Matt Goedtel on Operations Management

The custom System Center Configruation Manager OS Deployment Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 has been updated to address the following:

• Support for overriding the IntervalSeconds paramemter for the rule(s) that launch the scripts that are core to the management pack functionality.

If you have suggestions for improvement or if you uncover a bug, please feel free to let me know.

The latest Active Directory management pack deployment guide has a small section entitled "Enabling or Disabling Performance Data for Reports" and it was generating some good dialog internally between some colleagues and the product group.  This section recommends that you disable the Performance monitor for the class "Active Directory Domain Controller Server 200x Computer Role" in order to minimize performance data collection for reports.  However, this is a base aggregate monitor that is basically responsible for reflecting the best/worse case of health relative to the state of the child monitors.  It has no direct impact on controlling the behavior of the child monitors, nor performance collection in general.

If you really want to disable performance data collection because reporting is not important to you, then you should be focusing on the performance collection rules.  They are denoted as such with the words "performance collection" in the name of the respective rule.  Examples in the ADMP are:

• AD Global Catalog Search Time Response Performance Collection
• AD DC Performance Collection - Metric Memory Committed Bytes

If you want to disable performance alerts because you are not concerned with certain performance issues with your DC's (as you may already know these facts and don't want to be constantly reminded), then you should be disabling the respective performance unit monitor.  Examples in the ADMP are:

• AD DC Last Bind Monitor
• AD DC Op Master Domain Naming Last Bind Monitor

I uncovered a situation with SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services that I did not encounter before and it is worth mentioning because it follows the premise of - verify SQL Reporting Services first before installing Operations Manager 2007 Reporting. 

Background:

Windows Server 2008 x64 hosting SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition x64 w/SP2 configured with two instances.  One instance is dedicated to the Operations Manager operational database (i.e. OperationsManager) and the second instance is dedicate to SSRS, Operations Manager data warehouse (i.e. OperationsManagerDW), and Operations Manager Reporting Services.  The default instance is not installed in this scenario.  All services are configured to run with a domain user account that has local administrative rights.  SSRS was installed with default settings during setup of the second instance of SQL Server.

Scenario:

When attempting to access SQL Report Manager - http://localhost/Reports with the browser to verify SSRS was functioning correctly, the browser would never render the home page of SSRS and it would eventually time out.   No error messages were displayed in the Application Event Log and the configuration settings were verified to be correct in SQL Reporting Services Configuration Tool.  My initial thoughts were that this was a possible permissions issue, however further investigation showed that not to be the case.  I started to review the logs that are written by SSRS under Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.<x>\Reporting Services\LogFiles and saw some errors in the ReportServerWebApp_.log file, and thought based on those entries it was firewall or IIS configuration related.  However, those ideas were put to bed after doing some additional troubleshooting.  

Some of the errors in the log: 

With time being of the essence and I needed to focus on other critical tasks, I suggested that the customer open a case with CSS and they work through it with them. 

Solution:

The RSWebApplication.config configuration file for Report Manager was modifed, which is located in the following folder - SQLInstall\MSSQL.X\Reporting Services\ReportManager.  By default, Reporting Services is configured to reference the IIS virtual directory "ReportServer" as noted in the tag - ReportServerVirtualDirectory. The value was removed from that tag and instead, the URL for Report Manager was entered for the tag - ReportServerUrl.  Once the SQL Reporting Services service was restarted, accessing Report Manager from the browser was attempted and was successful. 

In retrospect, I should have tried the recommendations in this KB Article - 922656, which I just came across as I was writing this blog entry (funny because I did not get a hit for it when I was originally searching for possible solutions).  As Homer Simpson would have said, "How convenient."

One of the new features of R2 that hasn't received any attention yet (at least to my knowledge) is how we changed the functionality of Run As Profiles.  Today in Operations Manager 2007, you associate a RunAs Account for a particular RunAs Profile on a specific computer.  Pretty straight forward and if I remember correctly, the same as MOM 2005 (haven't touched it in some time so my memory is vague).  When I was testing my custom ADMP (my lab environment is running on R2), I was caught off guard because I needed to associate a RunAs account with a RunAs profile as part of my testing, and it took me some time to figure out how to configure it correctly (since the on-line documentation for R2 was not updated to provide an appropriate level of guidance). 

