System Center Operations Manager

How does MP Import work? And how do MPs get down to the HealthService?

satyavel — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:32:00 GMT

Many people have asked how MP import works and how do MPs get down to the health service. Hopefully this diagram helps explain some of this.

Satya

Marcin@Work - System Center Operations Manager 2007 Tools and Management Packs

justinincarnato — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:36:00 GMT

If you are an MP author, you need to bookmark Marcin's site

Client Operating System MP update released

corband — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:46:00 GMT

To follow the recent general availability of Windows 7, the updated Client Operating System management pack to support Windows 7 systems is now available. The updated package can be downloaded here. The following is a summary of the major updates in this release:

· Support for discovery and monitoring of Windows 7 Client machines

· Aggregate client monitoring for Windows 7 systems

· Business critical monitoring for Windows 7 systems

· Vista MP: fixed several rules to ensure that all potential event logs are looked at when checking for error conditions

· Vista MP: added object picker functionality to reports to ensure a better reporting experience with OpsMgr 2007 R2

· Vista MP: fixed Logical Disk Availability and Network Adapter Connection monitors to change state at correct conditions

· Vista MP: updates to display strings and knowledge articles

Management Pack to monitor your Coffee Pot

satyavel — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:23:00 GMT

Jakob Gottlieb Svendsen with the help of Kåre Rude Andersen have written an MP to monitor their coffee pot. Watch the video that they posted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0_WsgR6hPw&feature=player_embedded. Another awesome way to use OpsMgr.

Link to article:

http://blog.coretech.dk/opsmgr07/opsmgr-2007-r2-scom-coretech-coffee-monitor-management-pack-0001/

Satya Vel

OpsMgr 2007 SP1 MP Update Released

corband — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:53:00 GMT

As a follow-up to the OpsMgr 2007 R2 MP update announced here, we've now also released the corresponding update for OpsMgr 2007 SP1. This updated MP package can and should only be imported onto OpsMgr 2007 SP1 environments and includes a number of fixes that were provided in R2 and the most recent update to the OpsMgr 2007 R2 MP. Following is a summary of the changes in this release and a more detailed account of the changes is included in the MP Package which you can download from the MP Catalog:

Changes in common with the most recent R2 MP Update:

Updated the layout and default filters and sort order for a number of views.
Fixed an issue that was previously preventing all rules related to AEM from generating alerts.
Added display names, descriptions, and product knowledge where missing.
Added the rule “Collects Opsmgr SDK Service\Client Connections” to collect the number of connected clients for a given management group. This data is shown in the view “Console and SDK Connection Count” under the folder “Operations Manager\Management Server Performance”.
Updated a number of monitors and rules to ensure that data is reported to the correct management group for multihomed agents.
The following rules and monitors are now disabled by default as they are generally not actionable:

A GroupPopulator module unloaded due to an unrecoverable error
Health Service Cannot Find Management Group
Data Validity Check
Root Connector Data Validity Check

Updated the alert suppression criteria for the rule “Alert on Dropped MultiInstance Performance Module” in order to significantly reduce the alert volumes generated by this rule and make it easier to identify the root cause.

Changes specific to this SP1 Update, which were made in the initial R2 MP release:

The implementation that triggers the “Restart Health Service” recovery was changed to be driven by monitors as opposed to rules, to address a number of shortcomings in the previous design.
Changed the default severity and priority of alerts raised by the “SDK Spn Registration” rule from “warning” to “critical” and updated the knowledge for the rule significantly.
Added the “Communication Certificate Expiration Check” monitor to monitor certificate expiration for untrusted domain endpoints (agents, gateways, servers) and alert before the certificate expires.
Fixed an issue with the “Management Configuration Service - Windows Service State” monitor so that it will properly generate alerts for the state of the “OpsMgr Config Service” on a clustered Root Management Server.
Fixed the “Operational Database Space Free (%)” monitor to compute free space based on maximum data file size, rather than maximum data and log file sizes combined.
Updated the workflows that drive the state of the “Computer Not Reachable” monitor to handle the condition when the computer’s name does not resolve.
Added additional criteria to the rule “WMI Raw Performance Counter Module Execution Failure” to account for some event IDs that were not being detected.
Removed criteria from the rule “Performance Data Source Module could not find a performance counter” to avoid generating alerts on warning events.

Updated Network Load Balancing Management Pack available

akepettersson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:19:00 GMT

An update to the Windows Network Load Balancing Management Pack has been released.

The main themes of this release are

· Support for discovery and monitoring of Windows Server 2008 R2 NLB clusters

· Noise reduction

SYSTEM CENTER OPERATIONS MANAGER 2007 R2 AUTHORING RESOURCE KIT SNAPSHOTs

mandhar — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:00:00 GMT

Shown below are snapshots from some of the tools available in the authoring resource kit which can be downloaded from here

MP Best Practices Analyzer

MP Spell Checker

MP Visio Generator

Workflow Simulator

Failover Clustering MP updated

akepettersson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:24:00 GMT

An update to the Windows Failover Clustering Management Pack has been released.

