Matt Goedtel on Operations Management

Updated PowerShell Script - Maintenance Mode

mgoedtel — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:22:00 GMT

I was recently e-mailed by a colleague regarding the maintenance mode PowerShell script that was originally released by Boris Yanushpolsky (found here) that worked great for RTM/SP1, but was failing when executed on an OpsMgr 2007 R2 agent managed system. In addition, the script was designed to place an object into maintenance mode for an hourly duration, not in minutes matching the setting in the Operations Console.

As you know, in Operations Manager RTM/SP1, we did not place the health service or health service watcher instance of the computer object into maintenance mode as one would expect, when you place a computer and its contained objects into maintenance mode. In Operations Manager R2, this was resolved and no longer requires you to perform this as a second step in the process.

The attached script has been updated to support automating the placement of computer objects into maintenance mode for Operations Manager R2, and now accepts the argument of minutes instead of hours for duration of maintenance. I am also in the process of updating the Maintenance Mode management pack that Brian Wren originally developed, and Andrzej Lipka (a former MCS Consultant from Poland) and myself modified with some additional features (see Andrzej's MP here and mine here) so you can leverage it for R2. I hope to have it completed and tested by this weekend, and submitted for review and release on http://www.opsmanjam.com the following week.

The command-line for executing the script is:

Starting MM - powershell "c:\MMode_R2.ps1" -groupName 'All Computers' -minutes 10 -rmsServerName RMSSERVER -startMM $true

Ending MM - powershell "c:\MMode_R2.ps1" -groupName 'All Computers' -minutes 10 -rmsServerName RMSSERVER -startMM $false

Suggestions and feedback are always welcome.

Extended SQL Server MP Released on OpsManJam

mgoedtel — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:39:00 GMT

As promised, I finally finished and submitted the Extended SQL Server 2005/2008 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 and it is now available for download on OpsManJam.

This management pack augments the existing Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008 management pack by monitoring for the following change in your environment:

A database mirroring event has been detected on the principal server, affecting replication of the database transaction logs between principal and its mirroring partner based on user-defined performance thresholds for that mirrored database instance.
Performance collection of key database mirroring performance counters for viewing in performance views inculded with this management pack, or referencing in a performance report.

This management pack was developed referencing the latest version of the Operations Manager 2007 SQL Server Management Pack, version 6.0.6569.0.

After my short break, I'll begin working on the next version of this management pack, which will include a health model and monitoring of the health of a mirrored database. Hopefully I can turn this around withina reasonable timeframe. As always, I encourage and appreciate your feedback.

New MP's on OpsManJam

mgoedtel — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:04:00 GMT

It has been quite some time since I have posted anything of relevance on my blog. I have been focused on updating some of the management packs that I published a few months ago, such as:

Extended Windows Server Active Directory
Extended Windows Server
System Center Configuration Manager OSD

In addition, I was developing some new custom management packs, such as:

Extended Windows Server Internet Information Services 2003
Extended SQL Server 2005/2008
Alachisoft NCache 3.x

All of these MP's, with exception of the Alachisoft and Extended SQL Server MP's, have been published on OpsManJam Library, under Management Packs. The Alachisoft NCache MP is undergoing an internal review and should be published this week or next. I am currently putting the finishing touches on the custom Extended SQL Server 2005/2008, which will provide the following features:

Provides basic monitoring of specific events when you have database mirroring enabled on specific databases hosted on your SQL 2005/2008 server.
Collects specific performance data related to database mirroring to view in the Console.
Monitors for an event condition when a database filegroup runs out of disk space (such as when AUTOGROW is not enabled, insufficient disk space, etc.)

So I have this first version complete and am currently drafting the deployment guide. I should have it completed by the weekend and submitted for publishing on OpsManJam next week. The next version of this MP that I am preparing to develop, will look to provide more advanced health monitoring for database mirroring.

From now on, all custom MP's that I develop will be published on OpsManJam and not on my blog.

ADMP and Tuning for Performance Reports

mgoedtel — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 04:27:00 GMT

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

SQL Reporting Services Gotcha

mgoedtel — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 03:00:00 GMT

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:

System.Net.WebException: The underlying connection was closed: An unexpected error occurred on a receive. ---> System.IO.IOException: Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host. ---> System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host

at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.Receive(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, SocketFlags socketFlags)

at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)

--- End of inner exception stack trace ---

at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)

at System.Net.PooledStream.Read(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size)

at System.Net.Connection.SyncRead(HttpWebRequest request, Boolean userRetrievedStream, Boolean probeRead)

--- End of inner exception stack trace ---

at Microsoft.SqlServer.ReportingServices2005.RSConnection.GetSecureMethods()

at Microsoft.ReportingServices.UI.Global.RSWebServiceWrapper.GetSecureMethods()

at Microsoft.SqlServer.ReportingServices2005.RSConnection.IsSecureMethod(String methodname)

at Microsoft.SqlServer.ReportingServices2005.RSConnection.ValidateConnection()

at Microsoft.ReportingServices.UI.Global.SecureAllAPI()

at Microsoft.ReportingServices.UI.ReportingPage.EnsureHttpsLevel(HttpsLevel level)

at Microsoft.ReportingServices.UI.ReportingPage.ReportingPage_Init(Object sender, EventArgs args)

at System.EventHandler.Invoke(Object sender, EventArgs e)

at System.Web.UI.Control.OnInit(EventArgs e)

at System.Web.UI.Page.OnInit(EventArgs e)

at System.Web.UI.Control.InitRecursive(Control namingContainer)

at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint)

w3wp!ui!a!2/11/2009-10:40:42:: e ERROR: Exception in ShowErrorPage: System.Threading.ThreadAbortException: Thread was being aborted.

at System.Threading.Thread.AbortInternal()

at System.Threading.Thread.Abort(Object stateInfo)