In Operations Manager 2007 R2, when associating a RunAs Account for a particular RunAs Profile, you can now target the the profile to any class available in Operations Manager and see the logical relationship between the two.  Take for example a script that we run as a response to a monitor or a script that performs some level of monitoring against a SQL Server database.  Instead of associating the profile with the agent, you can associate the profile with the database instance or the SQL Server Database Engine for that agent.  So any workflow that requires running under a specific set of privileges in order to access the instrumentation correctly, you will be able to target the profile by group, object, and instance class.  This follows the same logic as targeting a workflow today (monitors, rules, discoveries, tasks, etc.).

While today's management packs for Operations Manager aren't developed with this strategy in mind, by the time R2 comes out I would expect to see them supporting this. 

Over the weekend I was able to make the time needed to wipe and load Windows 7 Beta, which I can say with much enthusiasm is stellar (really, I am not saying that because I work for Microsoft).  Anywho, I installed the Operations Manager 2007 SP1 Operations Console and fired it up to see how it would fair on this beta OS.  Thus far, it is working reliably.

While this is not earth shattering news and not a big deal from a "ohh I can do that" type of blog entry, I figured I would share this little tidbit of news anyway.

Oh, the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Operations Console is also running sound on Windows 7.  So for you who are admins or operators using Operations Manager 2007, go forward and enjoy the fruits of Windows 7!

Leagl jargon - your milage may vary and this is not an endorsement to violate your company's policy with using beta software on production systems.

I forgot to mention a few weeks ago I had taken the ITIL v3 Foundation Certification exam and a couple of days later I received my results in the mail.  I passed...

That is all - end transmission.

Today I have updated the Deployment Guide for Operations Manager 2007 Reporting on Windows Server 2008.  This was due to some confusion from those who downloaded the doc and were attempting to setup this configuration in their environment.  I received a few e-mails and determined this needed to be addressed accordingly.  Specifically I had verbiage in a paragraph in the section "Installing SQL Server 2005 with Service Pack 2" where I eluded to the fact installing SQL 2005 with Reporting Services should be performed using a slipstreamed version of SQL 2005 with SP2.  I don't remember why I had that statement in this paragraph, but there is no technical reason from my experience why you cannot install SQL 2005 RTM and then apply Service Pack 2.  It has worked fine for me on various occasions. 

Thanks to those who have pointed this out and sorry that this caused any unnecessary confusion.

This updated version will also be uploaded on the http://www.opsmanjam.com site within a day or so.

I just completed the deployment guide for this custom management pack that Walter and I have been working on.  It is now ready for you to download and evaluate. 

Description:  This management pack provides performance views and dashboards to present key performance data from the SQL Server(s) hosting one or all of the Operations Manager databases.

What this management pack does not do is proactively monitor and alert/change health state if the SQL Servers are not operating reliably.  This is something that I am currently evaluating as a possibility for the next version, in addition to supporting dynamic membership so that we can automatically discover the Windows Server(s) hosting SQL Server 2005 and the Operations Manager (operational, data warehouse, and audit) databases.  If time can be found, I'll look to devote some effort towards developing the next version.  One of the things I wished I had more time to focus on was the discovery and targeting of views/rules dynamically for the operational database, due to the way discovery and targeting is configured in Operations Manager today.  That is a topic I don't have time to discuss further right now, sadly.

Limited testing of this management pack has been conducted by myself and Walter. 

Feedback is encouraged.

Being Chris Fox is busy right now with authoring/updating docs for Operations Manager 2007 R2, I am going to post this guide on my blog until it is uploaded on the OpsManJam site.  This document I authored, provides the following guidance:

This document provides deployment guidance for installing and configuring the SQL Server 2005 Log Shipping feature as an option to provide redundancy of the Operations Manager operational database between two SQL Server 2005 servers in the same management group.  This configuration is intended to compliment your recovery strategy.

Enjoy!

