System Center Unlimited

Customizing the Self-Service Portal Source Code Example #1–Displaying the Local Time on the Portal instead of UTC/GMT

2011-05-12T16:51:20Z

The self-service portal right now always displays datetime values in GMT since we don’t have a way to know which time zone the requesting user is in. We try to make it clear that the datetime is in GMT time zone like this: Unfortunately, I think a lot of end users don’t know what GMT is and even if they do it is a pain to figure out what the local time is from GMT (is it minus 7 hours or 8 hours right now? what is 4:45 PM minus 7 hours?). So – for those customers that have the majority or all of their users in a particular time zone you may want to change this behavior so that it shows the local time. There are three places in the code that you need to modify. They are in the file called TimeHelper.cs. public static DateTime GetTimeInUtc(DateTime localTime) { if (localTime.Kind == DateTimeKind.Utc) { return localTime; } return localTime.ToUniversalTime(); } public static string GetTimeAsStringInUtc(DateTime localTime) { if (localTime.Kind == DateTimeKind.Utc) { return string.Format(CommonResources.TimeInGMT, localTime.ToString()); } return string.Format(CommonResources.TimeInGMT, localTime.ToUniversalTime().ToString()); } public static string GetTimeAsStringInUtc(DateTime localTime, string format) { if (localTime.Kind == DateTimeKind.Utc) { return string.Format(CommonResources.TimeInGMT, localTime.ToString(format)); } return string.Format(CommonResources.TimeInGMT, localTime.ToUniversalTime().ToString(format)); } You need to change these two lines to remove the .ToUniversalTime() function call so that it reads: return localTime; return string.Format(CommonResources.TimeInGMT, localTime.ToString()); return string.Format(CommonResources.TimeInGMT, localTime.ToString(format)); Then just to make sure that you are being clear to the users what time zone you are displaying you should change the TimeInGMT string resource in CommonResources.resx to indicate the time zone. For example change: to: Make sure you leave the {0} in there. That is the place in the string in which the actual datetime value will be substituted by the Format function call. Keep in mind that this will display the local time of the portal server and will never show the local time of the user requesting the page. Once you have made these changes build and deploy the portal as described in the documentation that accompanies the portal source download. ...read more...(read more)

System Center Unlimited - All your favorite System Center posts, together in one central place

2011-05-12T15:39:48Z

If you’ve been following the blogging efforts of the System Center support and product teams for any length of time then you know we have quite a few different blogs based on the technology or product we focus on. For example, we have the App-V blog , the DPM blog , the ConfigMgr 2007 blog, Nexus SC plus many many more, and we do that because sometimes maybe you want DPM info but don’t care about App-V (or vice versa), but what if you’re like so many of our customers and actually do use most of the System Center products together and you want an easier way to track all the content we publish? Well that’s a common request that we get so I decided to setup a single site that mirrors all of the feeds from our most popular System Center sites all in one place. Now by subscribing to a single site you can get all of your favorite System Center content pushed right to your desktop. Here are the feeds I’m mirroring: I named this blog System Center Unlimited mainly because that’s kind of what it is, an unlimited view into the official System Center universe, so if this sounds like something you’d like then check it out at the link below and let me know what you think: http://blogs.technet.com/b/ms_systemcenter/ And don’t forget, you can still get all this same information by following me on Twitter or by becoming a fan on Facebook . Enjoy! J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

Importing and Exporting Templates in SCVMM 2012

2011-05-12T14:36:12Z

Hi everyone, Konstantin Zoryn here, and today I’d like to talk about importing and exporting Templates in SCVMM 2012. System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 (VMM 2012) allows creating service and virtual machine templates and there are many configuration details captured inside the templates such as hardware description, operating system settings, application settings, network configuration, etc. The ability to save a template as a file on the disk can be very handy when you want to back up a good version of the template or share a template between different environments or multiple VMM installations. This blog post will describe new Import/Export Template actions available for templates in VMM 2012. Let’s start with template exports. This article will use service template as an example. However, same functionality is available for virtual machine templates as well. Export Template In the Library workspace, an Export action is available on the ribbon, on the Service Template tab. The same action is available on the context menu (displayed by right-clicking the selected object) after you select templates that you want to export. One or many templates can be exported at the same time. To export templates, just select the templates and use the Export action on the context (right-click) menu or on the ribbon. The Export action opens the Export Template Resources dialog box. The following options are available as part of the export operation: · Override existing export files . If the file with the same name is present at destination location it will be overridden. · Export sensitive template settings . If this option is cleared, the exported service template will not contain any private information. That includes passwords, product keys, and application and global settings that are marked as secure. · Encrypt template settings . This option allows to specify an encryption password for sensitive template settings if choose to export them. Note, that only content of the sensitive setting is encrypted. · Location – Specify a destination folder path. The destination path doesn’t need to be on the library server. It can be any network share or local disk location accessible by the Admin Console user. The default file name is a combination of name and release properties of the template, e.g. “StockTrader Service Template.v1.xml”. Please note that VMM 2012 Beta only exports and imports single XML file containing metadata about the template. All physical resources must be exported and imported out of band. “View Script” button opens Notepad window with PowerShell script for the operation: Import Template Use the Import Template action in the Library workspace to import a service or virtual machine template in VMM 2012. Open Home tab on the ribbon, then select the Import Template action. This starts the Import Package Wizard. On the Select Package page, You will be asked to select a template file on the disk. There is an option to choose importing sensitive template settings (password, product keys, etc.) as part of the import operation or ignore them. The next page of Import Package Wizard - Configure References - displays all external resources used in the package. The screen below shows references for a sample service template. The references include two categories of external resources: Physical files (VHDs, ISOs, application packages, etc.) Logical resources (logical networks, storage classifications, run as profiles, etc.) The Usage column contains the name of the machine tier or the application host template where the resource is used. When you import a template, VMM tries to find the best match for each resource in the destination VMM environment, and displays a warning icon if no match is found. The default mapping is done by matching the Name and Release properties of the resource. It is also possible to specify different resource mapping using the pencil icon in the rightmost column of the table. The red X icon clears selected resource mapping. The ability to remap resource references can be very useful if the same resources have different names in the source and destination VMM installations. For example, a base operating system VHD could have the name Win2k8R2Ent.vhd in the original VMM deployment, but have the name “Windows 2008 R2.vhd” in VMM where service template is being imported. If VMM 2012 does not find an appropriate mapping, and the user does not provide one, the reference to the resource is removed, template is put into “Needs Attention” state and a warning appears on the Import Template job. The summary of the Import operation is displayed in the end of the wizard. “View Script” button opens Notepad window with PowerShell script for this operation. After Import job is complete service template appears on the Service Template tab of the Library workspace. Service Template Designer can be used to do further configuration of the template. Konstantin Zoryn | Software Development Engineer II The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

