If you have run into issues during setup where you know that you have a supported version of SQL running on your machine but setup in unable to detect it, you may have hit a SQL WMI provider issue. In OpsMgr 2007 R2, this shows up as the SQL Server requirement in the Prerequisite Checker failing.
Setup calls WMI in order to check SQL version to determine if the SQL version meets the prerequisites. Once you have verified that you do in fact have SQL installed on the machine and that it is indeed a supported version of SQL, check if the WMI provider is the the issue by trying to connect to SQL using SQL Server Configuration Manager. You should receive an error that reads:
"Cannot connect to WMI provider. You do not have permission or the server is unreachable. Not that you can only manage SQL Server 2005 and later servers with SQL Server Configuration Manager. Invalid class."
The solution for this issue is to recompile your MOF file, which can be done using the steps detailed in this blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/martinpoon/archive/2009/11/27/sql-server-configuration-manager-cannot-connect-to-wmi-provider-invalid-class-0x80041010.aspx
Happy deployment!
In Operations Manager R2 CU3 we added a new feature that expands our capabilities in monitoring web applications via synthetic transactions. Parameter extraction allows us to extract data from the HTTP responses to web requests and store the value in the test context as name value pairs which can then be reused in subsequent requests within the test context. The document attached describes how this feature can be used.
Daniel Savage
Senior Program Manager - Operations Manager.
Microsoft customers can now easily monitor new high-impact support issues and get links to the best Microsoft KB articles, blogs, TechNet and MSDN articles to resolve them by subscribing to the Microsoft Support Top Solutions RSS feed for System Center Operations Manager 2007. The RSS feed also keep you ahead of the curve by alerting you to potential problems and linking you directly to resolutions that can help avoid them.
The easiest way is to access the RSS feed is from the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Solution Center on support.microsoft.com. If necessary, enable the command bar in Internet Explorer in order to see the RSS icon and subscribe.
If you are using a browser that does not display an RSS icon, you can access the System Center Operations Manager RSS feed page directly and subscribe.
Today, Microsoft announced its acquisition of AVIcode, Inc. Read the official blog here.
We hope that the rest of the Operations Manager community is as excited as we are about the enhanced capabilities that the AVIcode technologies bring to Systems Monitoring, including not only .Net application monitoring, as well as rich performance metrics:
In addition, technologies from today’s acquisition can help both IT Pros and Developers in true root cause analysis of distributed applications:
You’ll be hearing more and more about how the AVIcode technologies will bring new systems monitoring capabilities to System Center users, but for now, check out the System Center blog for news on the acquisition and a video from our VP, Brad Anderson, on what this means for Microsoft customers.
It's not uncommon to want to monitor a perfmon counter like Logical Disk\% Free Space where there are multiple instances and you only want to be alerted if one instance goes below the threshold. Authors will typically try to do this through the UI building a monitor such as:
You set the threshold, set the critical state and healthy state and saved out the new monitor to an MP (hopefully not the Default Management Pack).
The end result of this monitor likely didn't look quite as you expected it to, when there are more than one instance associated with a selected perfmon counter it ends up looking like this:
The problem here is in how the counters are processed. Each Logical Disk instance is processed one after the other. If you have 4 logical disks, 2 of which are healthy and 2 of which are unhealthy, you end up with the healthy disks overwriting the state of the unhealthy disks as the monitor processes each instance in turn. If the last disk processed is unhealthy, the state will stay unhealthy. If the last disk processed is healthy the state will stay healthy and through each state transition a notification may have been fired.
One solution to this is to discover each Logical Disk instance and then target your unit monitor at those instances using the discovery data to filter which instance of Logical Disk you wish to check.
With R2 there's a new way to do this, it requires building out a new Monitor Type but it eliminates the need to discover the individual instances of a perfmon counter. So you now have the choice, write a discovery or create a monitor type.
The key to building a monitor type that can handle multi-instance counters are two new tags that can be used within a <ConditionDetection> element. The new elements are <EmptySet>[Passthrough|Block]</EmptySet> and <SetEvaluation>[All|Any]</SetEvaluation>. These elements allow you to control how the condition detection will work when it receives input that contains multiple data items.
<EmptySet> specifies what to do with empty data sets, the default (and old behavior) is 'Passthrough' which means the empty set is passed on to the next module in the chain. 'Block' keeps the empty set from going any further.
<SetEvaluation> specifies how to determine is the condition is met when multi data items are passed. 'All' tells the condition detection to only pass if all data items that pass the expression criteria. 'Any', the default behavior, tells the condition detection to pass along any data items that pass the expression criteria.
Currently these tags are not used in any standard MonitorType definitions, so to make use of them you have to define a new monitor type. The following XML defines a simple threshold style monitor that will allow me to determine if a performance counter is below the configured threshold.
