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 wanted to take a moment to introduce someone who you may have already interacted with or gained knowledge from by reading his blog… If not, I hope that this post will increase awareness of his blog and Orchestrator skill set! Brian Nielsen , SharePoint Guy :) Blog: http://wss...

Hello Readers and Viewers! Again, it has been a while, but I hope to make it up to you with an extra-special (and extra-long) “8 Minute Demo” Video! This one is warm off the heels (okay, cold off the heels) of MMS 2012, where I presented and demonstrated some Policy to Runbook Migration Tips… I did my...

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, While many of you have probably started calling it something new like, “Orchestrator Community”, the “Opalis Community” (as it will remain to me :), is still growing, and FAST! That said, I wanted to introduce, or for many of you, re-introduce someone who is taking that community...

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...

Good Evening Readers/Viewers! Tonight, from the road, we have a very different “8-Minute-Demo”. In fact, it may be the only “8-Minute-Demo” that is shorter than 8 minutes. :) The fact of the matter is, this topic is really not that complex, it is just simple “quirky” functionality I recently found within...

Hello Readers/Viewers! Today we take a look at some new functionality within the VMM Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1 Release. BACKGROUND If you haven’t already heard, Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal 2.0 SP1 was recently released. In the long list of new features , one in particular stood out...

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...

Hello Readers/Viewers, as the “Opalis Community” is growing we have more and more great content emerging. Today, I wanted to take a moment to introduce Tiander Turpijn, another one of my many co-workers here at MSFT and a contributor to the Opalis Community. Small Bio: Tiander Turpijn has joined Microsoft...

Readers/Viewers, in the event that you have not yet heard about the release of the SC Orchestrator 2012 BETA, here it is: ***Announcing the System Center Orchestrator Beta!*** Here are some related and helpful links to accompany this announcement: Download the SC Orchestrator 2012 BETA: http://www.microsoft...

Readers/Viewers, this is just a simple post which will be directly referenced content by the OIS 6.3 - Advanced Workflow & Best Practice Video Tutorial post. BACKGROUND Opalis Integration Server (OIS) has the built-in ability to “Self-Monitor”. Each object has the ability to throw an exception if...

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...

Hello Readers/Viewers, I wanted to publish a short, yet important post about one of my co-workers here at MSFT: Jim Britt . He recently started his own TechNet Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/jbritt/ As you will see from his blog, he has been using Opalis (here at MSFT) for a while now and wanted to...

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...