How to Manage Virtual Applications Using the Server App-V Agent Cmdlets

2011-05-12T10:59:48Z

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2012 has everything you need to manage your Server App-V packages. You can add Server App-V packages to the VMM library, create application profiles, and deploy packages to your VMs by using SCVMM’s user interface. SCVMM is perfect for your production environments. However, you may want to use something else to quickly test your sequenced packages in your test environments. To make your development and test scenarios easy, Server App-V gives you a set of PowerShell cmdlets. By using these cmdlets, you can do any kind of package management operation in your dev/test environments. Here is a list of PowerShell cmdlets and what they are for: Get-AppVAgent cmdlet gives you information about the machine that’s running Server App-V. It lists information such as the Server App-V version on the machine and the logging level of Server App-V. Get-AppVPackage cmdlet gives you information about Server App-V packages added to the system. It lists information such as package name, package version and size of the package. Add-AppVPackage cmdlet is my favorite cmdlet as it demonstrates how a deployment scenario can be as simple as running a single command. This cmdlet takes your SFT file path, package manifest file path and a package name as parameter and adds the Server App-V package to the system. Depending on your package size, this operation may take a while. You can also specify deployment configuration file as an optional parameter to the Add-AppVPackage cmdlet. Set-AppVPackage cmdlet applies a deployment configuration document to the specified package. Basically, you can change settings of your Server App-V package by using deployment configuration items. This cmdlet is intended to run after Add-AppVPackage cmdlet to configure your package, if you didn’t pass a deployment configuration file into the Add-AppVPackage cmdlet. Start-AppVPackage cmdlet starts your Server App-V package. “Start” means that all Windows Services, IIS sites and other applicable processes of your package that would normally start at system startup will be started by Server App-V Agent. This cmdlet takes the package name as input parameter and is intended to run after Add-AppVPackage and Set-AppVPackage cmdlets. Stop-AppVPackage cmdlet is the reverse of Start-App-VPackage. It will stop all the processes belong to your package. This cmdlet takes the package name as input parameter. Remove-AppVPackage cmdlet basically does what the name implies. It removes the package and all of the registration associated with the package from your machine. Backup-AppVPackageState cmdlet backs up your package state*. As an example, this cmdlet is useful when you want to replace a machine that has a Server App-V package running on it. You can do a backup state operation on the machine and restore the state on your new machine so you don’t lose any data. Restore-AppVPackageState cmdlets uses the output from Backup-AppVPackageState and restores the generated state. The Backup-AppVPackageState and Restore-AppVPackageState cmdlet pair is useful when you want to move a package to a different machine. Remove-AppVPackageState cmdlet removes the associated state from the package. After running this cmdlet, your package will return back to its original condition. This is equivalent to running Remove-AppVPackage and Add-AppVPackage cmdlets. *State: In the above cmdlet descriptions you heard ‘state’ a lot. So what’s it all about? State is basically the configuration changes and data that are accumulated as your virtual applications run. When you first add your Server App-V package to the system, it has no state. As the applications run and configured, something changes in the package. For example, any registry value, any changes to the existing file content, any new files added become part of the package state. Capturing state information is very important in package move scenarios because without this ability you would lose data when you move your package to a different machine. Server App-V gives you the ability to capture the state and move your package to a different machine by restoring the captured state in the new machine. SCVMM also uses Backup-AppVPackageState and Restore-AppVPackageState cmdlets behind the scenes to manage your packages in the VMM environment. With this blog post we make an introduction to Server App-V Agent Cmdlets. In the next blog posts, our plan is to explain each cmdlet in detail by giving examples specific to each cmdlet. Stay tuned! Emre Kanlikilicer – SDEII - Microsoft Server Application Virtualization ...read more...(read more)

FAQ: Why is the self-service portal so slow?

