We just released an update to the IIS7 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 that adds support for monitoring Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server 2008 R2:
This management pack provides an early warning to administrators on issues that could affect services so that administrators can investigate and take corrective action, if necessary. The management pack helps to simplify the administrative environment by providing a single console for the administrator to perform a number of useful management tasks. To help troubleshoot common issues, the management pack contains helpful product knowledge and a way to extend this knowledge through adding your own company or organization knowledge related to an issue.
To get all the details and download the management pack see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d351bca8-182b-4223-8c9e-627e184ba02b&displaylang=en
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
The DFS Namespaces Management Pack monitors servers running Windows Server® 2008, Windows Server 2003 R2, and Windows Server 2003. It can also be configured to monitor the health of DFS Namespaces from client computers running Windows Vista® or Windows® XP. This management pack monitors events that are recorded in the System event log by DFS Namespaces. It also monitors the overall health of DFS Namespaces and alerts you to critical issues.
Feature Summary
The DFS Namespaces Management Pack is designed to provide valuable monitoring information about the health of DFS Namespaces by monitoring the following:
- Namespace health
- DFS service health
- Namespace server health
- DFS folder health
- Folder target health
- Namespace server Active Directory communication
- Namespace root directory health
- DFS client-based monitoring
For all the details and to download the DFS Namespaces Management Pack see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=aa038235-8e50-40d0-b84f-93a6bba985c2
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
Looks like our very own DustinJ (Program Manager for System Center Essentials) just posted a great article on how to troubleshoot agent deployment in System Center Essentials 2010:
I'll focus this article on troubleshooting the deployment of the Operations Manager agent using the Computer and Device Management Wizard (aka Discovery Wizard), the most common agent deployment mechansim, explain how the Windows Update agent is configured once the Operations Manager agent has been installed, and close with an explanation of the backup agent deployment mechanism we introduced in Essentials 2010 RC.
You can checkout all the details at http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenteressentials/archive/2010/02/02/troubleshooting-agent-deployment-in-system-center-essentials-2010.aspx
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
Just an FYI that we have a new Knowledge Base article that lists the known issues that you may experience when you use a management pack for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 on a computer that is running a localized version of Windows Server 2008 R2.
If you haven't already seen it you can check it out below:
KB979393 - Known issues when you use a management pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 in a localized version of Windows Server 2008 R2
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
In the Operations Manager console of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, the Windows Operating System column may have a Not Monitored state for a new agent. Additionally, the state never changes to Healthy.
This issue occurs because the new agent has the same NetBIOS name as a previously installed agent. When the agent is deleted from Operations Manager, the grooming of the deleted agent is hard coded to occur after two days. Therefore, the agent is not immediately groomed out of the database completely.
We document this issue and the workaround in the new Knowledge Base article below:
KB979387 - The "Windows Operating System" column has a "Not monitored" state for a new agent
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
In Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 and in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, alerts can be raised by the monitors. Alerts that are raised by the monitors are typically the result of a state change. These alerts are displayed in the Operations console similar to the alerts that are raised by rules. However, these alerts should not be manually resolved.
For all the details see KB979388: Alerts that are raised by the monitors should not be manually resolved in Operations Manager 2007
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
Brief Description
The DirectAccess Server Management Pack supports a rich set of Alarms, Monitors and Agent Tasks that can be used to successfully and efficiently manage a DirectAccess server.
Overview
The DirectAccess Server Management Pack supports a rich set of Alarms, Monitors and Agent Tasks that can be used to successfully and efficiently manage a DirectAccess server.
The DirectAccess Server Management Pack supports the following features
- Automatic discovery of the DirectAccess Server and its components, including:
- IP-HTTPS Gateway
- ISATAP Router
- Network Security Component
- 6to4 Router
- Teredo Relay
- Teredo Server
- Monitors that identify:
- Status of Direct Access Server and its components
- Denial of service (DoS), spoofing, and replay attacks
- ICMP and data traffic queue overflows
- Utilization of available IPsec states on the Direct Server
Release History
- 1/28/2010 - Original release of the English version, version 1.0
System Requirements
- Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2008 R2
Other Software:
- System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1
- Windows 2008 R2 Operating System Management Pack
For all the details and to download the MP see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=42149488-ea72-4fc7-bdc6-b12ae03aeb89&displaylang=en
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
I know this isn't necessarily Operations Manager specific but I figured that some of you may still have some old Windows 2000 or Windows XP SP2 systems running out there and would appreciate the heads up.
As the title says, Windows XP SP2, Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Professional are reaching End of Support (EOS) on July 13, 2010 (and Windows Vista RTM End of Support is on April 13, 2010). This means that regular Microsoft support and free access to security updates will come to an end for those products on those dates.
To help with planning your migration strategy to Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2, we have the Windows 2000 End-of-Support Solution Center which is a fantastic place to start. It has information on planning your move, migrating clients and server roles, Small Business Server, Application Compatibility and much much more. It's a definite must-see site and you can check out all the details at http://support.microsoft.com/win2000.
