMgr 2007 notifications, that may not be so obvious at first sight. Here is a list from my experience.

1. Notifications audit trail

So you want to have a trace left about what notification was sent to whom? This is not performed by SCOM out of the box.

My suggestion is to use a command-line notification channel as described by Stefan http://weblog.stranger.nl/using_opsmgr_notification_channels or Steve http://blogs.msdn.com/steverac/archive/2008/03/14/command-line-notifications-and-variables.aspx.

Additionally I like to know to whom it was sent, so I snatch the information on that from Clive's blog:http://blogs.technet.com/cliveeastwood/archive/2007/10/12/a.aspx

and insert it into the event description: $Data/Recipients/To/Address/Address$

Another but similar approach is to log to a text file: http://contoso.se/blog/?p=265

2. Subject encoding

If you have a malformed subject line, this is most often due to the fact that the <SubjectEncoding> flag in XML and that the subject is over the limit for SMTP. With SP1 you can check the checkbox under subject in notification format. If you don't have SP1 you need to export the MP Microsoft.SystemCenter.Notifications.Internal and manually edit the file by removing <subjectEncoding> flag under the subject body.

3. HTML Mail body

You want to add HTML formating to the mail body? Again play with the XML this way (remember to set the IsBodyHtml to true), e.g.:

      <WriteActionModuleType ID="DefaultSmtpAction" Accessibility="Public" Batching="false">
        <Configuration />
        <ModuleImplementation Isolation="Any">
          <Composite>
            <MemberModules>
              <ConditionDetection ID="ContentGenerator" TypeID="Notification!Microsoft.SystemCenter.Notification.SmtpNotificationContentGenerator">
                <Content>
                  <From>MailFrom@domain.com</From>
                  <Subject>SERWER:$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityPath$ PROBLEM:$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertName$</Subject>
                  <Body>
<![CDATA[
YOUR HTML Mail body goes here

Tip for the URL - tricky with quotes:

<tr><td> URL for SCOM Console:</td><td> <a href='$Target/Property[Type="Notification!Microsoft.SystemCenter.AlertNotificationSubscriptionServer"]/WebConsoleUrl$?DisplayMode=Pivot&AlertID=$UrlEncodeData/Context/DataItem/AlertId$'> Details of Alert in OpsMgr console</a></td></tr>

]]>
                  </Body>
                  <BodyEncoding>utf-8</BodyEncoding>
                  <IsBodyHtml>true</IsBodyHtml>
                  <ReplyTo>MailFrom@domain.com</ReplyTo>
                </Content>
              </ConditionDetection>

4. Mail priority

If you want to play with mail priority use Stefans' hints: http://weblog.stranger.nl/opsmgr_email_notifications_with_high_importance

The issue with modifying the Notification MP from XML level is to remember that you cannot modify it in the GUI (the relevant part only) as the wizards will overwrite the parts that are not exposed in the OpsMgr UI.

5. Targeting notifications to single alert

If you have a request to add a single notification you can use the attached script that bases on solution from Stefan Koell: http://code4ward.net/cs2/blogs/code4ward/archive/2007/09/19/set-notificationforalert.aspx. II wanted to be able to set subscriptions for different recipients, not always the same. The problem is that using a console task you cannot ask user for input, so I just slightly modified it into a standalone script:

Just use SetNotificationForAlert.bat.

Happy Easter to all:)

OpsMgr 2007 - noisy Cluster MP (6.0.6277.0) [update]

alipka — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:23:27 GMT

[update!]: issue is now corrected in 6.0.6277.1 MP, thanks to Marius for quick reaction on this: http://blogs.msdn.com/mariussutara/archive/2008/03/18/update-mp-for-monitoring-cluster-services-mscs-finally-web-released.aspx.

Unfortunately that MP has a breaking change which means you need to delete it previous version before importing new one. To delete an MP you cannot have any MPs referring to it. Read more on Marius blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/mariussutara/archive/2008/04/03/remove-old-management-packs-after-breaking-change-was-introduced-in-newer-version.aspx. Actually I used Boris Override Explorer to locate overrides and create new ones in a separate MP. This is one of the reasons why we suggest to use SEPARATE unsealed MPs for storing overrides for each sealed MP.

[end of update]

I would like to inform anyone using the cluster MP for SCOM just released (6.0.6277.0).