2011-05-11T18:38:49Z

The self-service portal is built as an ASP.Net web site that runs as an application in Internet Information Services (IIS). This web site uses what is called an “app pool” (short for application pool) to run. You can have many applications running in a single app pool which runs as a particular identity and has various other knobs, levers, and switches that allow you to control how the applications in that app pool behave. IIS has a feature called Just In Time (JIT) compiling that will compile a application the first time the app pool it is located in starts up. This makes the application run faster as a compiled application. The problem is that this JIT compile process can take a few seconds depending on the size of the site. In the case of the SCSM self-service portal it can take about 5-20 seconds. After that it is very fast because it is using the compiled application. So – the first time that you access the self-service portal after the app pool has been started or recycled it takes a long time to wait for the compile to happen. Now the FAQ – Why is the self-service portal so slow? The reason is that there is a setting in IIS which says that after a configurable period of inactivity the app pool will be recycled. The idea behind this setting is to free up resources that may then be used by other app pools on the same IIS server if a given app is not being used. That’s great for heavily used IIS servers with hundreds or even thousands of web sites. That is not normally the case for SCSM so we actually want to set this setting to never recycle the app pool due to inactivity. That way, even if the portal isn’t being used for awhile (for example overnight while everybody is sleeping) that the app pool won’t time out and force a JIT compile the first time somebody tries to use it in the morning. So – how do we change this? Log into the server where the SCSM self-service portal web site is installed Start IIS (Start –> Administrative Tools –>Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager) Expand the server and select Application Pools in the navigation pane Right click on the SM_AppPool (unless you have renamed it to something else) and choose Advanced Settings… Change the ‘Idle Time-out (minutes) setting from 5 to 0. Change the Regular Time Interval (minutes) to 0 if necessary. Click OK Right click on the SM_AppPool again and choose Recycle Now view the self-service portal again in your browser. It will take a few seconds to load now because it is doing a JIT compile following the SM_AppPool recycle we just did. From then on it will not do a JIT compile again until the app pool is recycled again (app pool recycle, IIS reset, or server reboot). That should eliminate the main cause of why the portal seems so slow. Here are some other things that you can do to improve performance. Make sure you know what you are doing here by doing some research on these topics first. Make your app pool a “ web garden ” by changing the Maximum Worker Processes from 1 to something larger. Change this in the same place as the setting above. Make sure there are no recycling conditions selected in the dialog that comes up when you right click on the SM_AppPool and choose Recycling… Disable logging – expand Sites, select the SCSMPortal web site, double click Logging, click Disable in the Actions pane on the right. Restart the web site. Hope that helps! ...read more...(read more)

Meet a couple of our System Center engineers

2011-05-11T15:53:52Z

I just wanted to let you know about a couple of our System Center support engineers that were recently profiled on Microsoft’s Customer Service & Support (CSS) People First blog. There’s a chance that you might have talked with one of these guys if you’ve worked with any of our System Center products and needed to call us for help with an issue, so if you ever wondered what they look like or where they come from then here’s your chance. And even if you haven’t had the pleasure of working with either, they offer some great insight into what it’s like working in our CTS support organization and at Microsoft as a whole. The first is Rich Pesenko, a Senior Support Escalation Engineer who specializes in Operations Manager and Mobile Device Manager: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/peoplefirst/archive/2011/04/20/profile-richard-presenko.aspx Also profiled is our virtualization lead Steve Thomas (aka The Mad Virtualizer) who is also a Senior Support Escalation Engineer and he specializes in App-V, MED-V, VDI and SCVMM: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/peoplefirst/archive/2011/05/06/profile-steve-thomas.aspx Enjoy! J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

Updating Services in SCVMM 2012

2011-05-11T15:09:56Z

Hi everyone, Alaks Sevugan here, and today I’m going to talk about updating your Services. We have already seen how image based composition makes deployment a breeze, however most of you probably deploy an application once - so the real power in composition is derived from how services are maintained and updated. Update Process Let’s walk through how updating a service works. Once the application has been deployed, either the application has to be updated or the OS has to be updated or the machine characteristics have to be updated. Remember, a deployed service is always linked to the service template it was created from. Service templates contain all the VM template definitions. Here is a typical workflow for updating a Service: Updated app or the OS image has been updated outside of VMM, is added to the library You need to make a clone of the service template and the VM template to point to the new application or VHD Then you associate this new template with the deployed service that you want to update Test this configuration in the a test environment During the service (or maintenance) window you can update the service to match the new version of the template. Update Types VMM will support two types for updating a service – regular updates and image based updates. In regular updates, changes in the service template are applied to the service instance without replacing the OS image e.g. if you update memory of the VM there is no need to change the OS. Similarly if the new version of the template contains next version of an app, we can go ahead and replace the existing version of the app without losing the app state and this can be done without replacing the OS image. In image based updates, we will go ahead and replace the old OS image with new image composed of OS and app – again without losing app state. A typical example of this can be moving from existing OS image to an OS image with new patches. Regular Update Let’s walk through how Regular updating works. Here is the typical workflow: Begin the update on tier by tier basis based on the servicing order of the tier. Within each tier groups of machines are updated in parallel VMs are removed from Load Balancer Application level changes are applied VMs are added to the Load Balancer This process is repeated for each of the tiers. Imaged Based Update Let’s walk through how Image based updating works. Here is the typical workflow: Begin the update on tier by tier basis based on the servicing order of the tier. Within each tier groups of machines are updated in parallel VMs are removed from Load Balancer Application state is saved to a data disk Slide in the new patched OS image Recustomize the OS Install the application(s) and put their state back Add the machine back to the Load balancer This process is repeated for each of the tiers. This shows you how we are able to compose OS, roles/features, applications and the state and manage the lifetime of a service. So in summary, by making the deployment and updating of a service this easy, you spend less time worrying about root cause analysis and investigation, since you can simply re-deploy from a updated known good configuration and keep service up and running. It also significantly reduces configuration drift, since hundreds or even thousands of services and virtual machines can be composed from only a handful of identical operating system images. Alaks Sevugan | Senior Program Manager The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

