OpsMgr, SCE And MOM Blog : Essentials 2007

Windows Server 2008 Support MP's released

CliveEastwood — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:55:00 GMT

Windows Server 2008 Application Server (6.0.6278.22)

Windows Server 2008 Base OS (6.0.6278.22)

Terminal Services (6.0.6278.22)

Exchange Server 2007 (6.0.6363.0)

Key Management Service (6.0.6278.9)

Group Policy 2003 (6.0.6278.22)

Group Policy 2008 (6.0.6278.22)

System Center Essentials 2007 SP1 – French, German and Japanese Upgrade and Evaluation packages released

CliveEastwood — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:32:41 GMT

SP1 Upgrade packages available for download : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=20824f84-b98a-4e42-93a7-045a7a58e289&DisplayLang=en

SP1 Evaluation packages available for download : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=246df207-f051-47c3-bd64-c9072281c3c8&DisplayLang=en

New Operations Manager 2007 Management Pack – Office Communicator Web Access (6.0.5000.0000)

CliveEastwood — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:58:28 GMT

This is a new release of a converted management pack for Office Communicator Web Access 2005. The MP is available for download here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b98c87f5-d17d-49ac-9bc2-c04f85acda60&DisplayLang=en

New Operations Manager 2007 Management Pack – Host Integration Server 2006 (6.0.5000.0000)

CliveEastwood — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:57:43 GMT

This is a new release of a converted management pack for Host Integration Server 2006. The MP is available for download here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=64b9e217-b3cd-46d3-970a-a2960ab5a20f&DisplayLang=en

System Center Essentials Technical Walk through CD ISO Image available for download

CliveEastwood — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:14:33 GMT

A CD ISO image which contains an interactive learning resource for Essentials is now available for download http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ab5e0352-dd5a-4bb6-b24a-ea9d91804f4f&DisplayLang=en

This covers

Overview
Installing and Deploying
Configuring
Using
Managing
Additional Resources

Requirements:

Minimum Processor: Pentium III 500
Operating System: Windows 2000/2003, XP or Vista
Computer memory (RAM): 512 MB RAM
Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768 screen resolution
Color-depth: 16-bit color depth
Bandwidth: 256K network connection
Browser: Internet Explorer 6+
Flash Player: Version 7+
JavaScript: Must be enabled
Cookies: Must be enabled
Pop-up windows: Not blocked

Some more Command Notification Tricks and Tips

CliveEastwood — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:17:00 GMT

Here are a couple a tidbits on command notification with Operations Manager 2007 I’ve seen people asking about recently.

1) I’m getting Alerts “Script or Executable was Dropped” when command notifications execute. How do I prevent it?

What you’ll typically see in the Alert description is the following:

“The process could not be created because the maximum number of asynchronous responses (5) has been reached, and it will be dropped. Command executed: ………”

What is happening here is that notification command execution in response to alerts is attempting to fire more than 5 (default) notification command processes asynchronously. By default the number of command processes executed defaults to 5 to protect the RMS from alert storms potentially overwelming the system with runaway processes.

The default of 5 async notification processes allowed can be overridden. The following solution comes with a warning “Increasing the default number of concurrent command notification processes could cause RMS performance issues”. For those running somewhat lengthy batch files, scripts, executables via command notification the following may allow such to scale out if your RMS has the horsepower to cope:)

It’s worth noting that it is the RMS that runs notifications. The follow registry modification on the RMS and subsequent stop and restart of the HealthService service will trigger the new maximum responses allowed:

One the RMS use RegEdit to navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager\3.0\Modules

Under this key create a new subkey called Global

Under the new Global subkey create another subkey called Command Executer

Under the Command Executer subkey create a new DWORD value AsyncProcessLimit

For the value of AsyncProcessLimit you can set a minimum of 0x00000001 (Strongly not recommended) and a maximum of 0x00000064 (100) (again definitely not recommended).

So, if you wanted to increase the number of async command notifications from 5 to 10 the key would look like:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager\3.0\Modules\Global\Command Executer\AsyncProcessLimit REG_DWORD:0x0000000a

2) When using some notification properties (e.g. $Data/Context…) with command notification the command process never executes and I get the rather annoying alert “Script or Executable Failed to run”

In the alert description you would see “The process could not be started because some of the data items could not be resolved…”

What you are seeing here is that one or more notification properties used in the notification command channel command line doesn’t actually contain anything. A common example is $Data/Context/DataItem/TicketId$ for example (will contain nothing unless you have a connector which sets it). When a notification property contains nothing the command executer will not execute the command since the process being executed may be expecting something as a parameter.

If you’ve hit this here’s a solution I became aware of recently that will most certainly help.

