Configuration Manager OEM Deployment Packs

I wanted to get a note out to you about our recent efforts at integrating OEM specific deployment customizations into the powerful OS Deployment features in ConfigMgr.  The OEM Deployment Packs provide the ability to extend the capabilities within the OS Deployment feature, namely the Task Sequencer, to support specific hardware elements of some industry leading server manufacturers.  Built on the ConfigMgr SDK, these are extremely powerful extensions for your server builds to incorporate.  Below is a summary of each of the currently released versions, with a link to their downloads.

Dell
The Dell Deployment Pack (DDP) is an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI)-based tool that integrates directly into the Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 (ConfigMgr) console. It eliminates the need for command-line tools and scripts normally used in the Dell™ OpenMange™ Deployment Toolkit (DTK) software. To configure and deploy your Dell systems, you need to select configuration options and commands on the GUI using drop-down lists and check boxes (see "Using The Dell Deployment Pack"). These selections make your system deployment an easy, automated task.  Download link

HP
The Deployment Pack for HP is packaged into their ‘HP Insight Control suite for System Center’.  The HP Insight Control suite for Microsoft System Center (ICE-SC) includes HP Integration software to help you create the best run ProLiant server infrastructure in a Microsoft System Center ecosystem. Insight Control for System Center uses an integrated installer to deploy and configure the ICE-SC components with Microsoft System Center software quickly and accurately. Each wizard based installer allows you to predefine installation and configuration preferences, and then install each component in a single integrated process with minimal intervention.  Download link.

IBM
The IBM® Deployment Pack for Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager 2007, v1.0 provides the ability for the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 site server to deploy RAID configurations and operating system images on IBM servers. The product is commonly referred to as the IBM Deployment Pack, while Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 is commonly referred to as Configuration Manager.  Download Link.

Sun
The Sun Deployment Pack 1.0 for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 provides a solution for quickly and easily authoring Sun hardware-specific task sequences for operating system deployment using Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007. This pack seamlessly integrates a custom task sequence action into SCCM, which enables you to easily configure your Sun x64 server hardware as part of an overall operating system deployment.  Download link

 

Kind regards

JWSMALLJeff Wettlaufer
Sr. Technical Product Manager
System Center

e – jeff.wettlaufer@microsoft.com
imageimage- jeffwettlaufer

Posted 30 June 09 11:07 by jeffwettlaufer | 0 Comments   
System Center Alliance on Nexus SC



A warm welcome to the many readers of this blog from the System Center Alliance team.

You many have seen mention of the System Center Alliance – either online or a the Microsoft Management Summit – but for many people this may be the first time you have heard of it.

The System Center Alliance was announced in Barcelona, Spain in November 2007 at TechEd IT Forum as part of the launch activities for the current generation of System Center products.

Today Microsoft also launched the System Center Alliance program, which establishes an online community to help technology partners more easily collaborate on and create offerings that extend the management capabilities of System Center solutions to Microsoft and non-Microsoft applications and platforms. It also provides customers with a diverse directory of offerings that can help them reduce their overall IT management costs, improve application availability and enhance service delivery.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/nov07/11-12DesktopDatacenterPR.mspx

The goal of this partner program is simple. To create, nurture and grow a strong partner eco-system around System Center products. Our intent is that this Microsoft and partner community will deliver the best set of management solutions in the industry.

So why does this matter?

For customers – it means that your investment in System Center products is safe. You can see that partners are integrating and extending System Center Configuration Manager; adding new features, extending its reach into new areas. Other partners are providing Management Packs for Systems Center Operations Manager – allowing you to get pro-active health, status and remediation for your business critical IT infrastructure. It means that Microsoft is working with your hardware partner to better enable Windows Server and Windows Vista deployment, management and health on their hardware platforms.

For partners – it provides access to knowledge and technologies to fast-track your integration. It allows you to build on the great success and widely deployed platform that is Systems Center. As a partner you can focus on innovation rather than ‘plumbing’.

In my next post I will describe the benefits and interactions with a partner in more detail. I hope this gives partners renewed energy to engage; for IT Pros and customers I hope it is both enlightening and informative.

 

blog-signature

Written at: Issaquah, WA

Posted 30 June 09 05:59 by SystemCenterTeam | 0 Comments   
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System Center Partner news from Microsoft Management Summit

I posted this a couple of months ago on my TechNet blog – I will repost it here for broader readership.

 

blog-signature

Written at: Issaquah, WA

 

[Originally posted – 19 May 2009]

Microsoft Management Summit was a week or so ago in Las Vegas – we had dozens of partners put out Press Releases detailing their integrations and extensions to the System Center platform.