How to customize and deploy a Service in SCVMM 2012

2011-05-10T17:04:35Z

Hi everyone, Alaks Sevugan here. So, have been following my previous posts on Services Overview and Service Templates ? If not, this will be a good time to review the blog posts. In this post, I will be covering how to customize and deploy a Service in VMM 2012. Let’s say that you have created a service template using the service designer and you are ready to deploy the service. You need to select which Cloud or Host group, you want the service to be deployed to. VMM will run the intelligent placement algorithm for placing multiple VMs in the service on the most appropriate hosts in the host group or cloud in the environment - this will be based on VM requirements and available host resources. · When the target is a host group , you will be given a preview of each VM in the service and the suitable host it be deployed to. And as part of customizing the deployment, you can choose a different host if you need to. · When the target is a Cloud , hosts are hidden from the preview and you can customize any of the settings for the deployment or change some of the VM properties. Ability to provide overrides as a part of Service deployment enables you to author a Service Template once and deploy it to multiple environments – test, dev, production etc., without having to change the Service Template for each environment. Service Deployment Preview This is the Service deployment preview in VMM. You can see that this Service has been deployed to the Seattle Test Cloud and none of the host information is shown. Setting values , like database name, connection string etc. that need to be provided as a part of deployment can be provided here as shown. Service Deployment Once you have customized and you are happy with the preview, you can go ahead and deploy the service. Here is a typical flowchart that explains Service Deployment: Tier is selected based on the deployment order of the tier. For each machine in the tier, VMM will copy all the VHDs, apps, scripts etc. to the destination host. It will create VMs, customize the OS and install a guest agent that will be used for app deployment, OS Roles and Features Once the guest agent install is complete, OS roles, features are installed and any custom EXEs provided will be run before app installs followed by the installation of the application. VMM will then run the post install EXEs for the machine and once that is complete, the machine will be added to the Load Balancer. This process is repeated for each of the tiers. Job Trail for Service Deployment As the service is being deployed in VMM, the job trail in the Jobs views gives you the current status of the deployment. All the VMs in each tier are deployed in parallel. Once the VMs are deployed, the applications in each tier are deployed in parallel based on the deployment order. If the job fails for any reason, the job can be restarted and the job will continue from where it left off. If the job continues to fail, then the specific VMs can be deleted and the job restarted, so the VM get recreated. If the service deployment job fails, the system does not roll back any changes. You need to delete the failed service and redeployed the service, if the service has to be deployed from the beginning. Here is a typical Service Deployment Job Trail: Deployed Service in VMM When the Service is being deployed or the Service is deployed successfully, the Service can be viewed in the “VM and Services” navigation bar. Here is a typical screenshot for the Services deployed to the host groups: Deployed Service in OpsMgr Once a service is deployed, here is a typical layout of what a deployed Service diagram looks like in OpsMgr. This layout is for a Petshop service - Petshop service has 3 tiers Web Tier, Mid Tier and a SQL Tier. This Service Diagram is generated as the Service is being deployed in VMM. This completes the Service authoring and deployment blogs. In the next blog we will look at how to manage the updates to the Service. Until next time…enjoy creating, customizing and deploying Services in your environment. Alaks Sevugan | Senior Program Manager The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

The System Center Blog Aggregator app is now available on Android

2011-05-10T15:46:31Z

A few weeks back I announced the System Center Blog Aggregator app for Windows Phone 7 and today I wanted to let you know that it was now available for all you Android users out there as well. I won’t go into all the details as you can read that at the link above, but here are a couple screen shots to give you an idea of what it looks like. It’s essentially the same app except for the addition of the Nexus SC blog and the blog for Microsoft Server Application Virtualization. Look for the original Windows Phone 7 app to be updated shortly. After you load and start The System Center Blog Aggregator you see the main screen that defaults to loading the Nexus SC System Center site: From there you simply click the list button and you’ll see the option for all of our other blogs: From there you can select and read any blog you like. So there you have it, an app that allows you to follow our content quickly and easily right on your Android phone. If you have an Android phone you should load up The System Center Blog Aggregator and check it out. It’s free after all so what do you have to lose? You can find it here . Enjoy! J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

How to configure the DPM Client to allow non-admin users to perform end-user recovery of DPM protected data

