Patrick Egloff's WebLog

Announcing Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 Beta 2

Microsoft just announced the public availability of System Center Operations Manager 2007 Beta 2. This is the first beta of the new verison of MOM "going public".

You can read the Beta 2 FAQs @ http://www.microsoft.com/mom/evaluation/beta/opsmgrfaq.mspx or go directly to the download page @ http://connect.microsoft.com/programdetails.aspx?ProgramDetailsID=500

Please note that you will need to fill-out a short survey but should then get access to the beta bits immediately after.

More to come ...

Patrick

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Worldwide Soccer "Fever"

Something not really related to the standard topics on this blog (although some similarity to MOM is there by the fact that it is important to always know what is going on in both operations management and here):

The soccer worldcup is just a few days away. For those who haven't seen the Microsoft Soccer Scoreboard: Have a look here

You might wonder why I didn't post this earlier. The reason is simple: There was a small bug regarding the start times which has now been fixed. So: Download it and stay informed!

Patrick

P.S. GO SWITZERLAND!

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Network Information Management Pack Membership

Following-up on my post from last week: The limit for project members has been extended for the Network Connection Information MOM Management Pack on gotdot.net.

Existing requests will be granted soon and new requests can placed as before.

Patrick

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Network Connection Information MP Project FULL

Wow, I am amazed in the interested in my Network Connection Information MOM Management Pack on gotdot.net

It's one of the top projects in the MOM group, and I have reached the default project member limit.
Therefore: Applications for project membership can't be approved at the moment, but they will be kept in the queue. I'll try to get the limit extended as soon as possible.

Also: If you just wan't to download the MP and use it you don't have to become a project member.
Project members get the benefit of being able to file bugs, work on future versions of the MP and have notifications being sent on any news. So if you want to join: Please do so!

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Some Blog Links

Sorry if it has been rather quiet here - I'm pretty busy supporting a local telco preparing the public launch of the IPTV Edition of Microsoft TV (more on that in the near future)

For those wanting some recommendations on blogs I check daily:

• Microsoft Switzerland Security Blog (http://blogs.technet.com/ms_schweiz_security_blog/)
  My colleagues Roger and Urs blooging on the latest security topics
  
• Swiss IT Professional & TechNet Blog (http://blogs.technet.com/chitpro/)
  Lots of news for the ITPro audience
  
• MOM Product Team Blog (http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/)
  The latest and greatest directly from the product team in Redmond
  
• Andrzej's "IT Thoughts" Weblog (http://blogs.technet.com/alipka/)
  Fellow Microsoft Consulting services member Andrzej posting on MOM and other IT management topics
  
• Windows PowerShell (http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/)
  Lately renamed from "Monad" - very active blog on this great new technology, heavily used by the next releases of MOM and Exchange (amongst others)

Patrick

BTW: I use Windows Live Beta for this - and Outlook 2007 as soon as my notebook is ready for it!

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MMS Day 2 Announcements

The second day of the Microsoft Management Summit kicked-off with Kirill Tatarinov key note, looking back on what we have achieved in Microsoft System Center product line so far and what's on the roadmap for the next 18 months

You can watch a replay of his speech @ http://www.microsoft.com/winme/0604/27755/MMS_Conference_MBR.asx

Patrick

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MMS Day 1 Announcements

The Microsoft Management Summit opened earlier today in San Diego.

You can watch Bob Muglia's key note @ http://www.microsoft.com/winme/0604/27755/MMS_Conference_General_Session_Keynote_MBR.asx

He's key note was all around the following four promises:

• Advance the Business with IT Solutions
• Manage Complexity, Achieve Agility
• Protect Information, Control Access
• Amplify the Impact of Your People

And for those looking for the accouncements made:

• Official names for upcoming products
  MOM ‘V3’ becomes System Center Operations Manager 2007 and SMS ‘V4’ will be named System Center Configuration Manager 2007
  
• New products
  We announced the intention to deliver an offering in the Service Desk arena – codename System Center ‘Service Desk’
  
• Now RTM
  System Center Reporting Manager 2006 is released to manufacturing (RTM)

The press release for these announcements is available @ http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/apr06/04-25Management.mspx

Patrick

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MOM Hints & Tipps: Multiple View Panes

Like to view as much information as possible in the MOM Operator Console? Need to view event data at the same time as performance data?

The MOM Operator console allows you to have multiple view panes - a future I've not seen used too often. Either because it's useful on large screens only ot because it was not known.

Open the "File" menu, select "Console Settings" and adjust the number of View Panes

Confirm the settings with OK and allow the console to refresh.