 

1E

www.1e.com

1E LOWERS THE COST ON MANAGING WINDOWS ENVIRONMENTS THROUGH AUTOMATION, REDUCED INFRASTRUCTURE AND POWER MANAGEMENT

http://www.1e.com/Downloads/Articles/PressRelease/PressReleaseMMS_ReleaseFinal.pdf

 

Acresso

www.acresso.com

AdminStudio Delivers First to Market Direct Conversion to Microsoft App-V Format, Dramatically Reducing Implementation Time

http://www.acresso.com/company/newscenter/pressreleases/press-releases_9958.htm

 

Adaptiva

www.adaptiva.com

Adaptiva Launches Green Planet to Address PC Power Management Adoption

 

AMD

www.amd.com

AMD Joins Microsoft® System Center Alliance

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543_15944~131122,00.html

 

Blue Coat

www.bluecoat.com

Blue Coat Joins Microsoft System Center Alliance and Participates in Microsoft Management Summit

http://www.bluecoat.com/news/pr/2838

 

BridgeWays

www.bridgeways.ca

BridgeWays Launches Broad Product Line to Extend Microsoft Systems Center Support of Cross-Platform Applications Monitoring

http://www.bridgeways.ca/bw_MMS09_PR.php

 

Emulex

www.emulex.com

Emulex LightPulse HBAs and CNAs Supported in New Microsoft System Center Solutions

http://www.emulex.com/resources/press-releases/2009/list/apr-28-2009-emulex-lightpulse-hbas-and-cnas-supported-in-new-microsoft-system-center-solutions.html

 

EView

www.eview-tech.com

EView Technology extends capabilities of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 to include enterprise operations of the IBM OS/400 (iSeries-AS/400) server environments

 

F5 Networks

www.f5.com

F5 Delivers Enhanced Application Visibility and Management Capabilities for Microsoft’s Dynamic Data Center Initiative

http://www.f5.com/news-press-events/press/2009/20090428b.html

 

FullArmor

www.fullarmor.com

FullArmor ProvisionPortal Enables Federated Management of Microsoft Hyper-V Applications across the Cloud

FullArmor AppPortal Delivers Cloud-based Deployment and Management of App-V Virtual Applications

http://www.fullarmor.com/pr_04292009/news-press-release-detail.htm

 

HERMES SoftLab

www.hermes-softlab.com

HERMES SoftLab releases Management Pack for Citrix XenServer for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007

http://hermes-softlab.com/news/pr/Management_Pack_Citrix_XenServer_Oracle_Siebel_Microsoft.html

 

HP

www.hp.com

HP and Microsoft Join Forces to Deliver Industry-First Management Capabilities

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2009/090428c.html

 

Lieberman Software

www.liebsoft.com

Lieberman Software Announces Integration with Microsoft Systems

http://www.liebsoft.com/www.liebsoft.com/4.0/Pages/Press_Releases/Lieberman_Software_Announces_Integration_with_Microsoft_System_Center/

 

Lumension

www.lumension.com

Lumension Extends its Leading Device Control Solution to Enhance Data and Endpoint Security for Microsoft System Center Customers

http://www.lumension.com/nwr_pressReleasesDetails.jsp?id=155343&metadataId=155343

 

Opalis

www.opalis.com/microsoft

OPALIS DELIVERS ORCHESTRATION AND INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION FOR MICROSOFT SYSTEM CENTER

http://www.opalis.com/upload/pressreleases/OpalisMMS.pdf

 

Provance

www.provance.com

PROVANCE INTRODUCES TWO NEW IT ASSET MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS FOR MICROSOFT SYSTEM CENTER

http://www.provance.com/en/Company/News/20090429.html

 

Quest

www.quest.com

QUEST SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES CONTINUED SUPPORT FOR THE MICROSOFT SYSTEM CENTER PLATFORM

http://www.quest.com/newsroom/news-releases-show.aspx?contentid=9542

 

Sanbolic

www.sanbolic.com

Sanbolic’s Clustered File System Supports Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2

http://www.sanbolic.com/pdfs/Sanbolic_Press_Release_SCVMM_2008R2.pdf

 

SecureVantage

www.securevantage.com

Secure Vantage Adds Unix, Linux, Cisco and Virtualization For Cost-Effective Enterprise Data Center Compliance and Auditing Solutions Using System Center

http://www.securevantage.com/News/2009_04_MMS2009.aspx

 

Silect

www.silect.com

Silect Software Improves IT Efficiency with New Management Solutions for Microsoft System Center Suite

http://assets.silect.com/Resources/pdfs/Silect_MMS09PR_approved.pdf

 

Tripwire

www.tripwire.com

TRIPWIRE UNVEILS SYSTEMS CENTER OPERATIONS MANAGEER R2-READY DATA CENTER COMPLIANCE SOLUTION AT 2009 MICROSOFT MANAGEMENT SUMMIT

http://www.tripwire.com/news/press-releases/press-release.cfm?prid=433

 

Verdiem

www.verdiem.com

VERDIEM ANNOUNCES PC POWER MANAGEMENT PACK FOR MICROSOFT SYSTEM CENTER CONFIGURATION MANAGER 2007

http://www.verdiem.com/news-press/press-detail.aspx?prid=42

Posted 30 June 09 10:43 by SystemCenterTeam | 0 Comments   
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IT survey finds 'Cost Reduction through Consolidation' as biggest systems management challenge

Hi, my name is Patrick O'Rourke. I typically blog over at the Microsoft Virtualization team blog, but wanted to share the following survey findings with this community today. See a summary of the survey results here.