Some of the updates in this release are

· Support for discovery and monitoring of Windows Server 2008 R2 clusters and functionality such as Cluster Shared Volumes

· MP scalability improvements (the MP supports monitoring of 300 resource groups per cluster)

· Noise reduction, for example clustered resources are no longer discovered and monitored by default (resource groups are monitored by default)

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Authoring Resource Kit Released!

mandhar — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:57:00 GMT

I am very pleased to announce that the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Authoring Resource Kit has RTW’d.

It can be downloaded from : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9104af8b-ff87-45a1-81cd-b73e6f6b51f0&displaylang=en

· The resource kit ships the following features:

o Authoring Console

o Management Pack Best Practices Analyzer

o Management Pack Spell Checker

o Management Pack Visio Generator

o Management Pack Diff

o Management Pack Cookdown Analyzer

o All References Addin

o Workflow Analyzer

o Workflow Simulator

o System Management Packs

Below is a quick summary of these features.

Authoring Console

o Develop Management Packs within a GUI environment.

Management Pack Best Practice Analyzer (MPBPA)

o MPBPA scans management packs for best practice compliance and provides automated resolution for numerous issues. This tool integrates with the Authoring Console.

Management Pack Spell Checker (MP Spell Checker)

o MP Spell Checker checks spelling in management packs to eliminate errors in display strings.

Management Pack Visio Generator (MP Visio Generator)

o MP Visio Generator allows you to generate a class inheritance and class relationship diagram using Microsoft Office Visio.

Management Pack Diff (MP Diff)

o MP Diff shows the differences between two management packs.

Management Pack Cookdown Analyzer (MP Cookdown Analyzer)

o MP Cookdown Analyzer identifies workflows which may break cookdown. Suggestions are provided for how to fix the performance problems.

All References Add-in

o All References Add-in helps find all management pack elements that reference the specific element chosen. For example, the ability to right click a class and find all rules, monitors, overrides, as well as anything else that targets that class is provided. This tool works on most management pack elements.

Workflow Analyzer

o The Workflow Analyzer provides the ability to statically analyze all types of workflows. It also allows users to trace workflows running on any Health Service.

Workflow Simulator

o The Workflow Simulator provides the ability to test certain types of workflows such as discoveries, rules, and monitors without a Management Server and Management Group. Key functionality includes the ability to test workflows as well as view and validate output prior to signing and importing the MP into a Management Group for additional testing.

Management Packs

o Three management packs which are frequently used as dependencies are provided as part of the tools installation. These MPs are necessary to allow the Authoring Console to open most MPs available online in the System Center Operations Manager MP Catalog. The provided MPs are:

Microsoft.SystemCenter.DataWarehouse.Report.Library

Microsoft.SystemCenter.InstanceGroup.Library

Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceDesigner.Library

Screenshots and more information on how to use the tools effectively to make authoring simple for Operations Manager would be coming out soon.

Happy MP Authoring!

DFS Replication Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 is available

corband — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:14:00 GMT

The storage team at Microsoft has just announced their release of the DFS Replication Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007.

Supported operating systems:

Windows Server 2003 R2
Windows Server 2008

Supported monitoring platforms:

System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1
System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2

More information is available in their blog post at http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/archive/2009/10/19/dfs-replication-management-pack-for-operations-manager-2007-is-available.aspx.

Updates to the Exchange Management Packs for Operations Manager 2007 now available

akepettersson — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:52:00 GMT

Updates to the Exchange Management Packs for Operations Manager 2007 are now available on the Management Pack Catalog.

The Exchange 2003 MP update includes an improvement to topology discovery that removes the requirement to have an agent on all Exchange servers in the organization in order to see the Exchange topology view. There were also discovery updates, plus a number of improvements focusing on on view consistency, knowledge, script behavior.

The Exchange 2007 MP for OpsMgr R2 update fixes issues with synthetic transactions running on clusters, clearer presentation of data generated when running the Exchange BPA, as well as clearer alerting in the case where MP discoveries are failing due to missing Exchange permissions.

We need your vote!

justinincarnato — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:47:00 GMT

Hello OM Community,

Most of you know we recently launched an easy to reach feedback portal for you all to file bugs and/or suggestions for the next version of Operations Manager - located here: https://connect.microsoft.com/OpsMgr/Feedback - All you need to do is be registered on Connect.

What is cool is that we are now able to utilized the "Vote" feedback mechanism to help prioritize our work based on feedback from YOU. For example, today I can see 4 items that have had at least 3 votes. The first (scheduling maintenance mode) which we plan to do for v.next; the second being adding the OE tool in the product, etc., etc.