For more information see the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy.
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
The folks on the System Center Essentials team just announced the availability of the SCE 2010 RC over on their blog:
We’re very happy to announce that the Release Candidate of Essentials 2010 is now available.
The download package is in 4 self-extracting files which need to be unpacked to the same folder (e.g. c:\Essentials). The total download size is about 5GB.
Once you have downloaded the RC and extracted the installation image, double click on the SetupSCE.exe and install.
Note 1: If you currently have the Beta of Essentials 2010 installed you will need to uninstall the Beta before installing the RC.
Note 2: If you currently use Essentials 2007 you will not be able to upgrade to Essentials 2010 RC.
For all the details see http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenteressentials/archive/2010/01/20/essentials-2010-release-candidate-now-available.aspx
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
The article below came out today from Paul Ross, Group Product Marketing Manager for System Center. If you're curious what exactly Opalis is or if you simply want to learn more, the four videos mentioned below will give you a great head start on how Opalis IT Process Automation can add value to your datacenter:
As announced in December, Opalis is now part of the System Center family . We are really excited about the value that the Opalis IT Process Automation can deliver to our customer’s datacenter environment. Since the acquisition closed we’ve had lot of interest in the product, and a lot of questions as to what Opalis actually does. To help answer some of these questions friend of the System Center blog Giampiero De Ciantis, Microsoft Program Manager, has put together four video demos to walk you through a tour of Opalis’ capabilities….
To continue reading and to see the videos check out http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2010/01/19/so-what-exactly-is-opalis.aspx
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
Just a quick FYI that the folks on Operations Manager product team are looking for some feedback on how you author custom Management Packs for System Center Operations Manager 2007, as well as areas where they can improve. It should only take a few minutes so if you get a chance please take this survey to help guide future authoring features and capabilities:
http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2010/01/15/management-pack-authoring-survey.aspx
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
On a computer that is running Terminal Services, when you try to use a push operation to install the Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 Agent the operation may time out, therefore the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Agent is not installed successfully.
You may also receive an error message that resembles the following:
The MOM Server could not execute WMI Query "Select * from Win32_Environment where NAME='PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE'" on computer "computername".
Operation: Agent Install
Error Code: 80004005
Error Description: Unspecified error
If you're getting this error then we talk about it in a new Knowledge Base article we published last week:
KB978360 - A push installation of the Operations Manager 2007 agent on a computer that is running Terminal Services fails
Spoiler alert: The resolution is to install the agent manually, but at least the KB will give you some insight into why it may happen.
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
Just an FYI on a new KB we published today that's proven to be fairly popular:
Symptom: MOM 2005 Reports with an end date of 01/01/2010 or later result in incorrect date values on the X-axis.
Cause: This is due to the SC_DateDimension_table in the SystemCenterReporting DB not containing dates past 01/01/2010.
We have a script to fix it here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2012828
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
I've been out for a while due to the winter break so I'm still trying to get caught up on all the things I've missed, and part of that includes all the new Knowledge Base articles we published over the last few weeks. There are far too many to discuss each one individually but I've got the list below if you want to peruse it real quick. At least that way if you run into a similar issue maybe you'll remember you saw something about it here.
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KB978553 - There are no Office Communications Server 2007 events in the MOM 2005 Operator console
KB977574 - Error message in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 report: “The Dundas chart for Reporting Services report item is unavailable"
KB978357 - A computer may be listed in the Agent Managed pane of the Operations console in System Center Operations Manager 2007 with the same name as the gateway server that was just installed
KB978556 - Error message when you run Operations Manager 2007 R2: "The SSL certificate is signed by an unknown certificate authority"
KB978356 - You cannot install the Operations Manager 2007 Cross Platform Agent on a Linux host
KB978358 - Error message when you try to install System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, or you try to run the Scxsslconfig command-line utility on a Linux-based server: "Failed to get random data - not enough entropy"
KB978361 - Data in a Service Level Tracking report does not appear as expected in Operations Manager 2007 R2
KB978359 - E-mail notification messages are not sent when you use the "With specific text in description" option in Operations Manager 2007 R2 or in Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1
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J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
Just a quick heads up to let you know about a known issue you may run into after upgrading to System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2. After you upgrade from Operations Manager 2007 SP1 to Operations Manager 2007 R2, alert descriptions that are formatted with HTML tags such as the <br> or <hr> tag are not displayed correctly.
In previous versions of Operations Manager, the alert description was parsed as an HTML page. In Operations Manager 2007 R2, the ability to format alert descriptions by using HTML tags was removed due to security issues; the HTML tags are now shown as text.
In Operations Manager 2007 R2, you can use carriage returns directly within the alert description instead of the HTML tags.
We've updated the TechNet documentation/Release Notes to reflect this as well:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd827187.aspx
J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer
