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This post was written by Marian Stanescu I work in a small team at Microsoft that manages and monitors about 5,000 servers used to run a few of the larger Microsoft online sites. To process our data, we constantly need to move files across untrusted domains.  We used to do this with a 3 rd party...

As per the first post in this series, this article documents a demo that we did at MMS last week. In this demo, I showed how we could automatically add a newly deployed server into the DPM protection cycle.  This is a very simple demo, with only 4 activities! The complete runbook looks like this...

This scenario came through my inbox recently, and what looked like a fairly straight forward runbook turned out to have a couple of gotcha’s in it. The scenario requested was to pick up the affected user of a Change Request, and make them part of the approval process.  In Service Manager, this means...

I am very happy to announce that Kelverion has created and published a new tool that simplifies and automates the installation of the current Opalis 6.3 operator console. This new tool removes the complexity from the current operator console installation and brings consistency to the experience. You...

HI everyone We have posted an article which contains links to two great installation resources. There is a video from Charles Joy showing the installation process, and there is a screenshot based article from Christopher Keyaert, one of our Opalis Community members. Enjoy the posts, and happy installing...

In Part 1 of this article, I began to talk about the process of maintaining Hyper-V Clusters. The process of "draining" a host (moving guest VM's off to another cluster node) was accomplished using a PowerShell script. The next steps include assigning updates and then monitoring the updates...

In Part 1 of this article, I began to talk about the process of maintaining Hyper-V Clusters. The process of "draining" a host (moving guest VM's off to another cluster node) was accomplished using a PowerShell script. The next steps include assigning updates and then monitoring the updates...

The latest version of Opalis may have been a big release because of the new support for Windows Server 2008 and the new System Center Integration Packs, but it's still an upgrade – it requires installing 6.2.2 first. This, along with the fact that Opalis is comprised of several components and not...

Last week I posted about using a PowerShell script to automate VM cluster maintenance , and talked about how the VMM PowerShell snap-in is 64-bit, while Opalis is 32-bit (and therefore runs PowerShell in 32-bit mode). I thought I would take a second and create a separate post on this to call this out...

It’s only natural that a new Service Desk solution should have to interoperate with an existing Service Desk solution. The reason for this should be pretty obvious: Everyone in IT uses the Service Desk pretty much every day. So migrating is bound to present certain challenges as a new, modern system...

You shouldn’t be shocked to discover that System Center Service Manager has a CMDB. A CMDB is at the beating heart of any Service Desk solution… a very basic definition of Change Management is the process which maintains the CMDB. Service Manager provides for various ways one can build an...

In the Getting Started with the Configuration Manager IP article, I talked about the basic scenarios we thought about when creating the Configuration Manager Integration Pack. Now it's time to go deeper and address some specific datacenter scenarios in detail. One of the things we hear from customers...

Overview If you are going to work with System Center Service Manager via the Opalis Service Manager Integration Pack, then you had better learn how to interact with Service Manager Activities. But what exactly is an Activity? There exists some confusing terminology that we need to resolve before...

Overview The dynamic provisioning of virtual machines is probably one of the most requested scenario for Opalis. There appear to be many reasons for this. Some are just looking to automate the routine, mundane and error-prone tasks associated with repetitively building requests for new Virtual Machines...

Opalis 6.3 introduces four new System Center Integration Packs (for SCCM, SCSM, SCVMM, and SCDPM) and updates the existing OpsMgr IP. We'll be posting a number of deep dives into the different Integration Packs to show some of the scenarios we used in creating them, but I thought that for Configuration...

As part of the release of Opalis 6.3, I popped around the engineering teams and did a quick interview with the Program Managers. As I was walking around I managed to grab Rich and Rehan who, in a moment of weakness allowed me to interview them also .  Rich is the Product Unit Manager (PUM) for Opalis...

As part of the release of Opalis 6.3, I popped around the engineering teams and did a quick interview with the Program Managers. In this interview, I talk to Robert who is the Program Manager for the CM IP. Enjoy!    Adam Hall     Sr. Technical Product Manager, Opalis    ...

As part of the release of Opalis 6.3, I popped around the engineering teams and did a quick interview with the Program Managers. In this interview, I talk to Jim who is the Program Manager for the SM and DPM IP’s and also the release manager for Opalis 6.3. Enjoy!    Adam Hall    ...

As part of the release of Opalis 6.3, I popped around the engineering teams and did a quick interview with the Program Managers. In this interview, I talk to Gp who is the Program Manager for the VMM IP and also the Server 2008 platform update. Enjoy!    Adam Hall     Sr. Technical...

I am very excited to announce that we have released the next version of Opalis to manufacturing (RTM) and will be available for download very shortly! Opalis 6.3 brings a wealth of integration capability to the System Center suite, including 4 new Integration Packs and support for the latest Windows...

*Note that the information in this article is based on the Beta of this Integration Pack and is subject to change.  This information will be refreshed when the Integration Pack is RTM. The table below explains the Activities that are available with the new Opalis 6.3 Integration Pack for Service...

*Note that the information in this article is based on the Beta of this Integration Pack and is subject to change.  This information will be refreshed when the Integration Pack is RTM. The table below explains the Activities that are available with the new Opalis 6.3 Integration Pack for Virtual...

*Note that the information in this article is based on the Beta of this Integration Pack and is subject to change.  This information will be refreshed when the Integration Pack is RTM. The table below explains the Activities that are available with the new Opalis 6.3 Integration Pack for Data Protection...

*Note that the information in this article is based on the Beta of this Integration Pack and is subject to change. This information will be refreshed when the Integration Pack is RTM. The table below explains the Activities that are available with the new Opalis 6.3 Integration Pack for Configuration...

I have recorded a webcast of the new System Center Integration Pack’s in action.  These new IP’s will be released with Opalis 6.3. The video walks through a scenario that is part of the move to a Private Cloud: moving from a physical platform to a Dynamic Virtual platform. The scenario includes...