You can now download OpsMgr SP1 slipstreamed on MSVLS.
I almost ever use OpsMgr instead of SCOM in my writings. But I’m curious if I get into trouble now I used the SC-word ;-)
I don’t hope my manager will read this…
Why should I get into trouble? Read more on myITforum.
This is by-the-way what a Search on “SCOM” with Xobni in my mailbox got me. 1420 mails with SCOM in it. And I started this year at Microsoft…
Source: NetworkWorld
I’ve ordered my System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed book at Amazon, but you can already start reading Chapter 3 Looking Inside OpsMgr because you can download this Chapter for free.
I’ve downloaded it via my TechRepublic account and will be reading it on my Archos 604 because you can read PDF docs on it ;-)
Go for downloads to NetworkWorld.
Source: Secure Vantage Team Blog
I already tried to create a PowerShell script to remove a MP with references to other unsealed MPs but due to some other things ;-) did not finish it, but now Secure Vantage has released a tool that you can use to remove override references from the MP you are trying to remove.
Steps to delete an MP when you can't due to override references in unsealed MPs.
Keep in mind this is not a supported solution.
If you are looking for help you need to type “help” or “–help” or “–?” instead of the /? And why did they called it InstallTool? It can do much more than that…
Today a new System Center Virtual User Group got launched.
“Welcome to the System Center Virtual User Group, a community dedicated to providing resources for education and collaboration between users of Microsoft System Center technologies everywhere!
This group is intended to function not only as a traditional user group holding periodic meetings (via LiveMeeting in our case), but as a discussion forum where users can work together and find resources in establishing their own traditional "physical" user groups.
Visit us at MMS 2008! For more information on how you can participate in the SCVUP, please visit us in the Community area at the Microsoft Management Summit 2008 in Las Vegas, NV, scheduled to be held the week of April 28th, 2008. We'll be conducting interviews, giving away MSSCUG t-shirts and holding a drawing for several prizes!
To receive future announcements: Click "Join" in the top right corner of this page and setup your free member account. Further details will be posted to the site and sent via e-mail to site members. You may also receive announcements subscribing to the RSS feed of the site weblog.
First Group Meeting is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, May 28th. A detailed agenda and meeting invitation will be e-mailed and posted in coming weeks.
Sincerely,
The System Center Virtual User Group Team”
Go Join this User Group.
Last I week I got my portable multimedia player the Archos 604 for our hard work and commitment throughout the year and as a device to take some training while we are traveling ;-) I immediately bought the DVR Station so I could record my favorite TV show the Sopranos. So you will probably see me looking at my Archos instead of my laptop when you see me sitting at some airport.
But because we also got this device to do some training while traveling it got preloaded with some videos and one of the videos was an Introduction To Network Forensics from Laura Chappell.
Laura Chappell is a highly energetic speaker and author of numerous industry titles on network communications, analysis, and security. Her blend of humor, personal experience, energy, and clarity in presentation has earned her a top spot as an industry speaker. In short it was very funny and interesting to watch and listen to this introduction to Network Forensics.
I believe this videocast was taken during Microsoft’s TechReady so it’s not available to non-Microsoft people but there are many more webcasts available from Laura so if you want to learn more about Network Forensics check them out.
You can also go to the Wireshark University for more info.
Source: Steve Rachui's Manageability blog - SMS/MOM
Steve has blogged about commandline notifications and variables. "When enabiling modem paging (or similar) it is often a requirement to pass the user name or phone number of the user being contacted to the application handling the paging operation. In MOM 2005 this was easily done using the $operator$ command line variable. It is still very easy to do in OpsMgr 2007 but the mechanics have changed. "
Last week I also used the Notification Command Channel at a customer for Notification Auditing. The customer wanted to have some proof of the notification being sent. This can be achieved with the creation of a Notification Command Channel. You can use the EventCreate Commandline tool to have the Notification logged in the Application Eventlog.
And the next Commandline Parameters will log the ManagedEntity Full Name in the Description field with EventID 999
/ID 999 /T SUCCESS /D "Notification Audit Event for $Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityFullName$"
This can also be used as a way of testing your notifications. You don't have to wait for any email or SMS to know if the notification works the way you want.
Source: Operations Manager Product Team and Clive Eastwood
The Operations Manager 2007 SDK documentation is available on MSDN at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=108753, and it is now also available on the Microsoft Download Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=108754.