First, here's some background on the survey:

The survey was conducted online among 1,200 IT decision-makers at enterprise and SMB organizations in the U.S. (n=308), U.K. (n=310), Germany (n=281) and Japan (n=301) by Harris Interactive on behalf of Microsoft between April 9 and May 5, 2009. No estimates of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

Here's an excerpt from today's news release:

While many information technology (IT) professionals are investing in specific areas of IT infrastructure, 55 percent say the economy has changed the role of IT and 51 percent say that budget constraints are the biggest barrier to their innovation, according to a new study commissioned by Microsoft Corp. and conducted by Harris Interactive. The study results indicate that IT professionals in the U.S. are devoting less budget to innovation than their counterparts in the U.K., Japan and Germany.

Of the four countries included in the study, the recession appears to make the biggest impact on IT innovation in the U.S. IT managers in Japan and the U.K. indicate they will devote 41 percent of their budgets toward innovation versus “keeping the lights on,” or maintaining current systems. IT professionals in Germany plan to invest 35 percent, while their counterparts in the U.S. plan to spend only 29 percent on innovation. On average, IT professionals across all four countries say they will allocate 37 percent of their budgets to innovation in 2009. Only 22 percent of IT professionals cite giving the business a competitive edge as their current top priority.

Specific to systems management, we asked the question "what are your challenges with IT systems management?" Cost reduction through consolidation is the biggest challenge (45%) for IT pros. Several of the top issues, such as cost reduction, governance/compliance, and operational silos, are significantly greater challenges in enterprise and SMB organizations. 

Some other relevant survey findings to this community:

  • The top measures of success for IT professionals are practical ones:
    •  network security (79% rate as mostly or extremely important)
    • customer satisfaction (also 79%)
  • Security is the #1 challenge in managing infrastructure for both enterprise and SMB organizations (60%). Other potential pitfalls, such as uptime, resource utilization or systems management, don't rise above 45% of IT pros.
  • The survey found that 84% of IT professionals consider green factors when making datacenter decisions, but that this factor plays into the final decision for only 44% of those organizations. However, the survey also found that nearly all IT professionals will maintain or increase investments in technologies that help them go green, which suggests there may still be some confusion on what it means to “go green.”
  • Protection of customer and company data (73%) is the top security priority for IT decision-makers over the next 1 to 3 years.  The #2 priority during that time period is security systems management (65%).

  • Nearly 2/3 see the current economy as an opportunity for more investment in 1 or more techs.

    • 42% plan increased investment in virtualization

    • 36% plan increased investment in security

    • 24% plan increased investment in systems management 

Along these lines, InformationWeek ran an article today about Nissan (in the U.S.) shifting manufacturing and assembly plant costs through IT consolidation with Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center Ops Manager and SCVMM. Here's an excerpt:

Over the course of a year, the engineers at Nissan's vehicle manufacturing plants in Smyrna and Dercherd, Tenn., have implemented virtualization to consolidate 159 servers used in assembly and component manufacturing down to 28.

 

The consolidation is impressive, not only for its scale, but for the fact that it's been carried out by manufacturing and quality assurance specialists outside the regular Nissan IT department. None of the servers involved were considered part of the business information services function, said Phil D'Antonio, department manager over conveyors and controls engineering in Nissan's Smyrna plant.

 

The consolidation has lead to a 34% savings in computer electricity consumption at the Smyrna plant, where preliminary measures have been made. "At Nissan, we're a (U.S. Dept. of Energy) Energy Star partner. It's very important to us to us to conserve energy and protect the environment," D'Antonio said.

 

Slipher said Nissan's priority isn't increasing the virtual machine count per server but bringing a similar level of virtualization to its Canton, Miss., assembly plant, where Quest minivans, Armada SUVs and Titan pick-ups are produced, as well as Altimas. The Smyrna and Canton plants together have a capacity of 950,000 vehicles a year, he said.

I hope you find these results informative to your business and career.