We would love to have you all vote on the existing feedback here so we can shape the product - based on what you want rather than what we think you need :)

Example:
https://connect.microsoft.com/OpsMgr/SearchResults.aspx?SearchQuery=&FeedbackType=1&Scope=0&Votes=3&SortOrder=10&TabView=0

OpsMgr 2007 R2 MP version 6.1.7533.0 is Released!

corband — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:41:00 GMT

I'm very happy to announce that the first out of band update to the Operations Manager Management Pack has been released to the MP catalog! This MP package (Version 6.1.7533.0) is specific to OpsMgr 2007 R2 and will not import on product versions prior to that.

Following are some changes made in this release that I’d like to highlight, but you can refer to the MP guide for the full list:

1. Based on customer and blogger feedback we’ve improved the monitoring around excessive agent memory utilization.

a. For starters, the monitors have been updated so that the value of the sample must exceed the threshold for a specific number of consecutive samples, as opposed to the average of the samples over the consecutive samples. This will increase the accuracy of the monitors by handling periodic spikes in resource utilization better.

b. Secondly the thresholds have been made less stringent on the agents to better align with a more realistic baseline (6,000 handle counts and 300 MB in private bytes)

2. Tons of missing display names, descriptions, and product knowledge where added. For a good example of the improvements check out the rule Data Access Service Spn Registration.

3. We’ve added the rule “Collects Opsmgr SDK Service\Client Connections” to collect the number of connected clients for a given management group. This data is shown in the view “Console and SDK Connection Count” under the folder “Operations Manager\Management Server Performance”.

4. The following rules and monitors are now disabled by default as they are generally not actionable:

a. A GroupPopulator module unloaded due to an unrecoverable error

b. Health Service Cannot Find Management Group

c. Data Validity Check

d. Root Connector Data Validity Check

5. Updated the alert suppression criteria for the rule “Alert on Dropped MultiInstance Performance Module” in order to significantly reduce the alert volumes generated by this rule and make it easier to identify the root cause.

6. Fixed the configuration of the rule “IIS Discovery Probe Module Execution Failure” so that the parameter replacement will now work correctly for alert suppression and generating the details of the alert’s description.

A similar update for OpsMgr 2007 SP1 will be released in the coming weeks and we will announce its availability on our blog.

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager

justinincarnato — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:30:00 GMT

Just released by our Solution Accelerators Team …. The Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. Updated for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, this guide outlines the critical infrastructure design elements that are crucial to a successful implementation of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager. The reader is guided through the step-by-step process of designing components, layout, and connectivity in a logical, sequential order. Identification and design of the required management groups is presented in simple, easy-to-follow steps, helping the reader to design and optimize management infrastructure.

Take advantage of the benefits IPD Guides provide:

· Acceleration the infrastructure design process.

· Best practice design guidance from the product group.

· Infrastructure optimization for best meeting business requirements.

Next Steps

Download the updated IPD Guide for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 and System Center Operations Manager 2007.
Download other best practices from the Infrastructure Planning and Design series for products such as Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V, App-V, SQL Server 2008, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, System Center and much more at the IPD home page on TechNet.

This is just another example of the great content that comes out of our Solutions Accelerators team. If you have a moment, be sure to take a look at another great offering from them for Operations Manager; the Service Level Dashboard 2.0 for Operations Manager 2007 R2.

Some Sample Reports...

dsavage — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:18:00 GMT

Back at MMS this year we presented a session on authoring reports. During that session my colleague Vitaly created a SQL stored procedure that allowed us to create a server overview report showing key server metrics such as Processor Count, Physical Memory, CPU Utilization, Availability and Logical Disk Space. I have now eventually gotten round to making this report available in sample (non-production J ) form so you can see the approach we took.

This is a useful report as it draws server information from multiple data sources in the DW and presents them in a clear tabular form. It also enumerates all logical disks and presents their storage usage:

The report and the relevant stored procedures that it uses are in the Sample MP attached. Simply import and give it a go. Requires R2 RTM.

This report takes group as a parameter and I also wanted to share this query as I have been asked about it several times. This returns a list of all groups similar to what you would see in the groups tab under authoring in the console.

SELECT DisplayName FROM vManagedEntity

Where ManagedEntityTypeRowID in (

SELECT ManagedEntityTypeRowID from dbo.ManagedEntityDerivedTypeHierarchy

((

SELECT ManagedEntityTypeRowId from vmanagedentitytype

Where managedentitytypesystemname = 'system.group'),0))

ORDER BY DisplayName

Lastly there is a second report in the Sample MP that allows you to view alerts generated by a particular MP:

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of included utilities are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

Daniel Savage