I’ve been busy building out various demo scenario’s in my lab and after getting SCOM 2012 humming along, I decided to get to work on some of the cool new dashboard features.

First things first…

PART 1: INSTALLATION AND PRE-REQ’S

What all do we need.

• SCOM 2012 (duh!) – make sure you have the web console piece installed.  You can install it on the same server as the SCOM management server, especially if this is a lab configuration. 

• SCOM 2012 ISO or DVD – you’ll need some files from here to get the OpsMgr SharePoint web parts up and running
• Visio 2010
• Visio & SharePoint 2010 Extensions for System Center 2012
• Windows 2008 & .NET Framework SDK (you’ll need this for a utility to install the Visio trusted add-in into SharePoint – you may already have the files you need…more later…)

So, obviously we need SCOM 2012 running somewhere, that’s a given.

The next thing is to get SharePoint installed.  I opted for SharePoint 2010 Enterprise edition.  We won’t go through the SharePoint install here, but once you get it running, you’ll need to do a few things to get the OpsMgr web parts installed.  The full details can be found here, but I’ll copy in the important part.  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh212924.aspx

You want to go ahead and install just the SCOM console on to your SharePoint server.  This is only if you want to do the Visio integration.  You’ll need the SCOM console installed so that the Visio web drawings that we store in SharePoint can connect to the SCOM RMS server for real-time updates.  If you don’t want to do that part, then no need to install the console.

To deploy the Operations Manager web part

1. Copy the install-OperationsManager-DashboardViewer.ps1 file from the Operations Manager installation folder under Setup\amd64\SharePoint to a location that the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell can access.

2. Open the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell and navigate to the directory where you saved the install-OperationsManager-DashboardViewer.ps1 file.

3. In the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell, type the following command, and then press Enter.

   .\install-OperationsManager-DashboardViewer.ps1 –solutionPath <directory for Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.SharePointIntegration.wsp> -url <optional, for installing to a specific portal address or website>

   Example that deploys the web part to a specific portal address:

   .\install-OperationsManager-DashboardViewer.ps1 “C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2012\” http://localhost:4096

   If an error occurs when you run the script, you must disable the RemoteSigned default code-signing execution policy for the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell. To allow the install-OperationsManager-DashboardViewer.ps1 script to run, type the following command, and then press enter:

   Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

   You will see some confirmation messages, select Y to confirm, and then run the script.

4. Verify that the web part is deployed and activated by performing the following steps:

   1. Open the site http://localhost.
   2. In the Site Actions dropdown menu, click Site Settings.
   3. In the Site Collection Administration section, click Site collection features.
   4. Locate Operations Manager Dashboard Web Part.
      • If the button to the right says Activate, then the feature was not automatically activated during deployment. To activate the web part, click the Activate button.
      • If the button to the right says Deactivate, no steps are required. The Operations Manager Dashboard web part can now be inserted into site pages.

5. If you disabled the RemoteSigned default code-signing execution policy to run the install-OperationsManager-DashboardViewer.ps1 script, you should re-enable it after the script runs. Type the following command and then press enter:

   Set-ExecutionPolicy Restricted

   You will see some confirmation messages, select Y to confirm.

Your output will look something like this:

While we’re dinking around on the SharePoint server, we might as well go ahead and get the Visio integration going as well.  Once these are done, you’re pretty much good as most of the creating dashboards and SCOM web consoles are already configured as a part of the SCOM management server installation.

In the pre-req’s at the beginning of this document I recommended downloading the .NET Framework SDK components.  I did that only because I didn’t happen to have Visual Studio installed anywhere in my demo environment and you’ll need a file called gacutil.exe to get the Visio SharePoint components installed. 

The setup will want to install a massive amount of stuff – like gig’s worth.  You don’t need the whole thing installed if you are just trying to get gacutil.exe like I was.  Here’s the options I chose and I got the file installed I needed.