A console with two view panes would look something like this:

Patrick

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Microsoft Management Summit 2006

The Microsoft Management Summit 2006 is coming up soon.

The event takes place April 24-28 in sunny San Diego, CA and registration is open @ https://www.mms2006.com/

Having worked at our booth last year in Las Vegas, I can highly recommend attending MMS to anyone interested in Microsoft's Management products, technologies and solutions. Besides having the possibility to choose from over 100 technical breakout session you can get hands-on experience in one of the labs, connect with peers or have a chat with Microsoft experts or one of our partners in the Expo.

Unfortunately I won't be able to be there this year, but if you're a Swiss customer and interested to meet some of my Swiss colleagues attending, drop me a note.

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MOM: Featured Group on gotdotnet.com

Maybe not new to some of you but still worth mentioning from time to time: There is a featured group on MOM 2005 on gotdotnet.com.

Here's the direct Link

Any since yesterday my Network Information Management Pack is listed there as well.
Thanks to everyone who has downloaded it so far and keep the comments coming.

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Updated Network Connection Information MOM Management Pack

Just a quick note: There's an updated version of the Network Connection Information MOM Management Pack available on gotdotnet.com which fixes a minor bug with WINS server detection and changes the schedule to update the information every 12 hours.

MOM Network Information Management Pack

Knowing details about network connections on your servers can be important in various scenarios. Did you ever ask yourself "Hmm, could it be that wrong DNS servers configured on this adapter could cause these problems?" or something similar?

MOM already comes with a "IP Configuration" task - but it has some limitations like only MOM Admins being able to execute the task, a quite cumbersome way to get access to the output and limited configuration information.

This whole topic come up - once more - during a recent consulting engagement and so I decided to put something together to make this available in the "Roles" tab in the MOM Operator Console.

The complete Management Pack is available on gotdotnet.com and can be downloaded for free. As always: Everything is provided provided "AS IS" with no warranties.

Check out the Network Connection Information MOM Management Pack Project Homepage for more details.

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MOM Hints & Tipps: The Roles Tab

A great feature in the MOM Operations Console which often get's overlooked: The Roles tab

You can get a lot of useful information for a specific computer out of this tab.
What is available depends on the management packs installed and their implementation of it.

To access it, perform the following steps in the operator console:

1. Select "Computers and Groups" in the left pane of the console
2. Switch the display to show computers by clicking on "Computers"
3. Select a specific computer
4. Switch to the Roles tab in the lower right / middle pane

You can substitute the first two steps by anything that get's you to the computer list display (like right-clicking on an alert and selecting "View", "Computers" as an example)

Patrick

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Swiss Microsoft Systems Management Event 2006

Today our local Swiss Systems Management Event 2006 took place at the World Trade Center in Zurich.

With more than 100 attendees, the event was a broad success. Besides presentations on our Dynamic Systems Initiative (giving by my colleage Markus Klein) a lot of our partners presented their solutions and showed how they can add value to our Management Products.

I did a presentation on our System Center products, including:

• System Center Data Protection Manager
• System Center Capacity Planner
• System Center Reporting Mananger

With only 45 minutes to introduce all these products there was not much chance to go into broad details. Nevertheless the presentations seems to have made some attendees interested in hearing more and there were some interesting conversation during our Mini-Expo throughout the day. My presentation can be downloaded at http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/1/2/11225e83-0444-4620-9a81-8d76f34b4237/Microsoft.ppt

Want to see what you've missed? Check out http://www.microsoft.com/switzerland/technet/de/event_systemsManagement.mspx

Let me know if you'd like to see such events in the future ...

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Sign-up for the Swiss Systems Management Event 2006

Have you heard of our Swiss Systems Management Event 2006?

If not, check out our website at http://www.microsoft.com/switzerland/technet/de/event_systemsManagement.mspx.

This full day event will take place on February 22, 2006 in the World Trade Center in Zurich.

We will start with an introduction to our Dynamic Systems Initiative (presented by my Swiss colleague Markus Klein) and the continue with a 45min session on the new System Center products (with me as the presenter).

I can already tell you that it will be a session packed with demos on these products:

• System Center Data Protection Manager
• System Center Capacity Planner
• System Center Reporting Mananger

There rest of day our partner will be presenting their solutions and how they can add great value to our products in the Systems and Operations Management space.
There will also be a Mini-Expo with booths from Microsoft and partners, and you will have the chance to further discuss your interestes with us.

I hope to see many of you Wednesday in a week.

Patrick