 

Patrick

Posted 23 June 09 05:43 by SystemCenterTeam | 0 Comments   
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System Center Configuration Manager Extensions for SCAP Update

Hi everyone, as you may have heard, we are releasing a Solution Accelerator that will attain certification for ConfigMgr as an SCAP-validated tool with FDCC scanning capability.  If you or someone you know works in a US government agency – you are aware that those organizations are required to have an SCAP validated tool for ensuring adherence to the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC).  This project will achieve this certification for ConfigMgr, and its in beta now, ahead of schedule for release.

This free add on to ConfigMgr will consume the SCAP data streams, assess a target system for compliance, and report the results back in SCAP format.  There are a series of validation tests that have to be passed before certification is official.  I wanted to get you an update on that testing.

The testing has gone extremely well.  The formal submission to testing consists of both product and documentation specified by NIST that describes how our solution implements their long list of requirements.  The testing is being done by an external service, called ATSEC.  With the exception of 1 small change to our documentation, we have achieved 100% compliancy scans for both XP and Vista FDCC settings.  This is a significant milestone to achieve, and shows great progress and in fact an ‘ahead of schedule’ progress to date.

We are not approved yet.  There are some additional tests required, but the heavy lifting is done.  All signs right now point to very successful results, and an on time or earlier release.  Look to the Configuration Manager homepage, or your local Microsoft Account Team for updates, and release to web information (RTW).

Links that you may find useful:

System Center Configuration Manager site
Download the SCAP extensions here from  the Microsoft Connect Site
NIST's SCAP website
NIST's SCAP Requirements

Take care

JWSMALL Jeff Wettlaufer
Sr. Technical Product Manager
System Center
e jeff.wettlaufer@microsoft.com
twitter/facebook jeffwettlaufer

Posted 18 June 09 08:48 by SystemCenterTeam | 1 Comments   
System Center Configuration Manager Service Pack 2 Public Beta

Hi everyone, we have released our Service Pack 2 beta onto Connect!  You can find access to the download here.  What’s in the SP2 beta?  Quite a bit actually, here are some details.

Service Pack 2 for Configuration Manager 2007 delivers new platform support for Windows 7 client, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2.  In addition, Service Pack 2 delivers continued innovation with Intel vPro technology, support for Branch Cache enabled environments, and continued development for 64 bit architectures.  You can access more information and the beta download here. 

New Operating System Support

· Windows 7
· Windows Vista Sp2
· Windows Server 2008 R2
· Windows Server 2008 SP2

(Intel) Active Management Technology Integration – Version 2

Configuration Manager 2007 Service Pack 2 will improve on the Intel AMT (iAMT) integration provided in Service Pack 1. SP2 will add full feature support for computers that have the Intel vPro chip set and iAMT firmware versions 4 & 5. In addition to providing feature parity with SP1 and iAMT firmware versions 3.2.1, 4.0 and 5.0, support for the below new features are being added:

· OOB Wireless Management: Wireless Profile Management (mobile ONLY)
· End Point Access Control: 802.1x support
· Access Monitor: Audit Log
· Remote Power Management: Power State Configuration

Asset Intelligence Certificate Requirement Removal

With the release of Configuration Manager Service Pack 1, Asset Intelligence v1.5 was introduced.  This version allowed customers to configure an online synchronization to ensure that their catalog was up to date with the latest Microsoft inventory for both hardware and applications.  This initial release required a certificate.  With Service Pack 2, the requirement to have the certificate has been removed, so any customer may configure their Asset Intelligence capabilities to connect online and update their catalog.  Software Assurance is not required for this. 

64bit Architecture Development

Service Pack 2 will also continue to deliver new support for x64 architectures, including the following:

· X64 support for Operations Manager 2007 Client Agent
· Update to Management Pack for 64-bit OS’s – SP2 will ship 64-bit perf counters (MP is a separate release)
· Remote control support added for x64 XP  and x64 Server 2003

Improved Client Policy Evaluation

· Faster policy processing
· Faster execution of software distribution configured to run at user logon

Branch Cache Support

· Support for scenarios where Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Client are present and Branch Cache is enabled

JWSMALL Jeff Wettlaufer
Sr. Technical Product Manager
System Center

Posted 18 June 09 07:34 by SystemCenterTeam | 1 Comments   
Server Infrastructure exec discusses state of IT, answers your questions on June 23

Hi Patrick here with a quick heads-up about an upcoming teleconference that might be of interest.

Are you interested in hearing about how other IT pros are reacting to economic conditions and where they’re investing?

Do you have questions about Microsoft’s efforts to help IT depts be more cost effective and deliver new solutions to business? Want to hear how IT pros are invetsing in virtualization relative to cloud computing? What is Microsoft doing in enterprise security?

 

On Tuesday, June 23 from 10:30am-11am Pacific, join a teleconference with Bob Kelly, corporate VP of Infrastructure Server Marketing. You might remember Bob from the Day 1 keynote at MMS 2009. Bob will talk about the state of IT within the context of results from a new Harris Interactive study of 1,200 IT professionals from the U.S., United Kingdom, Japan and Germany. The study was commissioned by Microsoft. There will be time for Bob to answer your questions following a brief presentation. You can submit questions over the phone, or you can submit them at any time leading up to or during the teleconference by tweeting with the Twitter hashtag, #qs4ms.