For command notifications (I’ve personally not tried this in other notification methods) you can provide a default value for the notification parameter if no value exists. For example

$Data[Default=’No Ticket ID’]/Context/DataItem/TicketID$

NOTE: Single quotes surround the default value. This then allows properties containing spaces to be easily supplied as parameters to batch, scripts or executables.

For example, in the Notification Command Channel dialog you could enter:

Full path to file: %COMSPEC%

Command line parameters: /C c:\notificationcmds\execsms.cmd “$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertName$” “$Data[Default=’No Description’]/Context/DataItem/AlertDescription$” “$Data[Default=’No TicketID’]/Context/DataItem/TicketID$”

This would allow the notification command to execute and output the defaults No Description and No TicketID if the Alert Description or TicketID did not contain a value.

More info on Notification properties:

http://blogs.technet.com/cliveeastwood/archive/2007/10/12/a.aspx

http://blogs.technet.com/kevinholman/archive/2007/12/12/adding-custom-information-to-alert-descriptions-and-notifications.aspx

Updated MP - Microsoft Biztalk Server 2006 Management Pack for SC Operations Manager 2007 (6.0.6278.16)

CliveEastwood — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:53:43 GMT

An updated Microsoft Biztalk Server 2006 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 has released to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=389fcb89-f4cf-46d7-bc6e-57830d234f91&DisplayLang=en , as well as the MP catalog.

This MP supports Biztalk Server 2006 as well as Biztalk Server 2006 R2. The MP is Native Opsmgr2007 and an MP guide is included with the download.

Remote Operations Management Deployment Guide & Release Notes (SP1)– Released to the Web

CliveEastwood — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:00:23 GMT

The Release notes for Remote Operations Manager, covering ROM upgrade to Service Pack 1 with Opsmgr SP1 and Essentials SP1

The Deployment Guide contains some additions/changes around

Updated credentials information in post-deployment setup instructions to use Windows Stored User Names and Passwords.
Added scaling information.
Added architecture diagram.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4b621eb7-01bb-45f5-9a77-52853f06eec9&DisplayLang=en

Updated MP: Exchange 2007 MP for MOM 2005 (08.01.0240.001) – now supports Exchange Server 2007 SP1

CliveEastwood — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 23:05:00 GMT

The Exchange 2007 Management Pack for MOM 2005 has been updated and released to the Web http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=30eebc7c-a35a-41ae-9cd1-2047847fde85 . The MP has been undated to add support for Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1.

Release notes for the Exchange 2007 MP can be viewed here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=7FAEFFB9-A691-44B0-9364-83DA0E55924B&displaylang=en

What changed:

· Renamed some event rules to better reflect their purpose

· Improved some report descriptions

· Updated for performance counter name changes

· Fixed PowerShell issue when one or more necessary parameters are not passed to a cmdlet

· Updated many reports to use a 90%-100% scale rather than dynamic scale to gain visual fidelity in that range. Affected reports are as follows:

o ActiveSync Internal Service Availability

o Mailbox Service Availability

o Mailflow Local Service Availability

o Mailflow Remote Service Availability

o Outlook Web Access External Service Availability

o Outlook Web Access Internal Service Availability

o Unified Messaging Local Fax Service Availability

o Unified Messaging Local Voice Service Availability

o Unified Messaging Remote Voice Service Availability

· Added/Modified Event Rules:

o Added: Transport message rejection because of lack of disk space

o Added: Transport message rejection because of memory consumption exceeding the configured threshold

o Added: 10 error level event rules for Active Directory directory server Rights Management Server (RMS) in the Bridgehead Agents Messaging Policies health manifest

o Added: 3 error level event rules for the Transport receive connector in the Bridgehead Transport common health manifest

o Modified: Escalated “The STARTTLS certificate will expire soon” from warning to error alert

· Removed many miscellaneous outdated event rules

· Enabled collection of performance data for reporting in Test-WebServiceConnectivity ScriptResponseRule

· Added support for Test-ReplicationHealth cmdlet; removed numerous event rules made redundant by this addition

· Added support for Test-POPConnectivity cmdlet execution through the management pack and monitoring service

· Added support for Test-IMAPConnectivity cmdlet execution through the management pack and monitoring service

· Changed all outdated references from “Bridgehead” to “Hub Transport”

· Added ‘From’ and ‘MediaSecured’ property support for Test-UMConnectivity for the monitoring service

· Added ‘LightMode’ property support for Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity, Test-WebServicesConnectivity and Test-OWAConnectivity

· Added ‘LightMode’ property support for Test-POPConnectivity and Test-IMAPConnectivity

· Updated all reports to use provided client language for localized dates

MP Update: Exchange 2003 Management Pack (6.0.6278.5) for Operations Manager 2007

CliveEastwood — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:30:09 GMT

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9ff454f4-6d34-4fb9-9e0b-f5b68c6edc4f&DisplayLang=en

The following list contains the issues that are fixed in version 6.0.6278.5 of the Exchange Server 2003 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007:

· Fixed an issue with Outlook Web Access (OWA) monitoring using custom URLs so that the Management Pack now looks for the CustomUrls registry key instead of the CustomOwaUrls registry key (consistent with previous versions of the Management Pack).