Recent updates have been made to class descriptions, the architecture overview topic, and a terms list (glossary) was also added. The biggest change in this documentation update is the addition of the following new topics and code examples:
Monitoring Object and Partial Monitoring Object Comparison - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960508.aspx
Exceptions in Operations Manager - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960495.aspx
How to Create State Views, Diagram Views, and View Folders - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960509.aspx
How to Delete Views and Folders - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960497.aspx
How to Create a Group - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960490.aspx
How to Delete a Group - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960483.aspx
How to Create a Knowledge Article - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960494.aspx
How to Automate the Setup of URL Monitoring - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960493.aspx
How to Create an Override - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960481.aspx
How to Create an Override for a Diagnostic - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960498.aspx
How to Create an Override for a Discovery - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960485.aspx
How to Create an Override for a Monitor - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960482.aspx
How to Create an Override for a Recovery - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960489.aspx
How to Create an Override for a Rule - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960505.aspx
How to Get Information About an Override - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960504.aspx
How to Create a Unit Monitor - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960506.aspx
How to Create an Event Log Unit Monitor - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960507.aspx
How to Query for Agents - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960492.aspx
How to Query for All Monitoring Objects in an Error State - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960500.aspx
How to Query for All Rules That Have a Non-Category Override - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960479.aspx
How to Query for Diagnostics - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960499.aspx
How to Query for Discoveries - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960486.aspx
How to Query for Management Packs - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960491.aspx
How to Query for Monitors - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960480.aspx
How to Query for Overrides - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960503.aspx
How to Query for Recoveries - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960487.aspx
How to Query for Rules - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960496.aspx
How to Query for Tasks - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960488.aspx
How to Query for Computers Running Windows Server 2003 - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb960501.aspx
Operations Manager 2007 SDK Glossary - http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc268403.aspx
A standalone copy of help file (.CHM) for the OpsMgr SDK has been made available for download.
INOVATIV presents the Scheduled Tasks management pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007. Completely free and without any restrictions!
They have put their experience of System Center products and solutions to work in this completely native management pack. The scheduled tasks management pack introduces two new classes in your System Center Operations Manager 2007 environment:
It provides the classes as a child to the Windows Computer class and marks it as "public", for use in a Distributed Application. Scheduled Tasks are monitored every 60 seconds for three potential problems:
Scheduled Tasks - Management Pack
UPDATE: They have released version 1.1 of the MP, which has a fix for Windows 2000 servers and has more 'relaxed' timings for discoveries and monitors.
Source: Marius Sutara Weblog
After the release of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Cluster Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 I had some questions and got them answered pretty quick by Marius. But for everyone who want to know more on the MSCS MP just visit Marius's Weblog.
He shows a Diagram with the defined classes, how the health rolls up and many screenshots.
Source: Microsoft Download Center
The Windows Server 2003 Cluster Management Pack monitors the health of the Windows Server 2003 clusters. This management pack is designed to improve the availability, performance, and security of your Windows Server 2003 cluster deployment.
Go download it.
Source: Marcus Oh
The command-line Runas utility is handy for launching programs under different accounts, but it’s not convenient if you’re a heavy Explorer user. ShellRunas provides functionality similar to that of Runas to launch programs as a different user via a convenient shell context-menu entry.
ShellRunas works on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008.
Source: Boris Yanushpolsky
Again has Boris developed a new tool for OpsMgr 2007. Maybe it's time to install Visual Studio and also try to create a new tool for OpsMgr ;-)
He wrote a small utility to provide some visibility into the library of modules and information about each module. The utility shows a tree of modules. At the top of the tree are the code based modules and the child nodes are the modules that use these code based modules.
This is the first version of the utility so it might not answer all the questions that one might have. He would really appreciate feedback as to how he can make this tool more useful.
Read more on source.
Update. Boris also published another new tool Run As profile configuration helper v1.
This is the first version of the utility. I would really appreciate feedback as to how I can make this utility more useful."
Source : Microsoft Download Center
Source: Microsoft Internal
Do you want to know to which agents report to a specific Management Server? Just execute the next code in your OpsMgr Command Shell.
Function GetSpecificAgents ([string]$managementserver)
{
write-host ""
write-host "The following servers have $managementserver as their primary management server:"
FOREACH ($i in get-agent)
IF ($i.PrimaryManagementServerName -eq $managementServer)
write-host $i.name
}
GetSpecificAgents "<FQDN of management server>"
Disclaimer
This sample is not supported under any Microsoft standard support program or service. This sample is provided AS IS without warranty of any kind. Microsoft further disclaims all implied warranties including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability or of fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk arising out of the use or performance of this sample and documentation remains with you. In no event shall Microsoft, its authors, or anyone else involved in the creation, production, or delivery of this sample be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use this sample or documentation, even if Microsoft has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
The Team System Management Model Designer Power Tool is a productivity tool that helps architects and system designers to generate models of an application that contribute to minimized TCO. These models include configuration, instrumentation, health, and performance information. The Team System Management Model Designer Power Tool also assists developers to implement the required instrumentation, and create management packs for monitoring systems such as Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007.
Maybe something for the developers but now we are also creating MPs why not go into Visual Studio and start developing apps with the monitoring knowledge we have ;-)
You can download the CTP from Microsoft Download Center.
Now your in the development area anyway you should take a look at the Patterns & Practices - Design for Operations page on Codeplex.
Since I started at Microsoft as a Premier Field Engineer I went to quite some customers still using MOM 2005, so for all of you already working with OpsMgr 2007 (SP1) here some "old school" info on Computer Groups and Computer Rules in MOM 2005.