 

If you are interested in attending, please REGISTER NOW. Once you open the invite box, you can save and close to your calendar.

 

Patrick

 

Posted 18 June 09 05:49 by SystemCenterTeam | 0 Comments   
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New Exchange 2007 Management Pack for Ops Mgr 2007 R2 Available!

[Updated June 17th: Corrected comment on Ops Mgr 2007 R2 trial length - is 180 days, not 160.  Thanks Cleber!] 

Utilizing some of the new capabilities in Operations Manager 2007 R2, such as PowerShell hosting and new monitoring templates, the new Exchange 2007 MP for Operations Manager 2007 R2 is now available for download from the System Center Catalog, as well as via the new web-service catalog from which Ops Mgr 2007 R2 can download MPs.

To highlight some of the key enhancements of this MP over its predecessors:

  • Full, native implementation of the management pack, leveraging the latest capabilities offered in Ops Mgr 2007 R2, (e.g., basing health rollups on factors such as synthetic transactions, not just on component health, enabling alerting and response based on end-user impact).
  • 60% reduction in noise-based alerts, enhanced by allowing the user to enable only the monitors and alerts that they require (as opposed to delivering the MP with all monitors turned on, whether needed or not).
  • Integration with the Exchange BPA, providing a summary alert for deviations per Exchange Server.
  • New wizard-driven monitoring templates simplify the ability to create synthetic transactions against Outlook Web Access (OWA), Exchange ActiveSync, Web Service, POP3 and/or IMAP.
  • Visualization of synthetic transactions, allow rapid identification of where issues exist.
  • Over 30 new/enhanced availability and performance reports against Service Level Objectives help identify alignment of service delivery against service targets.
  • Full support for Microsoft Clustered configurations.

Note that this MP is designed to work on Ops Mgr 2007 R2, the RTM of which we announced in May 2009 (see details here).  Customers can download a 180-day, fully functional trial of Ops Mgr 2007 R2 today.

 

Sacha

Posted 15 June 09 06:38 by sdawes | 1 Comments   
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Webcast today – how to manage DPM in large enterprises

SysCnt-DataProMgr07_h_rgb 

Later today, we’ll be delivering a TechNet webcast on managing System Center Data Protection Manager in large enterprises.  Essentially, there are three things we want to cover:

Using PowerShell to automate tasks across DPM servers

Using the DPM management pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007

Using Bocada’s Centralized Manager for DPM 2007

To watch the webcast, live or on-demand, please go to

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032412446

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 1:00 PM Pacific Time (US & Canada)

Posted 10 June 09 09:09 by JasonBuffington | 0 Comments   
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Announcing new DPM 2007 SP1 training course 50213A

SysCnt-DataProMgr-2007

Now available through Microsoft training partners -- classroom-based training on System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 with SP1.

http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/syllabi/50213A.aspx

About this Course

This two-day instructor-led course provides students with the knowledge and skills to implement Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007.  The course is intended for IT professionals who are responsible for installing and configuring DPM 2007, and for using DPM 2007 to protect data and applications.

After completing this course, students will be able to:

  • Describe Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007
  • Describe the prerequisite requirements and Install DPM 2007 servers
  • Perform post-installation configuration tasks
  • Protect & Recover SQL Server data with DPM 2007
  • Protect & Recover Exchange Server data with DPM 2007
  • Protect & Recover SharePoint data with DPM 2007
  • Protect & Recover virtualized environments with DPM 2007
  • Monitor DPM 2007
  • Prepare for and perform disaster recovery in DPM 2007

This course uses the newest delivery vehicle from Microsoft Learning – CourseWare Library (CWL) … which means that it is very easy for Microsoft training partners to download and offer – usually at a significantly reduced cost compared with Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC). 

For more detail on the training, check out the link above – or my blog post on how you can get ready for this training and the upcoming DPM certification exam.

-- Jason / DPM prod. mgr

Posted 04 June 09 09:09 by JasonBuffington | 1 Comments   
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Deploying or Upgrading to Operations Manager 2007 R2

Many questions have been coming in regarding the process and steps that customers will need to follow to upgrade or install Operations Manager 2007 R2.

As indicated in my last blog post that announced the RTM of (the English-only version of) Operations Manager 2007 R2, only the trial version of Operations Manager 2007 R2 can be downloaded before General Availability on July 1st.  There are a number of reasons for this delay, but essentially the biggest delay is caused by the fact that our RTM just missed the window for the June 1st MVLS posting, so July 1st is our first available option.

