Kevin Holman's OpsMgr Blog : links

Hard to believe its been two years

kevinhol — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:12:50 GMT

As I was looking at my blog today…. I noticed my first blog post was Sept of 2007. Hard to believe I have been blogging about OpsMgr for two years now. Even harder to believe (to me) is that I have been working at Microsoft for nearly 3 and a half years now. In this Company… time literally flies. I still sometimes feel like I am the new guy here…. like I just started. I am still cutting my baby teeth.

On blogging…. I never thought I would ever blog. I saw all the good SCOM blogs out there, and thought…. what do I possibly have to write about? I also used to see blogging in general as narcissistic. Sort of a “hey look at me!” approach to the industry or technology. I was wrong on that one. Technical blogs add a new dimension to the products we use, and the community that uses them. It helps us share information and neat ideas faster and simpler than we ever could before. It is also very good self-promotion for those whom make their living as consultants.

How I started: What happened was… I had this big list of SQL queries, that I used for MOM 2005. I used to host them on a personal website…. so that anytime I was onsite with a customer – we could pull them up, copy, and paste them, depending on what we were working on. I HATED writing SQL statements back then, because I was terrible at it….. so I cheated. I kept them all in a big notepad document, that I would upload to my website from time to time. As I shared my list of queries (mostly stolen or collected from hundreds of sources) I decided to start a MS blog – and post those queries there. My peers were always using them – so why not post them publicly? And the rest just took on a life of its own.

When OpsMgr 2007 hit RTM…. the need for real world examples and guidance was staggering. What a challenging product to learn from scratch. So from that point on, anytime I learned something from working with a customer that I thought would be valuable…. up on the blog it went.

I appreciate all the feedback I have gotten from you all, and your topics, issues, and questions. I enjoy blogging more than I ever thought I would… and I plan on continuing every chance I get.

Graham gets busy

kevinhol — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:51:00 GMT

Another content rich blog has surfaced recently. Another one of my daily reads… Graham is very active on the newsgroups and now social TechNet web forums. Get yer RSS reader pointed to this one.

http://systemcentersolutions.wordpress.com/

Marnix gets a facelift

kevinhol — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:47:17 GMT

A great blog just got a whole new look. Check it out…. some REALLY good content here, this is one of my daily reads. The hits just keep on coming.

http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/

OpsMgr R2 Release Candidate is available

kevinhol — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:25:18 GMT

The download is available on Connect

Operations Manager 2007 R2 introduces key new and enhanced functionality, including:

Enhanced application performance and availability across heterogeneous platforms

Delivers monitoring across Windows, Linux and Unix servers-all through a single console
Extends end to end monitoring of distributed applications to any workload running on Windows, Unix and Linux platforms
Maximize availability of virtual workloads with integration with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

Improved management of applications in the data center

Delivers on the scale requirements of URL monitoring of your business
Meet agreed service levels with enhanced reporting showing application performance and availability
More efficient problem identification and action to resolve issues

Increased speed of access to information and functionality to drive management

Faster load times for views and results
Improved and simplified management pack authoring experience

For those who are evaluating the Beta release, this Release Candidate offers a number of enhancements over the Operations Manager R2 Beta, including:

-New Power Management MP template (Monitored system must be Windows Server 2008 R2 or Win7)
-Updated branding across all User Interfaces
-Improved trace configuration tools on the CD to help support issues escalated to Customer Support (where applicable)
-Improved Run As Account Distribution Configuration
-Ability to run inline tasks for non-Microsoft servers
-Support for upgrade from Beta deployments to the Release Candidate
-New and updated documentation, including the Usage Guide, Design Guide, Deployment Guide, Upgrade Guide, Security Guide and Operations Guide

Apply - to participate in the "Operations Manager Public Beta" - https://connect.microsoft.com/SelfNomination.aspx?ProgramID=2249&pageType=1&SiteID=446

Get it - System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 (RC) - http://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=446&DownloadID=17271

Tell us what you think! - Give us your feedback - https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/default.aspx?SiteID=446

A new-ish blog to add to your blogrolls

kevinhol — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:28:26 GMT

A friend of mine - Marnix Wolf – is a System Center consultant in the Netherlands. He started blogging recently and has some good stuff out there. Add this one to your RSS reader.

http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/

Check out the new OpsMgr site - OpsManJam.com

kevinhol — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:26:13 GMT

Check it: http://www.opsmanjam.com/default.aspx

This is a new site dedicated to OpsMgr content. Here you can find all kinds of downloadable tools, management packs, scripts, and articles.... that come from internal Microsoft resources, like MCS, PFE, PSS, MSIT, and the OpsMgr product teams. I expect to see the content growing over time....

They already have some good stuff up there, and they have some cool plans.

Check out the search in the upper right hand corner:

This search is more focused than generic Live, Google, or Yahoo searches... and you can scope it event further.

For instance.... say you are looking for more information on maintenance mode..... perhaps you saw a blog post with good stuff a while back but cant find it now? You paste that in there.... and choose Blogs:

Another cool feature.... is they are planning making the MPViewer HTML dumps available on the site.... that will make is easy to send the content of a specific MP to someone in your company - in a simple, easy to read format.....

The site is now RSS enabled.... so if you prefer to use a RSS feed reader, you can do this as well to stay current.

Useful lists - A must read

kevinhol — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:58:00 GMT

Ian Blyth has put together a collection of OpsMgr resources from different whitepapers, blog posts, and links - to be a great central collection point for some really good info.

It *will* be worth your time to bookmark his link:

http://ianblythmanagement.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/useful-lists/