There is a noisy (due to suppression configuration) alert rule:

The suppression is not in place:

<Configuration>

<Priority>1</Priority>

<Severity>2</Severity>

<AlertMessageId>$MPElement[Name='Microsoft.Windows.2003.Cluster.Node.DiskResource.Alert.AlertMessage']$</AlertMessageId>

</Configuration>

Hence for every file that is reported there is a new event. In case of my disk full issue on 1 server the environment created over 30'000 alerts.

I workaround by disabling this rule (I am monitoring disk free space by monitors anyway).

If you need to close the alerts by alert name here is the solution:

Get-Alert | where-object {$_.name -eq "Disk resource space alert."} | resolve-alert

OpsMgr: Modified Brian's Scheduled Maintenance Mode MP

alipka — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:18:00 GMT

Together with my colleague Marek Kuzminski, we have slightly modified Brian's scheduled maintenance mode MP (Scheduling Groups of Objects for Maintenance Mode) to add following features:

Override by group display name
Add additional rules to allow 10 different maintenance schedules
Add a run as profile to the MP to facilitate permissions to schedule maintenance mode
Added simple error handling in maintenance mode script for troubleshooting

I wasn't able to re-use that MP to do different schedules just by overrides. So the design is still rather 'quick', and limits your number of schedules to 10 (number of rules). To use overrides for different schedules and computer groups bound to the same rule, the MP would have to be redesigned.

Thx to Brian for posting his great MP, and Marek for his help.

OpsMgr 2007 Powershell one-liner to get information on failed agent installations

alipka — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:21:16 GMT

Ever tried mass-installing a lot of agents from console? If yes, then you probably miss some feedback information. Once you close the running task window you loose the information. The information is kept, sadly enough in SUCCEEDED Task status - browsing through that to find failed installations in UI is hard (the failed info is kept in Task output not task status, so no easy filtering here). To get it by Powershell you can use something like:

To HTML:

get-taskresult | where {$_.Output -notlike "*<ErrorCode>0</ErrorCode>*" -and $_.Output -like "*MOM.MOMAgentManagementData*"} | ConvertTo-Html | set-content "D:\Scripts\GetTaskResult\FailedTasks.htm"

To CSV:

get-taskresult | where {$_.Output -notlike "*<ErrorCode>0</ErrorCode>*" -and $_.Output -like "*MOM.MOMAgentManagementData*"} | export-csv "D:\Scripts\GetTaskResult\FailedTasks.csv"

You can easily extend those to do some more elaborate filtering as the Output property is XML, and Psh can parse XML well.

Thx to Bogdan, my colleague from MS Poland, for giving me some background on where we keep the data. The rest was easy.

Ops Mgr 2007 custom MP for monitoring event log size [updated!]

alipka — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:00:00 GMT

[UPDATE]:

I have update the MP in recovery part. It was not possible to override the recovery properly, because using a standard script response does not allow overriding the ARGUMENTS parameter of the script (actually it does allow, but it does not work as expected - EventLogName is not resolved, since the target is passed as a string not an object).

So basing on Brian's (http://blogs.technet.com/brianwren) input I created a custom write action module that allows you to override the COMPRESS flag and the Backup log destination folder as separate parameters. Attached is the corrected MP now (version 1.0.0.26). It also has some built in groups to let you divide your servers based on the disk on which you want to store local event log backups (see overrides on the recovery for more details).

I have done some small work to update my backup event logs MP for MOM 2005 to 2007 (http://blogs.technet.com/alipka/archive/2006/04/09/monitoring-and-backing-up-event-logs-with-mom.aspx). I attach it to this blog post. The MP has been roughly tested on SP1 RC, but should work with SP1 RTM, for SP0 you need to change probably only the reference section.

By default it performs following:

- discovers all event logs on all computers

- monitoring is enabled by adding an override for the group "MCS EventLog monitoring computer group" to enable the discovery "Event Log File Discovery" which is disabled by default

- after monitoring is enabled you can do some customization of thresholds (80 and 90% by default AFAIR) and you have a recovery task to perform local backup (you can override script parameters, which include folder to which to backup and compression bool value - for compression I use compress.exe from Windows ResKit - it needs to be locally on the server in target location of backed up event logs).

You can then expand the MP further to add automatic recovery, shipping saved logs remotely etc.

It also ships with some default views.

Here is a preview:

Enjoy. As always please do thorough testing and customization before using it on production.