2011-05-10T14:59:22Z

Hi everyone, Marc Reynolds here and I wanted to take a minute and show you how to use a new feature that came with the March DPM hotfix rollup package that allows users that are not local administrators on a protected client to recover their protected data. Prior to this rollup hotfix, only a user that was explicitly a member of the local administrators group could recover protected data. This change is documented in Description of the hotfix rollup package for System Center Data Protection Manager 2010: March 2011 : The administrator of a client computer must set the name of non-admin users who have to have permissions to perform end-user recovery of protected data of a client computer. To do this, the administrator must add the following registry key and value for each of these non-admin users. This is single key that contains a comma-separated list of client users. You do not have to add this key separately for each non-admin user. Registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Agent\ClientProtectionREG_SZ: ClientOwners Value: Names of non-admin users. This should be a comma-separated list of user names without any leading or trailing spaces, as in the following example: domain1\user1,domain1\user2,domain1\user3 (and so on) Follow the steps below to configure DPM recovery permissions for users that are not members of the local administrators group: 1. Log into the DPM protected client computer with a user account that is a member of the local administrators group 2. Open the registry editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\Agent\ClientProtection 3. Right click on the “ClientProtection” key and select New String Value a. Name the new value “ClientOwners” b. You can add a single user using the domain\user format or you can add multiple users using a comma separated list (make sure not to use any leading or trailing spaces in the list) as shown below: c. Click “OK” to save the new ClientOwners value and the registry should now show the new “ClientOwners” value along with the users you have configured: 4. Close Registry Editor and you have completed the configuration. If you need to give more users recovery permissions at later time you can simply add the user account name to the ClientOwners list. Testing the configuration to make sure users that can recover their protected data: 1. Log on as a user that is not a member of the local administrators group and has been given permissions to recover DPM protected data in the steps above. 2. Open DPM client 3. From the Summary tab, click “Sync now” 4. You can either wait for a scheduled recovery point job to run or, if you are a DPM administrator you can log in to the DPM server and manually trigger a recovery point for the client. As you can see in the screenshot above recovery point jobs for my client will kick off at 8:00a, 12:00p and 6:00p. 5. On client still logged in as non admin user click the Recovery tab and then click the search icon Note: If no recovery points have been created since the user was configured for client recovery permissions the user will get the error below: 6. Expand the computer by clicking the “+” on the left to see the available recovery points 7. Click “Open” and Explorer will open to the recovery point volume. Double click on the folder containing the files you would like to recover. In this case I select the c-vol folder: 8. Open the users folder: 9. The user can now see a list of user folders available and open their folder. 10. Select the folder belonging to the user attempting to recover DPM protected data: 11. Open the folder containing the file(s) needing to be recovered. In this case the file I want to recover is in the Desktop folder: 12. Now I can recover my file “newfile.txt”. I can chose to copy it to the desktop to replace the current file on the desktop, I can rename it and place it on the desktop or I can copy the file to another location and preserve both the file currently on the desktop and the recovered file. Note: A user will not be able to recover any files except those in his/her own folder. If they try to open or recover files from another user they will receive an error like this: Enjoy! Marc Reynolds | Senior Support Escalation Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

How to create Failover Clusters with SCVMM 2012

2011-05-09T21:45:03Z

Here’s a heads up on yet another cool article I found over on the TechNet Wiki today regarding System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012. This is another one written by Microsoft Partner Kristian Nese and it talks about creating Failover Clusters with VMM 2012: After the Hyper-V hosts are configured and doing well in the Fabric, it`s time to take another step toward the highly available environment that everyone is demanding in today’s businesses. It`s time for Failover Clustering. …. You can continue reading Kristian’s article here . J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

Creating networks with SCVMM 2012

2011-05-09T16:54:39Z

Here’s a heads up on another interesting article I found over in the TechNet Wiki. This one is by Microsoft Partner Kristian Nese and it talks about creating both logical and virtual networks with SCVMM 2012: So far, I am really impressed by all the improvements in VMM 2012 when it comes to the deep integrations with hardware resources, hypervisors, and clusters. The possibility to administer and manage the entire eco system from a single console, is a huge benefit in our day-to-day work. Another interesting improvement is how you can create logical and virtual networks. In my last post, I covered the creation process of a Failover Cluster with VMM 2012 so now we will focus on the creation of both logical and virtual networks…. You can continue reading Kristian’s article here . J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

Creating Service Templates using the VMM 2012 Service Template Designer

2011-05-09T16:04:20Z

Hi everyone, my name is Alaks Sevugan (Senior SCVMM Program Manager) and today I’d like to take a minute to discuss Service Templates in SCVMM 2012. Service Templates are being introduced in VMM 2012, to capture the Service model definitions. Service Templates contain the definitions for machines, its connectivity, application definitions etc and is the starting point for a VM or a service. Service templates differ from VM templates, in one important aspect – they are source of truth for the deployed services. Today in VMM, creating a VM from a VM template is a fire-and-forget operation, once the VM is created it has no relation whatsoever with the VM template it was created from. Whereas the Services are always be linked to the Service Templates that they were created from. This way you have a central location holding the intent or the truth and less chance of different instances drifting from the desired configuration. This is also required for updating the deployed instances and for supporting scale out of services. If you need to update a deployed instance of the Service, you need to first create a new version of the service template, associate it with an already running instance and then just update the instance to match the new version of the template. Service Designer Service Templates are authored in the new VMM Service Template designer . Typically when you are creating a service template, deployment specific information like hosts and load balancers is not available – you just know you need a host for the VM or a load balancer for the service but don’t know or care if it is Microsoft Hyper-V host vs. VMware ESX host or F5 Big IP load balancer vs. Citrix Netscaler load balancer. This is a screenshot of the new VMM Service Designer. It gives you a simple drag and drop interface for defining and deploying new Services. Ribbon at the top provides the list of actions that can be performed in the designer In the designer canvas here, you are looking at the Service template for a Petshop service that has 3 tiers – Web Tier, Middle Tier and SQL Tier. All the tiers are connected to a logical network called Redmond. Details pane at the bottom provides the property settings for the selected object in the canvas. Service Template and Instance - Single Tier Service Let’s take a quick look at simple single tier service template and an instance created from it. If you have a VM template that has the OS/hardware information, you can create a Service Template with this VM template to deploy a Service with one or more instances of the machine. As a next step, you can imagine adding roles/features and applications to the Service definition and deploying a Service that can have one or more instances by default, and can choose to mark it as scalable. This gives a high level idea of how you can build on your existing knowledge of VM templates to author and deploy services. Service Template Components Before we dive deeper into service deployment, let us look at all the components that make up a Service template. Service Template: Service Template consists of one or more computer Tiers. Computer Tier: Computer Tiers consists of exactly one VM template. There can be one or more Computer Tiers. VM Templates: VM templates contain Hardware Profile, Guest OS Profile and reference to a VHD in the library In the Guest OS profile , you can define what Roles/Features need to be installed VM Templates has one application profile which in turn has one or more application deployments – MsDeploy, SQL DAC or Server App-V packages. Application deployments always have references to the application bits in the library. VM template can also contain a SQL profile , for installing a SQL server instance in a sysprepp’ed VM. This consists of one or more SQL deployments that can have SQL scripts and library resources for the SQL scripts. Generic Command Executable: You can have your custom EXEs run during application deployment. This might be for installing your MSI packages, or maybe to enable a firewall rule. Load Balancer Templates: Load Balancer Templates can be setup for each computer tier that needs to be scaled out. Application Host Template: In an Enterprise environment it is very typical that SQL databases are deployed to existing physical SQL servers. In order to support this scenario, Service template can contain one or more host profiles for deploying SQL DAC packages to existing physical servers. Global Settings: Any settings that need to be overridden as a part of Service deployment are available at the Service template level as Service settings. There you go – these are all the components that make up a Service Template. In the next blog post, I will walk you through the steps of customizing and deploying a service. For now, have fun with Service Designer! Alaks Sevugan | Senior Program Manager The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