· Fixed an issue with data collection rules for mailbox or public folder size in MB. On monitored servers running Exchange Server 2003 and using Regional and Language Options other than English (United States) an issue can occur where the size of the mailbox or public folder is reported incorrectly, This will also affect the associated reports.

See the updated MP Guide with the Management Pack.

New KB Articles – Operations Manager 2007 / MOM 2005

CliveEastwood — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:41:44 GMT

The following new Operations Manager 2007 KB articles have been released:

KB949875 - When you run a task in the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Operations Console on a Russian version of Windows Server 2003, the task outputs are displayed in corrupted text - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949875

KB945312 - The OpsMgr Health service may incorrectly display the health state of the cluster nodes in System Center Operations Manager 2007 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945312

NOTE: This hotfix is provided for OpsMgr RTM with the latest version of the Cluster MP (6.0.6277.0 >). See the Cluster 2003 MP Guide and folder KB945312 RTM ONLY QFE when the Clsuter MP MSI is extracted. This QFE does NOT apply to Operations Manager 2007 SP1.

KB946428 - The Health Service does not process configuration files, and events 7022 and 1220 are logged every 30 minutes on a domain controller on which you installed the Operations Manager 2007 agent - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946428

The following new KB article for MOM 2005 has been released:

KB949874 - The MOM service may crash when you run the discovery process on many agent computers in MOM 2005 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949874

MP Update:System Center Configuration Manager MP (6.0.5000.12) For Operations Manager 2007

CliveEastwood — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:58:02 GMT

I’d missed blogging this release before.

The SCCM MP (6.0.5000.12) has been updated and is available from the download site and MP catalog - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e4cd1a68-b6b6-483b-9663-be3be8484328&DisplayLang=en

Details of changes are contained the release notes of the MP.

Changes

Section last updated—February 2008

The following changes and corrections have been added for the February 2008 release of the management pack:

Scripts now support connection to a Configuration Manager 2007 site server where the database resides on a named instance of SQL database server.
The following performance threshold rules were changed from monitoring averages to monitoring the change in the performance counter. This allows the rule to more accurately reflect changes of interest.
- PSP Total Requests > 10,000 over 1 hour
- PSP PXE Requests processed > 4000 over 1 hour
- PSP Database Requests processed > 4000 over 1 hour
- PSP DHCP Discover Requests processed > 8000 over 1 hour
- PSP Total Failed Requests > 10 over 30 minutes
The style for the non-containment line in the site hierarchy diagram was changed from solid line to dash-dot-dot. This simplifies distinguishing between containment and non-containment (site server to site system) lines.
The State Message Summary Task status is now correctly being interpreted as the number of rows processed and not simply an error code. If the value is greater than or equal to zero, the task completed successfully. If the value is less than zero, the task failed. A critical alert is now raised upon failure and not when some rows are successfully processed.

Management Pack Refresh : SQL Server 2005 MP (6.0.6278.8) Released

CliveEastwood — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:49:49 GMT

An update to the SQL Server Management pack is available on the download center http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8c0f970e-c653-4c15-9e51-6a6cadfca363&DisplayLang=en

The MP catalog is also updated with this release http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/scp/opsmgr07.aspx

Details of the MP changes are contained in the MP Guide distributed with the MP. More details on the MOM team blog http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2008/04/01/opsmgr-2007-sql-mp-version-6-0-6278-8-released.aspx

MP Refresh – Active Directory Management Pack (6.0.6278.10)

CliveEastwood — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:15:51 GMT

A refresh to the Active Directory Management Pack is now available from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=008f58a6-dc67-4e59-95c6-d7c7c34a1447&DisplayLang=en

The MP contains the following corrective fix "Active Directory DC Last Bind Monitor: fixed incorrect dependent data type conversions in AD Op Master Response.”. This essentially fixes an issue where you receive alerts on AD Last Bind latency and PDC Last Bind Latency from DC’s configured for a locale which uses a comma separator for decimal point notation, even though the bind latency is within threshold.

OpsMgr2007 Data Protection Manager 2007MP Localized versions available (French, German, Japanese)

CliveEastwood — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 06:27:50 GMT

French, German and Japanese versions of the DPM 2006 MP are now available for download from the MP Catalog http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/scp/opsmgr07.aspx