In the meantime, customers eager to deploy this latest version of Operations Manager can install the trial, and upgrade to the RTM bits when posted to the MVLS site!  [Note that customers currently running Ops Mgr 2007 SP1 or the RC will have to wait for the full RTM bits to be posted to MVLS ... upgrade to trial is not supported].  Details on the supported upgrade paths are shown in the following diagram:

Upgrade paths to Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2

For more details on deploying and upgrading your installation, check out the blog from my colleague Rob Kuefhus, who details a wealth of information on Changes to Supported Platforms, Upgrade Support, Agent Mixed Management Group Multi-homed Support, Upgrading from R2 Trial version to R2 RTM (or from RC to RTM), R2 Monitored Item Capacity changes from SP1, and New Supported Operations Systems for Agent.

Sacha

Posted 04 June 09 01:21 by sdawes | 0 Comments   
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Guest Blog Post - HP Delivers Industry-first Management Capabilities for Microsoft System Center

Today marks a significant milestone in HP’s 25+ year relationship with Microsoft. At Microsoft Management Summit, HP announced Insight Control suite for Microsoft System Center.  The first product of its kind, HP Insight Control suite for Microsoft System Center delivers the essential infrastructure management capabilities of Insight Control suite directly into the Microsoft System Center environment. 

Today, Insight Control suite for Microsoft System Center is now available.

HP Insight Control suite for Microsoft System Center enables Microsoft System Center customers to deploy, monitor, control, and optimize their HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystem platforms directly from Microsoft System Center products.  This enhanced visibility into the health of HP servers and server blades enables faster response to server failures, reducing the risk of downtime for both physical and virtual environments.  It also reduces deployment and update times and delivers greater control of server power to help IT organizations increase staff productivity and optimize use of power and cooling capacity.

HP Insight Control suite for Microsoft System Center delivers the following integrated capabilities:


•  Deploy servers quickly: Quickly and reliably configure, deploy and update HP ProLiant servers through Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, including pre-OS server configuration and firmware and driver update.
•  Proactively monitor health: Enable System Center Operations Manager and System Center Virtual Machine Manager to respond intelligently to hardware events, including automating virtual machine evacuation from distressed hardware.
•  Control from anywhere: Take control of servers regardless of location, reduce travel time, and accelerate server recovery by launching iLO Advanced directly from System Center Operations Manager.
•  Optimize power confidently: Up to triple data center capacity by safely capping power usage to fit more servers within existing power envelopes – without putting the electrical infrastructure at risk – with Insight Control power management.
•  Unmatched service levels: With HP Insight Control suite for Microsoft System Center, customers can take advantage of Insight Remote Support, advanced server monitoring built on HP Systems Insight Manager, that automatically forwards HP ProLiant and BladeSystem service events to HP call centers and tracks server warranty and support contract status.

 

HP Insight Control suite for Microsoft System Center includes a full year of 24/7 phone support, providing immediate access to qualified support staff and proactive delivery of software updates.  More information on HP ICE-SC is available at www.hp.com/go/ICESystemCenter.  And check out a video demonstration of HP Insight Control suite for Microsoft System Center here. 

 

Thanks – Scott


Scott Farrand

VP, Infrastructure Software & Blades

Hewlett Packard

Posted 02 June 09 06:00 by larrygrothaus | 9 Comments   
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Service Level Dashboard 2.0 for Operations Manager 2007 R2 now available

Picture2 The Service Level Dashboard Management Pack 2.0 for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 was delivered late last week by the Microsoft Solution Accelerators team, and is available for you to download today from the System Center Catalog.

Assisting you in tracking, managing, and reporting on your line-of-business (LOB) application service levels, the Service Level Dashboard displays a list of applications and their performance and availability against service level goals.

 

Download the SLD 2.0 here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=1d9d709f-9628-46a8-952b-a78f5dd2bdd9

 

About the Service Level Dashboard Management Pack 2.0

Using the information collected by Operations Manager 2007 R2, and leveraging the service level objectives that you can set against IT services and their components, this graphical dashboard presents detailed information through Microsoft SharePoint that helps customers:

  • Easily keep tabs on IT service health via the IT Service status header bar, which is customizable to show the IT services you wish to monitor.
  • Quickly identify components that may be falling away from their expected levels of service, helping head off problems before they occur.
  • View Mean Time To Repair (MTTR), Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), and application service level trends for each monitored component.
  • Leverage the familiar interface of SharePoint (either SharePoint Services 3.0 or Office SharePoint Server 2007) to share information with target audiences – all without having to grant access to, or train users on, the Operations Manager console.

To read more about this Solution Accelerator online at TechNet click here, or read more at our Operations Manager team blog.  Also watch our TechNet EDGE video blog that presents the dashboard as part of our overview on Operations Manager 2007 R2.