ConfigMgr 2007 fix: Task Sequences with a large number of steps fail to run and time out

2011-05-09T15:39:00Z

I have had a couple of cases recently that involve running a task sequence from the Run Advertised Program (RAP) Control Panel applet which has a large number of software package installation steps (usually over 200). What happens in these cases is that you will see timeout errors in the cas.log and execmgr.log on the machines in question. These errors resemble an issue where the content is not available on the Distribution Point (DP) but in each case it was reported that the task sequences could be successfully run within WinPE which indicates that this content is actually present on the DPs in question. If you run into this specific scenario then you can change the UIContentLocationTimeoutInterval variable in the site control file from the default of 120 seconds to a value much greater such as 15-30 minutes. The UIContentLocationTimeoutInterval variable is a property in the root\ccm\Policy\Machine namespace that has a default value of 120 seconds (2 minutes) but this may not long enough for a task sequence with a large number of software installation steps. In these cases I have found that if I increase this to a higher value (e.g. 900 seconds or 15 minutes) then the problem no longer occurs when running this from within the RAP. To do this complete the following steps to edit the site control file: 1. Stop the smsexec service on the site server 2. Edit the site control file and change the following to a higher value: PROPERTY <UI Content Location Timeout Interval><REG_DWORD><><120> 3. Restart the smsexec service and make sure you update policy on the client. 4. You can check the value on the local client using wbemtest and connecting to root\sms\policy\machine . Once complete, the Task Sequence should now complete successfully. For testing purposes, you can compile the following MOF file on a client to update the actual policy on a single machine. This is optional and serves only to verify that this is in fact the issue you’re encountering: 1. Open wbemtest on the machine you want to test. 2. Open the root\ccm\Policy\Machine namespace. 3. Navigate to ccm_softwareDistributionClientConfig . 4. Select UIcontentLocationTimeoutInterval 5. Select instances. 6. Double click the instances of UIcontentLocationTimeoutInterval. 7. Click Show MOF. This should look something like the mof.txt file attached. 8. Edit this file and change the line below to a value such as 900 UIContentLocationTimeoutInterval = 120; 9. Add the following line to the top of the mof file (see the attached file as an example) #pragma namespace(" \\\\.\\root\\ccm\\policy\\machine\\actualconfig ") 10. Save this file as a .mof file and move this to the machine that you want to test. 11. Open a CMD prompt and run the following: Mofcomp.exe mof.mof 12. Check to make sure this value has been changed in WMI using the steps outlined above. Sample file: MOF.txt Hope this helps, Luke Ramsdale | Support Escalation Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

The Remedy Connector for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 does not populate the Computer Name and Domain fields

2011-05-09T15:20:18Z

Here’s another new System Center Operations Manager 2007 Knowledge Base article we published this morning. This one tells you how to fix and prevent an issue where the Remedy Connector for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 does not populate the Computer Name and Domain fields : ===== Summary Remedy connectors do not populate the Computer Name and Domain fields. When an alert is forwarded from System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 to Remedy, the Computer Name field and the Domain field are left blank in the Remedy notes field. This issue occurs in the release version of System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connector for Remedy 6.3 if Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors Cumulative Update 2 (CU2 - KB2274165 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2274165 ) is applied without first applying the first System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connectors update (CU1 - KB975774 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975774 ). More Information The CU2 update KB2274165 for the interop connectors contains the incorrect version of the Scinteropremedy63.dll. The CU2 package (KB2274165) contains version 6.1.7000.58, and this issue was fixed in 6.1.7000.69 (Included in KB975774). To resolve this issue complete the following steps: 1. Uninstall the Remedy Provider. 2. Re-install the RTM version of the Remedy Provider. 3. Upgrade to the CU1 version of the provider (KB975774). 4. Upgrade to the CU2 version of the provider (KB2274165). The CU2 version will not overwrite the CU1 version of Scinteropremedy63.dll but all other files will be updated. Note: KB975774 is not available for download on the web. Please contact Microsoft PSS to get a copy of this hotfix. Note: Only the Remedy 6 provider is affected. Remedy 7 which uses Scinteropremedy71.dll is unaffected. ===== The information above was published today in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article written by Tim Helton: KB2544565 - The Remedy Connector for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 does not populate the Computer Name and Domain fields J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