The next part (configuring the Visio integration) is also pretty straightforward.  It’s tedious, but I didn’t have any issues walking through setup guides that come with the Visio/SharePoint Add-In that you have already downloaded.  These are the 3 files you’ll find in the zip file you’ll download.  There are two other folders in this download – the client add-in (install wherever you are running Visio) and the server piece which doesn’t really install anything – it extracts the files you’ll need to manipulate into a folder on your SharePoint server.  Just follow the directions to get the add-in installed on the client (after Visio is installed of course) and then extract the server side files on the SharePoint server and do what the “Manually Installing the SharePoint Data Provider” file tells you to do.

Once all of that is done, you should be able to see the Operations Manager Add-in in Visio:

You should be able to see the Operations Manager Web Part in SharePoint:

And, when you save a Visio Web Diagram formatted file to a SharePoint document library, it should connect and render real-time data to the Visio diagram.  But, more on that later…

PART 2: SETTING UP DASHBOARDS IN SCOM

First of all, creating new dashboards couldn’t be any easier.  Right-click in the SCOM console on “Monitoring”, select new –> dashboard view and off you go.

First, I decided to create one for the Veeam nWorks VMware management pack.  I decided to use the SLA template.

After you name your dashboard, you’ll be asked to pick from any existing SLA’s you’ve created.

If you don’t have one – you can create one by going to Authoring –> Management Pack Objects.  Creating a SLA is pretty straightforward – it can be trial and error picking the objects and such that you want to monitor, but the good news is – feedback is immediate and the SLA’s are easy to edit and make changes.

Once you have the SLA dashboard created you’ll see it show up in the SCOM console.

Detail view looks like this:

So, the next part was…how do I get this into SharePoint?  Since we’ve already done all the heavy lifting in Part 1, we should be able to connect up to SharePoint, add a new web part to a page and then insert the web console URL for the dashboard view right into the web part.  It’s easy.

First, go to your SCOM web console and get the URL of the dashboard you want to publish.  You would use http://YourScomServer/operationsmanager to connect to the web console.  Click on the dashboard you want to publish and copy the full URL you see in the browser bar:

It will look something like this:

Now, add the Operations Manager Dashboard View Web Part to your page:

You will have to edit the web part after you add it.  Basically, you need to paste that URL you just copied from the console into the appropriate field.  Of course, you can change the title or any other parameters in here as well, if you see fit.

Once you OK the changes here, you should see your web part show up on the SharePoint page:

PART 3: FUN WITH VISIO

Finally, we’ll get to some fun Visio integration.  We’ve already got Visio installed, the SCOM Add-in on the client, we’ve got the SCOM console (not the web console – just the console) installed on the SharePoint server and we’ve configured the SharePoint server so that it can communicate properly with the SCOM RMS server.  We should be good to go.

The easiest way to start messing with this is to open up a diagram view of something in SCOM.  I picked a few components from my vSphere environment I have running in my lab.  Once you get the diagram set the way you want it to appear in Visio, click the Visio icon on the toolbar to export that view into Visio.

Once you get this into Visio, you can totally customize this thing however you want to see it.  You can add new stuff to monitor, change the formatting…whatever.  Now, important here – when you save this file out of Visio…make sure you choose the VISIO WEB DRAWING option.  If you’re going to host this in SharePoint and want to see live data, you’ll need to do this (and this is what we went through all that work on the SharePoint server for…).

Now, you can simply stick that web drawing into a document library in SharePoint.  When you connect to the SharePoint site and click on it – you’ll see it ‘connecting’ to the SCOM RMS server for the latest data.  Pretty cool:

Click on that to get this:

Now, what’s really cool here is…you can click through each of the objects to get more details in the SCOM monitoring view.  It will take you directly to the SCOM web console where you can dig into that particular component.

Pretty dang cool!

Of course, the last option here is to simply make this Visio web drawing a web part.  That’s easy to do as well.  Open the page where you want the web part to go, insert a web part, choose the Visio Web Access web part:

When you edit the web part, it just wants the location of the web drawing we uploaded to the SharePoint site:

Off you go! 

