Hello Readers/Viewers! Some of you may know that I have moved! Well, partially moved. I will still keep this blog up and running for historic purposes, and who knows, I may write new stuff here again… But, where I will be writing new stuff - on a pretty regular basis – is something new, you know for...

Hello Readers/Viewers! I am not sure if you have seen this yet, but I thought I would point it out to you… TechNet Library Entry for Database Sizing and Performance I just recently found out about it, and as I know many of you have had questions about this for a long time, I figured I would pass it along...

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 Again Readers/Viewers! Have you checked out the System Center Orchestrator - Engineering Blog lately? It is full of valuable information about Orchestrator – Tips, Tricks, Secrets… a veritable Technical Wonderland. Here is the URL: http://blogs.technet.com/b/orchestrator/ Some topics that may be...

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/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 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 and Viewers! The long awaited and highly anticipated SC2012 Solution Runbook Examples are here! I mentioned them yesterday during my first Instructor-Led Lab @ MMS 2012 , and now they are available here, from my blog and CodePlex . If you happen to be attending MMS 2012, be sure to stop...

Are any of you attending MMS this year? It is going to be the biggest one yet, as the attendance numbers through the roof – so much so it has sold out! I certainly hope I see you there, and if you want to see me, you have quite a few opportunities to do so. Check out the MMS 2012 Content Catalog , choose...

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 have another “just for fun” video for you… I was inspired yesterday buy some of the System Center 2012 conversations that I witnessed during an internal MSFT conference I attended (S4). So inspired, I immediately created a storyboard to get my ideas on paper (see below for an...

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 happy to re-announce some big news out of the Microsoft Server and Cloud Platform Team: Announcing New System Center 2012 Pre-Releases: Delivering Self-Service Application Management with the Microsoft Private Cloud This includes: App Controller (Beta) Service Manager (Beta...

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! I have a very special, “Just for Fun” addition to the “8-Minute-Demo” Video Series tonight… In this video, I create and execute a very simple Orchestrator Runbook, without touching the keyboard! You heard me right, no keyboard OR mouse. How did I do this? Well, with a bit...

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...