Hello Readers/Viewers! Ryan Andorfer has done it again - created a great solution which you can leverage as an example to perform similar tasks… This time it is all about AUTOMATING the ability to EXPORT and CHECK-IN Runbooks from Orchestrator to Team Foundation Server. NOTE: This example solution does...

Hello Readers/Viewers! I realize that these posts have been few and far between lately, but all that is going to change during and after MMS 2012 ! (believe me, this was by design, not by laziness ;) To get this blog rolling again, albeit slowly, I wanted to let everyone know that the post I made a couple...

Hello Readers/Viewers! During a recent Microsoft Internal Event (TechReady), I realized that the CodePlex IPs that I updated for System Center 2012 Orchestrator were in fact just that, updated – not UPGRADED . Original Blog Post is here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/charlesjoy/archive/2011/11/03/orchestrator...

Hello Readers/Viewers! I know, I know, it has been quite some time since I made a "real" update to my blog, you know, something with actual content. :) After a couple days of upgrading, testing, renaming, testing some more, recompiling, documentation updating, and finally more testing the following...

Hello Readers/Viewers! I am proud to announce that the System Center Opalis Integration Server 6.3 Unleashed book is now available. For some of you this is not news, as it was actually released a couple weeks ago, this is just the first opportunity I have had to get the information on my blog. :) Some...

I recently completed a project where I needed to orchestrate and automate the deployment of System Center Advisor Agents (and pre-requisites) on 228 different Host machines. PROBLEM SUMMARY: A recent configuration request required we enable System Center Advisor for a large number of Sales Demo Host...

Good Evening Readers/Viewers! I figured it was time to create another “8-Minute-Demo” for my favorite video series… So I have come back with something that I have recently been implementing for any Runbook implementing PowerShell data extraction for SQL data storage. It is a very simple concept, that...

Readers/Viewers, this is just a simple post which will be directly referenced as “see also” content by the OIS 6.3 - Advanced Workflow & Best Practice Video Tutorial post. OIS 6.3 - External Interfaces: Any interface which can integrate or orchestrate the initiation of OIS workflows. Exposed OIS...

Happy Friday Readers and Viewers! I thought it was time I present you with a collection of “Advanced Workflow & Best Practice” Video Tutorials. I realize that many of you may think the timing on this is strange, given that the public SC Orchestrator 2012 Beta is due to release TODAY . Rest assured...

Good Morning Readers and Viewers! I had my head in the clouds for this installment of the 8-Minute-Demo Video Series . Today we explore Windows Azure and the Orchestrated Deployment of a Cloud Application utilizing System Center ( Opalis Integration Server and Service Manager ). VIDEO VIDEO DEMONSTRATION...

Readers/Viewers – The following is a guide to my past and current blog posts: ALL VIDEOS - YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/charlesjoyMS COMMUNITY CONTENT - CodePlex: http://opalis.codeplex.com/ and http://orchestrator.codeplex.com/ What is Opalis Integration Server / System...

I wanted to provide a quick guide to this blog for those of you new to this blog (especially those of you who have been directed to this site from one of the people at the System Center Orchestrator booth @ TENA 2011 !) :) SYSTEM CENTER ORCHESTRATOR BETA CEP SIGN-UP!!! - https://connect.microsoft.com...

Hello again Readers/Viewers, I wanted to quickly post about this very useful blog site: http://unofficialsystemcentercatalog.wordpress.com/ There are two Unofficial Catalogs available there: Opalis: “Is there an integration pack for … ?” Operations Manager: “Is there a management pack for …?” As more...

Good Morning Readers/Viewers! Today, I am happy to announce the next addition to my collection of OIS 6.3 QIK based IPs on CodePlex. As you can see from the blog title, this one is all about PowerShell. :) ORCHESTRATOR RC UPDATE (11/01/2011) CodePlex Links: Orchestrator IP for PS Script Execution (RC...

Good morning readers/viewers! Many of you have seen a preview of SC Orchestrator’s new PowerShell provider. That new functionality will allow you to invoke runbooks from a simple to use PS command line. As that feature/functionality is still a bit away, I have something else to preset to you today. The...

I recently completed a project where I needed to orchestrate and automate Windows 2008 R2 NIC settings and the iSCSI Initiator. PROBLEM SUMMARY: Recent SAN Upgrades/Modificat ions required a large number of host reconfiguration: Old iSCSI configurations removed and New iSCSI configurations applied. In...

Another “tip/trick” for you today. Have you ever needed to quickly monitor a running Process to see when it ends? Maybe you do not yet have a Monitoring tool, but you have OIS? Even if you do have a Monitoring tool, the following may be a quick and easy way to create and run an Ad-Hoc Process Monitor...

Ok, I have to confess, this is more of a tutorial than a demo, but still, it is all about branding! :) ORCHESTRATOR RC UPDATE (11/01/2011) CodePlex Links: Orchestrator IP for Standard Logging User Guide Usage Guide NOTE: The rest of this post is unchanged, and can be referenced for OIS 6.3 (documents...

Hello readers/viewers! No video today, but I will be covering a fairly interesting topic. I realize that this may be an edge case, but I thought it would good to have something on the blog to reference for related topics. SCENARIO: You have Published Data output which may contain newline characters ...

Good Evening readers and viewers! I thought I would “go back to the basics” with you today, so I recorded another “8-Minute-Demo” about the available Data Manipulation functions found within OIS. These very powerful, yet mostly unknown functions allow you to manipulate the data on the OIS data bus to...

Hello readers and viewers! I realize it has been a LONG time since I published an “8-Minute-Demo”, but I figured it was time. I was going to wait until my voice was back to normal, but I didn’t know how long you would have to wait. So, please excuse the hoarseness of my voice. Today’s Video Topic: Have...

I am very please to announce some recent additions to the Opalis CodePlex site . ORCHESTRATOR RC UPDATE (11/03/2011) Orchestrator CodePlex Links: Orchestrator IP for Windows Tasks (RC) File System Maintenance - User Guide Multi-Server WMI Query - User Guide Orchestrator IP for MSSQL Tasks (RC) User Guide...

No video in this post, more of a traditional “Tip and/or Trick” :) You may have noticed that when using the “Invoke Web Services” object, the XML output generated has a bunch of “&lt;” and “&gt;” values instead of the expected “<” and “>”. It really depends on the Web Service, but if you...

Hello Readers and Viewers! It has been a while since I added to the “8 Minute Demo” Video Series, but today, along with some CodePlex content, I submit to you… drum roll… My 40th YouTube Video! Nah, though that is a true statement, it is not the intent of this post //obvious (besides, one of those videos...

One of the brightest “Opalis Guys” I know, has started a blog that I would like to recognize here. In his worldpress blog , Ryan takes you through some common, but mostly unknown, aspects of Opalis. He also has contributed to the community on CodePlex . Look for more great stuff from Ryan, I will keep...