This is one of the most improved upon and compelling features of SCOM 2012 – I hope you enjoy it!

-Ken

Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) 2.0 is a managed MMC plug-in. VAMT uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to configure managed systems. A convenient command line interface (CLI) allows automated, scheduled VAMT tasks without UI interaction.
Using the VAMT console, administrators can perform many activation-related tasks on remote computers:

• Manage product keys obtained from the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) or other sources including retail and Microsoft subscription programs such as MSDN, TechNet and partner programs -- and product activations using those keys.
• Activate remote systems using Key Management Service (KMS), Multiple Activation Key (MAK) or retail activation methods.
• Perform disconnected proxy activation and reactivation of systems without each system having to connect with Microsoft activation services individually.
• Assist with license compliance by enabling IT administrators to monitor system license state, including whether systems are licensed and running genuine Windows or Office.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=11936

Make sure you read the help file for more details – but a common scenario I see is using the tool to figure out how many MAK activations are left on a MSDN/TechNet subscription key.

Here’s how you go about that process:

Add a MAK and determine the remaining activation count

1. Click the Product Keys node under the VAMT node.

2. Find the Add Product Keys pane in the center pane and expand it, if it is minimized.

3. Enter a MAK and click Verify. Once verified, the Edition field will automatically populate.

4. Provide a meaningful description in the Remarks text box and click Add Product Key. The MAK will now be listed in the product key list-view below.

5. Select this key, as well as any additional keys you want to work with.

6. Right-click the selected product keys to display the context-sensitive Actions menu, or choose from the Action menu on the top menu bar, or choose from the Selected Items menu on the right-hand pane.

7. On the menu, click Refresh Product Key Data Online to retrieve the number of remaining activations for the MAKs from Microsoft. This step requires Internet connectivity.

8. The remaining activation numbers are shown under the Remaining Activation column in the center pane.

So, I’m mainly posting this so I remember it and don’t have to go look it up again the next time I run into this…but if you are here checking this out…maybe this helps you too. :)

Here’s my problem.  I have a lab I log into once I establish a VPN connection to the corporate network.  I made up a domain for my lab so it’s not part of the current domain my computer is joined to – or any trusted domain.  So, every time I log in I’m prompted for credentials even though I’ve checked the box to save credentials.

I just want to click on the RDP link and have it login without me typing the password every time…

Easy enough.

Start local group policy editor, start – run – gpedit.msc
Go to Local Computer Policy –> Computer Configuration –> Administrative Templates –> System –> Credentials Delegation

On every one of the policies that I have ‘enabled’ below, you’ll want to enter the following:

Once your finished – run ‘gupdate /force’ to refresh the policy.  You can now login…WITHOUT typing in the password every time!!

PowerShell Web Access is a new feature in Windows Server 2012 (in this case, Windows 8 Beta).  The obvious advantage of this functionality is being able to easily run remote PS commands without making a direct connection (either console or RDP) or using long-hand PowerShell commands like ‘enter-pssession’ and ‘invoke-command’ required for remote PowerShell.

I’m certainly no PowerShell guru, but I’ve shown this a few times in my lab lately and had some folks ask a few questions…primarily, how do you install this?

It’s a pretty straightforward installation…there’s an even a switch to let PowerShell configure the certificate for you (a test cert, so lab usage only please).

In my lab, I started from scratch with a Windows 8 Beta VM.  I installed the IIS and PowerShell Web Access Role/Feature.

Next, you’ll want to run the ‘install-PswaWebApplication –UseTestCertificate’ command to install the application.  If you have an existing cert you can assign it with this switch as well or you more easily, you can just assign it while your in IIS Manager.  You won’t need the switch then (if you try to use it, the script will bark at you letting you know the site is already configured for SSL).  For production environments, you will obviously be using a CA cert of some kind.  The downside, as you can see from the yellow text below, is that this cert expires in 90 days.