Sacha

Posted 27 May 09 12:32 by sdawes | 2 Comments   
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Operations Manager 2007 R2 hits RTM

Late yesterday the RTM of Operations Manager 2007 R2 was approved, which immediately initiated the next stage of the process ... getting this latest version of Microsoft's end-to-end monitoring product for IT environments and datacenters out to YOU!  Read more in our overview whitepaper, What's New datasheet, or download the trial, and see customer stories and more information on our pages on Microsoft.com and TechNet.

The trial version of Operations Manager 2007 R2 RTM (build 7221) is now available via the Microsoft Download Center.  General Availability of the product will be 1st July 2009, at which point new and existing customers will be able to obtain the bits from their respective customer download centers, such as MVLS.

In addition to the updated product documentation, our overview whitepaper, and what's new datasheet, newly released collateral includes a number of new datasheets that include:

Some of you have also have the opportunity to try our new hands on labs at our MMS and TechEd events this year, which cover topics such as installation, introduction, management pack authoring, and more.  We're busily upgrading these with the RTM bits, and they will be available for you to use via the TechNet Online virtual labs next month (June).


In addition to downloading the trial (or if you're waiting for the upgrade or full product bits to arrive in your customer portal):

 

How else can I extend and leverage Operations Manager 2007 R2?

  • Operations Manager 2007 R2 Interoperability Connectors provide the ability to synchronize alerts and status between Operations Manager 2007 R2 and other management systems. Beta connectors for Tivoli Enterprise Console, HP OpenView Operations, and the new Universal Connector can be obtained from the Operations Manager R2 download on Connect. Download the Interop Connectors from the System Center Catalog (available shortly).

  • Operations Manager 2007 R2 Visio Add-in delivers the ability to link status and health information gathered by Operations Manager 2007 R2 into normally-static Visio diagrams, adding life and interaction to those diagrams. Download it today from Microsoft Connect.

  • New Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack (MP) Beta, which provides enhancements over the current Exchange MP such as reducing alert noise and enhanced performance. Download it today from Microsoft Connect.

  • BridgeWays MP Beta Program, providing beta MPs for MySQL, Apache, and Oracle running on Windows, Linux or Solaris. For more information, and to register into the BridgeWays MP Beta Program, visit http://www.bridgeways.ca/bw_management-pack-beta-program-signup_form.php

 

We hope you enjoy this latest version of Operations Manager 2007 R2 as much as we had in putting it together!

Sacha

 
Posted 22 May 09 09:15 by sdawes | 9 Comments   
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MMS Windows 7 Deployment Keynote Demo, behind the scenes………

We thought it might  be cool to post a little background on the MMS Client keynote demo where we woke up 20 laptops in the audience over Wireless and migrated them from Windows XimageP to Windows 7.  We have had a ton of feedback that it was a unique demo, and many questions on how it was put together.  So, here goes, the backstage pass to how we did it.

The idea started back in November when we were asked ‘if you could do a keynote demo in Las Vegas for MMS, what would you do?’.  Brainstorming, we pitched a large red velvet curtained wall with a rack of 5000 clients staged behind it.  We pull back the curtain, wake them up and deploy Win7 to them.  It was a great idea, but the ‘Vegas’ scale was a little too big to put together. 

How about a more realistic scale, and make it a little more unique by placing them in the audience, was my next pitch.  Are you serious?  Use audience members in a keynote demo?  That sounds a little risky.  Wait, that’s an awesome idea, lets do it!

imageSo we kicked off the effort, and quickly realized we needed to show off some new and exciting things, as Windows deployment demos have been, well, done before.  Thinking about our latest technology development, we realized that it would be really cool to use the new Intel vPro integration in ConfigMgr Service Pack 2 to power control the laptops over wireless to start the demo, and then roll a Win7 deployment with user data live. 

Wait, you want to put laptops in the audience, and wake them up over wireless?  Hmm, what's your other idea?

Well, we teamed up with our friends at Intel, like Matt Royer, and got some serious OS Deployment experts involved in our OSD PM John Vintzel.  Between the 3 of us, we planned the demo together.  Intel hooked us up with all the hardware, including an HP 580 Server, and 25 Dell Latitude 6400 laptops, prepped with vPro v4 chipset technology and Intel SSD hard drives.  image

We started the demo build and flow in the mid Feb timeframe.  We had 2 VMs setup, 1 was a W2K8 DC, and the other was a ConfigMgr SP2 early build.  One of the problems we had was that SP2 for ConfigMgr is pre public beta, and so the daily builds were going through a lot of change.  For Windows 7 client support, we needed to use early SP2 builds, which did cause some small hiccups along the way with site DB and client interaction.  It worked, but we had to pay attention. :)  

The big part of a demo like this is not the actual demo process.  That has to work, no question, but the prep, and ‘rollback’ is actually more work.  We had to get the clients on XPSP3, with user data, managed at both the vPro and ConfigMgr levels, and then roll them to Win7 totally automated.  Once that was done, we had to roll back and do it again.  And again, and again etc.  So, a lot of work went into the XP build.  We also had to get the builds done and locked before we scaled it across all 20 laptops, as a mistake on 1 laptop is relatively easy to fix, but across 20 it takes time.   Joey and the Technet Edge guys came by when we were in Redmond and did a quick tour of the build out.  See it here.