What are Computer Groups? Computer Groups allow you to group together similar computers so that you can assign rules to group or computer and not individually to each computer.
Features of Computer Groups:
Are used for:
By default, the MOM server scans the network for all managed computers every 24 hours to detect changes or modifications in the network. During the scan process, the MOM server accesses the Active Directory service for the names of the computers, read certain registry keys or values, and identifies the type of computer. Then it places the computers in the appropriate computer groups and finally includes or excludes the computer.
What are Rule Groups? Rules help you specify the events, performances, and alerts that need to be monitored on the managed computers. Rules also enable you to set the actions that are to be taken in response to the monitored events, performances, and alerts.
Features of Rule Groups:
For ease of administration, you can group several rules to form a rule group. A rule group is a named set of processing rules that allows administrators to easily associate many processing rules with a computer group. Rule groups are provided by Management Packs, but you can also create your own.
All this got me triggered by a question of a customer about the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Discovery Computer Group. Have you ever take a look at that Computer Group? No? Follow me...
If we look at the Formula for the computer group (AttributeValue(Microsoft Windows Current Version)>="5.0") this means that all computers with an Operating System of Windows server 2000 and higher are members of this computer group. Why would you create this Computer Group? This is because Computer Groups are used to group together similar computers so that you can assign rules to group or computer and not individually to each computer.
Ok, now this is clear we have to find which Rule Groups are associated to this Computer Group. And guess what? It's the SQL Server 2005 Detection and Group Membership Rule Group.
That Rule Group only contains one Rule SQL Server Detection and Group Membership, which runs every 30 mins a script to discover installed instances of SQL Server and Reporting Services and add them to Discovered Groups. But why is this rule running on all Windows server 2000 and higher computers and not only running on computers running SQL, you might ask? This is due the fact that the MP could never detect SQL on 64 bit machines and you used to have to do work rounds by manually adding the server to computer groups.
Have fun learn MOM and OpsMgr!
Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1 has Released-to-Manufacturing (RTM), and is now available for download!
Here you can download the upgrade.
Source: Aquilaweb
Did you know you could use Windows Authorization Manager (azman.exe) to view the user roles and how they are scoped in OpsMgr?
Source: NEXUS SC: The System Center Team Blog
Paul Ross announced that Service Manager will now not be released until the first half of 2010, with a beta refresh available towards the end of 2008.
Mean reasons of this delay are the requirements that came as feedback from the first beta. The feedback was summarized as:
To meet these requirements they decided to replace specific components of the Service Manager infrastructure.
For more info on the delay go to weblog and read the FAQ that explains the main points regarding the delay.
Source: Innovativ
INOVATIV, a Dutch based System Center solutions provider, has just launched their Scheduled Tasks management pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007. Completely free and without any restrictions you can download this native management pack, which is compatible with XP, Vista, W2003 and even W2008. The scheduled tasks management pack introduces two new classes in your System Center Operations Manager 2007 environment:
Go download it here.
Source: Techlog
Savision B.V. announced its participation in Microsoft's System Center Alliance. Savision’s participation builds upon its strong relationship with the System Center Product Group and creates new opportunities to closely collaborate with other ISV partners. Savision’s inclusion in the System Center Alliance program highlights the substantial value that Live Maps for Operations Manager 2007 provides to customers.
The Microsoft System Center Alliance was launched in November 2007 and represents Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to open platforms and partner developed solutions. The purpose of the program is to provide a community to help partners more easily collaborate on the creation of solutions for System Center, as well as deliver a vehicle for providing information about those solutions to our mutual customers.
Read more on Savision's website.
Secure Vantage released a Windows Security Auditing Reference List that provides content on more than 1300 Windows security events and settings.
For System Center customers this is an excellent reference of the base Windows security events and settings managed via Operations Manager, ACS, Configuration Manager and the Secure Vantage Technologies Compliance Security Suite. Stay tuned as we add more content and scope to the list in 2008.
Check it out.
As IT infrastructures grow in complexity, IT administrators continue to search for solutions that will help them effectively monitor and maintain these environments. But it is not enough to just monitor servers and applications. To achieve the most effective, efficient operations, IT departments need a holistic view of the entire infrastructure including the network. The integration of EMC Smarts and Microsoft® System Center Operations Manager 2007 delivers the capabilities IT departments need to enable network-aware service management. By integrating the network management and automated root-cause analysis information from EMC Smarts into System Center Operations Manager 2007, EMC and Microsoft have created a unique solution that addresses the need for network-aware, end-to-end service management.
Download white paper here.
Yesterday I've been busy finding out which Performance Thresholds are used for OpsMgr performance monitoring. The reason why, was because we got a Performance class training during my internal Microsoft training. Learned quite some new interesting stuff about Performance monitor and the Reliability and Performance Monitor from Vista.
If I've some more time I'll blog about the Performance Rules used by OpsMgr. But here is what I've found during the creation of a Performance Rule. There is German text in some of the screens. "Weniger Daten werden in der Datenbank"
Strange because I'm not using any German client or something else. Am I the only one?