Matt Goedtel on Operations Management : documentation

Updated Deployment Guide - Operations Manager Reporting on Windows Server 2008

mgoedtel — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:21:00 GMT

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.

OpsMgr 2007 - SQL Server Log Shipping Guide

mgoedtel — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:16:00 GMT

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!

Finished - SQL Log Shipping Configuration Guide

mgoedtel — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:24:00 GMT

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.

Deployment Guide - Operations Manager Reporting on Windows Server 2008

mgoedtel — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:57:00 GMT

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!

What's New These Days?

mgoedtel — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:20:00 GMT

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:

Custom management pack that focuses on performance monitoring of the SQL Servers that host the Operations Manager databases.
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).
Whitepaper on installing and configuring Operations Manager Reporting on Windows Server 2008.
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.

Updated MP Lifecycle Templates

mgoedtel — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:10:00 GMT

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.

Operations Manager 2007 Reporting Authoring Guide Now Available

mgoedtel — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:31:00 GMT

The Operations Manager 2007 Reporting Authoring Guide is now available for download - http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/4/d/74deff5e-449f-4a6b-91dd-ffbc117869a2/OpsMgr2007_RprtGuide.doc.

This document provides an in-depth understanding of the reporting feature, such as:

Working with published and linked reports
Developing custom reports
Schema of the Microsoft.SystemCenter.DataWarehouse.Report.Library.xml (Reporting Management Pack)
Scheduling reports (example documented is for e-mail) but now with SP1 we support publishing to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

and much more.

Operations Manager 2007 Authoring Guide Now Available

mgoedtel — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 18:30:00 GMT

The new Operations Manager 2007 Management Pack Authoring Guide is now publicly available for download. The complete document in Microsoft Word format is available here:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/4/d/74deff5e-449f-4a6b-91dd-ffbc117869a2/OM2007_AuthGuide.doc

We hope you find the new authoring guide useful! Please keep in mind that it is a living document and will be updated frequently

Update - Moving the Operations Manager Reporting Server

mgoedtel — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:05:00 GMT

You probably have noticed in the latest released of the Operations Manager 2007 Backup & Restore Guide, as well as the Operations Manager 2007 Operations Guide, that we have not provided a set of procedures for moving the Operations Manager Reporting Server (which has a dependency on SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and would be included also). This has been one of the commonly requested scenarios that customers have been asking for lately, and understandably so.

To bring you up to date, a short while ago we had come up with a draft of the steps necessary to mvoe it, conducted some testing and uncovered a configuration issue. Not getting into details as to what the configuration issue was, it was deemed important enough to file a bug with the product group and ensure it will be addressed in Service Pack 1.

When Service Pack 1 for Operations Manager 2007 is released, shortly thereafter we intend on providing a set of procedures to support the move of the Reporting Server. Fortunately, that is right around the corner so I respectfully ask that you bear with us and hang tight just a little bit longer.

While I am on the topic of Disaster Recovery for Operations Manager, I wanted to let you know that we are looking to address the gaps, need for additional detail, and guidance for other scenarios. Undersatnding that this guide has been a bit "light" and doesn't help with your planning efforts, all I can share with you now is the fact I am pushing hard to make this a priority and help author a more detailed document. If you have suggestions, please feel free to send them my way so we can consider them based on relevance and commonality.

New Version of OpsMgr Backup and Restore Guide Released!

mgoedtel — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 18:38:00 GMT

A new version of the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Backup and Restore Guide has been released to web. In this updated version, we provide procedures for moving the OperationsManagerDW (Data Warehouse) and the OperationsManagerACS (Audit Collection) databases.

It can be downloaded from the Operations Manager 2007 Product Documentation page off of TechCenter - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/opsmgr/bb498235.aspx

We realize there are other scenarios still outstanding, such as moving the Operations Manager Reporting component. Please bear with us as we work hard to complete that and other scenarios for the Backup and Restore Guide.

New Releases for Operations Manager 2007

mgoedtel — Sun, 13 May 2007 03:10:00 GMT

This week we released the Windows Vista Client Monitoring Management Pack. This new management pack is built on the Windows Diagnostics Infrastructure in Windows Vista that detects, diagnoses and tries to resolve hardware and software problems. Information and analysis on the issues that the system detected are collected by the MP through an agent on the client and sent to OpsMgr where this data is converted into health state, alerts (if need be) and processed for aggregate reports. The MP monitors the following areas:

Disk reliability and utilization
Memory reliability and utilization
System Performance
Runtime performance
Bootup performance
Shutdown performance
Sleep performance
Resume performance

And surfaces information in these areas by:

Raising individual alerts when there are impending catastrophic failures.
Raising trend-based alerts on significant changes to any OEM or computer group in one of the monitored areas.
Health monitors giving an in-depth view of the health of individual machines with knowledge articles to guide the admin.
Reports giving a landscape view of the health of all monitored clients in all the monitoring areas.

You can download the new MP from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a2d42208-d4fd-46a6-9e8d-0ff7694b5634&DisplayLang=en

Also released is the Operations Manager 2007 Security Guide, which can be downloaded from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=49369779-93f7-463f-b2a5-8555b11c5683&DisplayLang=en