<MonitorTypes> <UnitMonitorType ID="CustomSimpleThreshold.ErrorOnAnyBelowThreshold" Accessibility="Public"> <MonitorTypeStates> <MonitorTypeState ID="AboveThreshold" NoDetection="false" /> <MonitorTypeState ID="BelowThreshold" NoDetection="false" /> </MonitorTypeStates> <Configuration> <xsd:element name="ComputerName" type="xsd:string" /> <xsd:element name="CounterName" type="xsd:string" /> <xsd:element name="ObjectName" type="xsd:string" /> <xsd:element name="InstanceName" type="xsd:string" /> <xsd:element name="AllInstances" type="xsd:boolean" /> <xsd:element name="Frequency" type="xsd:unsignedInt" /> <xsd:element name="Threshold" type="xsd:double" /> </Configuration> <OverrideableParameters> <OverrideableParameter ID="Frequency" Selector="$Config/Frequency$" ParameterType="int" /> <OverrideableParameter ID="Threshold" Selector="$Config/Threshold$" ParameterType="double" /> </OverrideableParameters> <MonitorImplementation> <MemberModules> <DataSource ID="DS_PerfData" TypeID="Performance!System.Performance.DataProvider"> <ComputerName>$Config/ComputerName$</ComputerName> <CounterName>$Config/CounterName$</CounterName> <ObjectName>$Config/ObjectName$</ObjectName> <InstanceName>$Config/InstanceName$</InstanceName> <AllInstances>$Config/AllInstances$</AllInstances> <Frequency>$Config/Frequency$</Frequency> </DataSource> <ConditionDetection ID="AboveThresholdDetection" TypeID="System!System.LogicalSet.ExpressionFilter"> <Expression> <SimpleExpression> <ValueExpression> <XPathQuery Type="Double">Value</XPathQuery> </ValueExpression> <Operator>Greater</Operator> <ValueExpression> <Value Type="Double">$Config/Threshold$</Value> </ValueExpression> </SimpleExpression> </Expression> <EmptySet>Passthrough</EmptySet> <SetEvaluation>All</SetEvaluation> </ConditionDetection> <ConditionDetection ID="BelowThresholdDetection" TypeID="System!System.LogicalSet.ExpressionFilter"> <Expression> <SimpleExpression> <ValueExpression> <XPathQuery Type="Double">Value</XPathQuery> </ValueExpression> <Operator>LessEqual</Operator> <ValueExpression> <Value Type="Double">$Config/Threshold$</Value> </ValueExpression> </SimpleExpression> </Expression> <EmptySet>Block</EmptySet> <SetEvaluation>Any</SetEvaluation> </ConditionDetection> </MemberModules> <RegularDetections> <RegularDetection MonitorTypeStateID="BelowThreshold"> <Node ID="BelowThresholdDetection"> <Node ID="DS_PerfData" /> </Node> </RegularDetection> <RegularDetection MonitorTypeStateID="AboveThreshold"> <Node ID="AboveThresholdDetection"> <Node ID="DS_PerfData" /> </Node> </RegularDetection> </RegularDetections> </MonitorImplementation> </UnitMonitorType> </MonitorTypes>
The AboveThresholdDetection checks to see if all passed in data items are above the threshold, when this holds true the state of the monitor will be set to AboveThreshold. The BelowThresholdDetection checks to see if any of the passed in data items are below the threshold and if this holds true the state of the monitor will be set to BelowThreshold. Note that these two conditions are mutually exclusive, you can't have both be true.
If we create a unit monitor using the new monitoring type, such as the following example for Logical Disk/% Free Space:
<UnitMonitor ID="MultiInstancePerfCounterUnitMonitors.CustomFreeDiskSpace" Accessibility="Public" Enabled="false" Target="Windows!Microsoft.Windows.OperatingSystem" ParentMonitorID="Health!System.Health.PerformanceState" Remotable="true" Priority="Normal" TypeID="CustomSimpleThreshold.ErrorOnAnyBelowThreshold" ConfirmDelivery="true"> <Category>PerformanceHealth</Category> <AlertSettings AlertMessage="MultiInstancePerfCounterUnitMonitors.CustomFreeDiskSpace_AlertMessageResourceID"> <AlertOnState>Error</AlertOnState> <AutoResolve>true</AutoResolve> <AlertPriority>Normal</AlertPriority> <AlertSeverity>Error</AlertSeverity> </AlertSettings> <OperationalStates> <OperationalState ID="AboveThreshold" MonitorTypeStateID="AboveThreshold" HealthState="Success" /> <OperationalState ID="BelowThreshold" MonitorTypeStateID="BelowThreshold" HealthState="Error" /> </OperationalStates> <Configuration> <ComputerName>$Target/Host/Property[Type="Windows!Microsoft.Windows.Computer"]/NetworkName$</ComputerName> <CounterName><![CDATA[% Free Space]]></CounterName> <ObjectName>LogicalDisk</ObjectName> <InstanceName /> <AllInstances>true</AllInstances> <Frequency>300</Frequency> <Threshold>30</Threshold> </Configuration></UnitMonitor>
We get a monitor that will alert if one or more logical disk's free space is below 30% and the monitor will only cause a single state change for the monitored system.
Hopefully you find this helpful as you build out custom monitoring in your environment.
Mike Guthrie