DPM 2010 Video: How to deploy and configure the Self-Service Recovery Tool

2011-05-09T15:09:04Z

Hi, Shane Brasher here, and I just wanted to let you know about a new video I released. This video covers System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 and how to deploy and configure the Self-Service Recovery Tool (SSRT). System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2010 includes the Self-Service Recovery Tool for SQL Server which is installed on the DPM server and accessed from the Protection task area in the DPM Administrator Console. You can use this tool to create, modify, or delete DPM roles, which enables users to perform self-service recovery of protected SQL Server databases that they own. When self-service recovery is enabled, database owners can use the SSRT for SQL Server to recover their databases without the need for intervention by a DPM administrator. The SSRT allows for less administrative overhead for SQL restores, is policy driven for granularity for access control and makes remote restores possible without needing access to the DPM server. This video covers the following: Installing SSRT on a member server. Configuring SSRT in DPM Setting up groups Setting up recovery items Setting up recovery targets Retrieving recovery point from DPM using SSRT from the desktop. Check it out below or view it from Microsoft Showcase at the following link: http://www.microsoft.com/showcase/en/us/details/4c1a343f-3666-4f3a-b66c-fe25a304cd35 Enjoy! Shane Brasher | Senior Support Escalation Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

Uncle TechEd Wants You!

2011-05-06T23:10:00Z

The Microsoft TechEd Twitter Army is looking for recruits to twitter off the show floor during our premier TechEd event running May 16-19 in Atlanta. If you’re going to the show and want your opinions heard, be sure to check in at the Social Media area in the Microsoft Server & Cloud Platform Booth on Monday afternoon at 12:30 pm. Recruits who do well on the Twitter front lines will compete for an Xbox 360 + Kinnect package and other prizes to be handed out at a private Twitter Army event happening Thursday at 2 pm. Those that attend the 12:30pm Tweetup will also receive a special Twitter Army badge! Don’t forget, and remember that Uncle TechEd Wants You! ...read more...(read more)

Configuring and using Client Health in Configuration Manager 2012 Beta 2

2011-05-05T22:30:59Z

The folks over on the Configuration Manager product team blog just posted a fantastic article on what Client Health is and how to use it in System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Beta 2: It’s often the case that many customer-reported issues with a Configuration Manager feature are because the Configuration Manager client itself is not working, rather than a problem with the specific feature. However, it’s not always easy for administrators to know that this is the root cause and be able to answer the following questions: How many clients are healthy in my hierarchy? How many clients are inactive in my hierarchy because they have been powered off for a long time or because the Configuration Manager client is uninstalled? What is the main cause of unhealthy clients in my hierarchy? These questions are very important for Configuration Manager administrators. However, in Configuration Manager 2007 and previous versions, it’s not easy to find the answers to these questions. Configuration Manager 2012 addresses this problem with the improved Client Health feature… You can continue reading the entire article here . J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

MED-V v2: Error installing the MED-V Host Agent when the MED-V v1 client is already installed

2011-05-05T22:14:11Z

If you attempt to install the MED-V v2 Host Agent while the MED-V v1 client is installed and a MED-V v1 workspace is currently running, you will get the following error message: The MED-V ToGo USB drive was not properly ejected. This may result in loss of unsaved data. You should exit MED-V from the tray menu before unplugging the USB drive. You will also find that after rebooting, the MED-V Host Agent will behave as normal and you are able to proceed. This is an error that has no effect as there is no upgrade path to v2 from v1. The older images will remain on the client machine but they cannot be used with the v2 Host Agent. After rebooting, the V1 client will be gone and only the V2 Host Agent will remain. No resolution is necessary, however you will need to manually remove user data and the older v1 images. The scenario where a user may find this situation occurring is where the VPC7 engine was installed while the VPC 2007 engine and MED-V v1 client were also installed. This is allowed, however the MED-V v2 Host Agent is designed to remove the MED-V v1 client if it is installed. This normally will happen without any user messages with the one exception of the above message occurring when the MED-V v1 workspace is currently running. Steve Thomas | Senior Support Escalation Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

An important note regarding the deployment of MED-V 2.0 when Windows 7 SP1 is already installed

2011-05-05T22:05:28Z

When installing the MED-V 2.0 Host Agent, you must first deploy the Virtual PC components. If you have not installed Windows 7 Service pack 1, the requirements are straight forward: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg548583.aspx The Virtual PC Engine can be downloaded and installed here: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=195918 However, please note, the VPC packages have changed to allow for the KB958559 updates to install with Windows 7 Service Pack 1 already in place. If you are using the original binaries available prior to Windows 7 Service Pack 1, they will not install. The updated files at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=195918 are: Windows6.1-KB958559-x64-RefreshPkg.msu Windows6.1-KB958559-x86-RefreshPkg.msu In addition, if you have already installed Windows 7 Service Pack 1, the KB977206 updates are no longer needed as they are included in Windows 7 Service Pack 1. Steve Thomas | Senior Support Escalation Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

Opalis Integration Pack for PowerShell

2011-05-05T17:43:00Z

Hi Everyone Our resident 8 minute video creator and Blogger extraordinaire Charles Joy has created and published a new Integration Pack for PowerShell. You can read Charles full blog post about the IP here . In Charles own words: If you have worked with PowerShell in OIS, you have likely needed to reference blog posts which address workarounds for PS running from x64 machines: http://blogs.technet.com/b/opalis/archive/2010/11/29/opalis-6-3-running-powershell-scripts-on-64-bit-operating-systems.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/charlesjoy/archive/2010/11/09/8-minute-demo-ois-scvmm-powershell-execution-options.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/charlesjoy/archive/2011/03/31/8-minute-demo-automated-hyper-v-integration-components-upgrade-with-ois-and-vmm.aspx My goal in building this IP was to eliminate the need for this workaround using the “Run .Net Script” object. In the workaround, not only do you have to increase the number of scripting lines, but you also have to include credential information (either as plain text in the script or stored as plain text in an OIS variable). I believe both of these limitations from the workaround have been addressed with this IP. The Integration Pack for PowerShell Script Execution provides extended PowerShell Scripting capability for OIS and PowerShell (executed from and against both x86 and x64 OSs). This Integration Pack adds the following objects to Opalis Integration Server: Execute PS Script Execute PS Script – Global The IP has been published to the Opalis CodePlex site and includes both the IP as well as full documentation . Thank you Charles! Adam Adam Hall Snr. Technical Product Manager Send me an e-mail Follow me on Twitter Connect with me on LinkedIn ...read more...(read more)