This has been on my list of things to do - release the custom Operations Manager Performance Monitoring MP that Walter Chomak and myself co-developed.  I am in the process of getting the deployment guide authored and hope to have it released shortly.  This was something Walter and I wanted to release to the public several months ago, but time has not been on our side.  It compliments the guidance Walter has blogged about and I have been preaching to customers while engaged with them (no need to duplicate guidance if Walter has blogged about it already) :)

I almost published it this evening without the deployment guide, which goes against the standards I follow.  Then I came to my senses...  I'll get that guide done before the end of next week and submit to Chris Fox for posting on the OpsManJam Site (with a little bit of luck). 

Thanks for hanging in there!

Back in June I attended an internal class to review Microsoft Operations Framework v4 (formerly known as Project Hanna) and attended a beta exam thereafter, which I fortunately passed.  Now this week, I am going to update my ITIL Foundation Certification from v2 to v3. 

I have a very strong opinion with respect to anyone in IT and the benefits of learning and adopting a process frameworks in an effort to improve the delivery and support of IT Services to the business.  Not simply focusing on technology makes anyone in IT a well rounded person as long as they take it seriously and work towards improving the way IT functions.  It makes us better IT stewards. 

You can learn more about MOF here - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc506049.aspx

You can learn more about ITIL here - http://www.itil-officialsite.com/home/home.aspm and here - http://www.itlibrary.org/ 

I'll get off the soapbox now....:)

I just submitted to Chris Fox for review and posting on the OpsManJam site, the guide "System Center Operations Manager 2007 Configure SQL Server Log Shipping Guide for Operations Manager 2007 Operational Database" that I have been working on in my spare time.  This guide currently only covers the implementation of Log Shipping as an HA option for the OperationsManager (operational) database, not the Audit or Data Warehouse database, and provides guidance on configuring the secondary SQL Server and the management group when the primary SQL Server becomes unavailable.  While I have reviewed similar documentation developed by others outside of Microsoft, I felt it necessary to ensure detailed guidance is consistant with our other published whitepapers.  I am a stickler for consistency and detail, if you have not realized that already!

While I could have also covered the Data Warehouse and Audit database, it would have taken a bit more time and I felt I could add guidance for those two databases in a future version. 

 As soon as I see it published on the OpsManJam site, I'll post an update.  However, I am sure you have RSS feeds enabled and will be notified accordingly.

While I realize that today my colleauge in arms Walter Chomak, has blogged about installing System Center Operations Manager 2007 Reporting on Windows Server 2008, the attached guide provides greater detail and guidance on installing SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and Operations Manager Reporting role on Windows Server 2008.  Walter covers a key step, but I want to make sure the entire "picture" is painted for you.

I had authored this for our internal field staff a month ago but never found the time to convert the document from our customer delivery document standard to one that was more appropriate for this audience.  Finally I got it done ths morning.

Enjoy!

I realize that it has been some time since I have posted a blog entry, as trying to find time has been a challenge for me these days.  Some things I have been working on and plan on sharing shortly on my blog are:

1. Custom management pack that focuses on performance monitoring of the SQL Servers that host the Operations Manager databases. 
2. Whitepaper on how to reconfigure Operations Manager if the service accounts need to be renamed after installation (No really, I had this situation come up with a recent customer).
3. Whitepaper on installing and configuring Operations Manager Reporting on Windows Server 2008.
4. Whitepaper on configuring SQL Server Log Shipping for the Operations Manager operational database (a more detailed whitepaper than exists in the community today).

I should have items #3 and #4 published before the end of the week on my blog. For item #1, I have the custom MP done, but the deployment guide is not completed yet as I just started to draft it.  With item #2, I need to run through the steps in my VM environment to validate before I publish them.

 Stay tuned, and thanks for your patience.

I have finally found the time to update the templates and include a project plan template in support of the MP Lifecycle Management process.  I updated the test plan spreadsheet because I thought it didn't look professional enough (yes I am picky) and created a project plan template as a foundation in support of your process.

This can be leveraged in either scenario - tuning a vendor management pack or if you are developing your own management packs in support of monitoring specific services in your organization where a vendor provided MP may not exists.