We had to get the build locked, automated and absolutely reliable.  Once that was done, with a demo like this, where there is an exec to speak with, a live network to wake up, and an audience to interact with, timing was pretty critical.  In addition, we had to bring the MMS visitors a real demo, so this has to be a live deployment.  That’s where Win7 and the deployment tools like USMT v4 come in.  Over vPro wireless, we had the demo timed down to the seconds.  We had Dell BIOS power control fired over wireless within 6 seconds, OS boot splash by 15 seconds, XP desktop at 42 seconds, OS deployment kickoff by 1:20, USMT scan hardlinking complete by 3:50, OS Deploy ‘Apply OS stage’ at 5:37, PE reboot by 9:27 and a total Win7 complete by 19:30.  This was all important to know, because we intended to kick off the demo, and then come back on stage to show the result, both in the audience, and with the one I deployed on stage.  Live.

image Win7 deploys quicker than any OS previous.  It boots faster, gets you to the desktop quicker, and goes through its daily operations much more efficiently than any previous OS.  The Win7 deployment was pretty slick, but it got REALLY slick when we managed to get the user data part of the demo using USMT 4 hardlinking moving from XP to Win7.  Hardlinking is so cool, when enabled as a parameter on the command line, it scans the data where it resides, and leaves it there.  It doesn't move the data anywhere.  So, speed goes through the roof.  Our testing showed 1Gb of data timing at 90 seconds.  We actually had the conversation in the build stage of making it more realistic, as it was simply deploying too quickly.  We took the user data from 500Mb to 4Gb.  This added a couple of minutes to the entire demo, but really made the message resonate.  In a traditional situation, this would take hours.  4Gb up the wire, to a temp location and back down?  Not demoable, live, esp in a keynote.  With hardlinking, it was.  Here is the example I used in the keynote.  If you took 5000 PCs with 4Gb each, that's 20,000Gb of data you need to move up the network to a location, store it, and move it back down.  USMT hardlinking takes scan and copy times from hours to minutes, removes network storage completely, and optimizes network bandwidth by keeping data local.  That’s innovation.

So, we rolled the demo together, prepped it with Brad, and shipped the gear.  We held a few laptops back for dry runs and exec prep meetings, and to practice.  I also held back the wireless AP, as that thing was going to be hidden in the stage for the demo, and we had it setup just right.  I wasn't letting that thing out of my sight.  SEATAC security was pretty entertained by all the gear I had to pass through the x-ray, but it had to get there.  photo (4)

On site we had to setup everything again backstage.  Breakout all the laptops, get them talking to the servers, and start dry running again.  That was Sunday.  Our keynote was Wednesday.  We didnt see anything except back stage for 4 days.  Dry run dry run dry run.  Joey and the Technet Edge guys came by when we were backstage in Vegas and did a quick tour of the build out.  See it here.

Some vegas security experiences.  Some funny, some not so funny.  One of our laptop carriers (I had a few redmond guys carry some laptops over for us) woke up in his hotel room to his door ‘closing’.  He looked up, saw all his gear missing, wallet gone etc.  This included one of our demo laptops!  He called security, and they caught the guy!  Thank god for all those cameras.  The other storey was backstage.  We were right up against the loading docks, and as we were unpacking the laptops, this HUGE guy comes up, introduces himself as head of security and asks who owns the laptops.  He tells us to not let them out of our sight, the place was pretty unpredictable if you know what I mean.  So, all of a sudden we had to lock up 25 laptops.  The answer?  We found a cage, and borrowed some handcuffs from the night security and chained them up to a pole.  I know, we had to improvise………

photo (2) Demo day went really well.  We had the ‘Woodgrove Accounting Department’ meet us at 730AM to collect the laptops and get briefed.  Most had been to bed :).  The accounting department was made up of MVPs, MS Field, Some Partners, and some Redmond Product Team.  They were ready to go, and promised to keep the power cables plugged in :)  The keynote started, I almost lost my voice,  Brad rocked it, and the demo was flawless.  Here is a video of the end to end demo with Brad.

Here is Brad’s wrap on the Client business, and his MMS Keynote.     

 

PS – Thanks to John and Matt for all their help, without them this would not have happened.

me
Jeff Wettlaufer
Sr. Technical Product Manager,
System Center

Posted 19 May 09 10:59 by jeffwettlaufer | 1 Comments   
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