Hello Readers/Viewers! Today we have something a little different, for this, the latest edition to the “8 Minute Demo” video series… This video presentation/demonstration has been a long time coming, as I have been working on this project for quite a few months now. It will walk you through the "Simple...

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...

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...

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...

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...

I have a “tip/trick” for you today. This is an edge case, but I wanted to make sure something was documented about it (as well as a way to easily identify/fix any occurrences within your OIS deployments). SCENARIO: You have a policy with two or more objects and when executed one or...

Good evening readers/viewers! Today we take a look at a topic that you may or may not know you need to learn. :) SCENARIO: You have a policy or set of policies that you would like to export and share. ISSUE: Regardless of the number of Global Settings and/or Global Configurations you use within your...

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...

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...

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...

I wanted to thank all those who attended today’s CTSMUG monthly meeting . I also want to send a great big thanks the organizer(s) for giving me the opportunity to present to the group. As promised, attached is the PPT deck that I used for the presentation (with the anecdotal customer examples). NOTE...

The long anticipated SharePoint Integration Pack was released to CodePlex on November 20th, 2010 by Jeff Fanjoy, Senior Support Escalation Engineer, Microsoft Corporation. The Integration Pack (.oip) file and User Guide are posted here: http://opalis.codeplex.com/releases/view/56094 I decided that just...

Attention all Readers/Viewers, I have some fantastic news! Ten of the most popular “8-Minute-Demo Video Series” videos are now available on MS Showcase! Before anyone asks, yes, the videos are the same, but now they will be presented in Silverlight on that very formal looking UI that MS Showcase has...

Hello Readers/Viewers! Live! from Auckland, New Zealand… I didn’t want to keep you waiting, just because I was here at Tech•Ed New Zealand . So I found some time to add to the “8-Minute-Demo Video Series”. Something that I at first overlooked, is now available. A simple demonstration of the “Query Database...

Good Day Readers! Are you looking for a better way to log workflow specific run-time information within your Opalis Workflows? Would you like a "fully baked" MSSQL logging solution for your Opalis Workflows? Would you like to try out some "open source" Integration Packs? If you answered...