How to create Hyper-V hosts with SCVMM 2012

2011-05-05T17:08:02Z

Here’s a heads up on another interesting article I found over in the TechNet Wiki. This one is by Microsoft Partner Kristian Nese and it talks about creating Hyper-V hosts with SCVMM 2012: Several new deployment options in VMM 2012 make the life of an IT-pro a bit easier. VMM 2012 promise a much deeper cluster integration than VMM 2008 R2 provided, and I wanted to test the entire process, from creating Hyper-V hosts, to create a Failover Cluster – everything from my VMM 2012 server. This post will cover the process of how you enable your physical servers for virtualization… You can continue reading Kristian’s article here . J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

ConfigMgr 2007 Basic User Driven Installation Task Sequence Step by Step

2011-05-05T16:59:01Z

I recently encountered a question from a customer who wanted to be able to set the computer name, and also be able to have their Desktop Technicians select software to be installed during an Operating System Deployment for their upcoming Windows 7 refresh over Windows XP. I walk you through the basics step by step to do this with a UDI Task Sequence over on the TechNet Wiki : http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/configmgr-2007-basic-user-driven-installation-task-sequence-step-by-step.aspx Clifton Hughes | Support Escalation Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

New KB: Incorrect Exchange server status may be rolled up to System Center Operations Manager 2007 when multiple domains share the same site name

2011-05-05T16:47:13Z

Here’s another new System Center Operations Manager 2007 Knowledge Base article we published this morning. This one tells you how to fix and prevent an issue where incorrect Exchange server status can be rolled up to OpsMgr 2007 when multiple domains share the same site name: ===== Symptoms Exchange servers using the same organization and AD site name but in separate domains will have their overall status merged when rolled up in Health Explorer. For example, say you have Exchange servers in Domain_A and in Domain_B and they both belong to an organization named MyOrganization and a site name MySite. If an Exchange server in Domain_A is in a critical state, MyOrganization in Domain_A and in Domain_B will report a critical status even though Exchange servers in Domain_B are healthy. Cause This can occur if two separate domains contain Exchange servers with identical Organization and Active Directory Site names. Resolution To resolve and prevent this issue, use unique AD site names in each domain. ===== The information above was published today in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article written by Simon Xin: KB2544759 - Incorrect Exchange server status may be rolled up to System Center Operations Manager 2007 when multiple domains share the same site name J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)

Overview of a Service in SCVMM 2012

2011-05-05T14:56:25Z

Hi everyone, my name is Alaks Sevugan (Senior SCVMM Program Manager) and today I’d like to go over the concept of Services in SCVMM 2012. A Service is the deployed instance of a collection of Virtual machines with applications, OS roles and features that work together for providing a Service to the end customers (e.g. any web based application with a database back end, with different parts of the application are installed in multiple machines). Service definition in VMM 2012 includes machine definition as well as the applications. VMM can deploy MSDeploy packages that contain IIS web site definitions, Server App-V packages that contain Virtualized Applications and SQL Server DAC packages that contain database definitions. So, how do we define what will be included in a Service? Service Template is your answer. Service Templates contain the definitions for machines, its connectivity, application definitions etc and is the starting point for a VM or a service. Service templates differ from VM templates, in one important aspect – they are source of truth for the deployed services. Today in VMM, creating a VM from a VM template is a fire-and-forget operation, once the VM is created it has no relation whatsoever with the VM template it was created from. Whereas the Services are always be linked to the Service Templates that they were created from. This way you have a central location holding the intent or the truth and less chance of different instances drifting from the desired configuration. This is also required for updating the deployed instances and for supporting scale out of services. If you need to update a deployed instance of the Service, you need to first create a new version of the service template, associate it with an already running instance and then just update the instance to match the new version of the template. Why use Services? 1. Services help you to model and manage multi-tier applications across a group of machines as a single unit. 2. Services help you to handle peak load for your application, by enabling automatic or manual scale out. 3. Services give you the ability to compose OS images and applications dynamically at deployment time. This allows you to manage fewer OS images and this can lead to significant savings. Service Lifecycle Management Here is the typical Service Management Lifecycle in VMM 2012. You always start by creating a service template. Then you can use this template to deploy a service. During the deployment process you will be able to preview and customize the deployment. Once you are ok with the preview, you can go ahead and deploy the service. And on an ongoing basis you can keep updating the deployed service until the end of life. We will look at more details about each step in the Service management lifecycle in subsequent blog posts. Until then ciao! Alaks Sevugan | Senior Program Manager The App-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/appv/ The WSUS Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/sus/ The SCMDM Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/mdm/ The ConfigMgr Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/configurationmgr/ The SCOM 2007 Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/operationsmgr/ The SCVMM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/scvmm/ The MED-V Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/medv/ The DPM Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/dpm/ The OOB Support Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/oob/ The Opalis Team blog: http://blogs.technet.com/opalis The Service Manager Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager The AVIcode Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/avicode The System Center Essentials Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenteressentials The Server App-V Team blog: http: http://blogs.technet.com/b/serverappv ...read more...(read more)