Creating a self-signed cert is easy – go here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753127(v=WS.10).aspx and create a ‘personal’ cert on the server where you are hosting PSWA.  Edit bindings on the default web site (or wherever you installed PSWA) and select the cert you created and bind it to 443.  Easy enough.

Next, you’ll want to use the ‘Add-PswaAuthorizationRule * * *’ command:

From here, you can login to https://servername/pswa

You can login to both Windows 8 and Windows 2008 R2 hosts.  If you get an error, it’s usually because WinRM isn’t properly configured.  Issuing the command “winrm quickconfig’ on a host will usually fix the problem and you’ll be able to access it remotely.

Have fun!

Fresh on the press!

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/hh968267.aspx

Experience the beta release of Windows Server “8” firsthand in these virtual labs. You can test drive new and improved features and functionality, including server management and Windows PowerShell, networking, Hyper-V, and new storage solutions.

Getting Started

It's simple: no complex setup or installation is required to try out Windows Server “8” running in a full-featured virtual lab. You get a downloadable manual and a 90-minute block of time for each module. Before you start, read the minimum system requirements. Select a virtual lab from the list below. Then, you will see an application launch the lab.

Windows Server “8” Virtual Labs

• Active Directory Deployment and Management Enhancements
  In this lab, you will learn how to deploy Active Directory Domain Controllers with Windows Server "8". You will deploy domain controllers using the new Server Manager, as well as deploying remote domain controllers using Windows PowerShell. You will be able to explore the new Active Directory Management tool and use its PowerShell History Viewer.
• Configuring a Highly Available iSCSI Target
  In this lab, you will learn how Windows Server "8" can provide storage remotely to any machine. You will build clusters using shared storage and build iSCSI high-availability instances--observing highly available application communication during cluster failover.
• Configuring Hyper-V over Highly Available SMB Storage
  In this lab, you will learn how to configure a file server cluster to support running Hyper-V virtual machines from SMB file shares. You will create the file share, configure delegation, and then create a new VM on SMB storage.
• Implementing Storage Pools and Storage Spaces
  In this lab, you will work with the new storage spaces technology in Windows Server "8". You will first create new storage pools and virtual disks, and then you will work with those virtual disks in both Server Manager and Control Panel.
• Introduction to Windows PowerShell Fundamentals
  Windows PowerShell is a command-line shell and scripting language that helps you achieve greater control and productivity. Using a new admin-focused scripting language, more than 230 standard command-line tools, and consistent syntax and utilities, Windows PowerShell enables you to more easily control system administration and accelerate automation.
• What’s New in Windows PowerShell 3.0
  In this lab, you will explore some of the new features and functionality in Windows PowerShell 3.0 to enable you to more easily control system administration and accelerate automation.
• Managing Branch Offices
  In this lab, you will learn how the branch office scenario has been improved in Windows Server "8" including new branch cache enhancements.
• Managing Network Infrastructure
  In this lab, you will explore new network management capabilities in Windows Server "8". You will learn how to implement Network Teaming as well as how to implement DHCP failover. Finally, explore new Windows PowerShell cmdlets for network management.
• Managing Your Network Infrastructure with IP Address Management
  Network management is core to running a business, yet the tools that IT professionals need can be too costly or not available from Microsoft. With Windows Server "8", we change that with the introduction of IP Address Management (IPAM).
• Managing Windows Server "8" with Server Manager and Windows PowerShell 3.0
  In this lab, you will learn how the Server Manager and Windows PowerShell framework in Windows Server "8" delivers an enhanced, multi-server management experience. You will learn to perform tasks such as multi-server management. You will also explore new Windows PowerShell capabilities including new cmdlets and the Windows PowerShell gateway.
• Online Backup Service
  In this lab, you will use Windows Server Backup to back up your critical data to Windows Azure. This lab will teach you the entire set of workflows around backing up and recovering your data to Windows Azure.
• Using Dynamic Access Control to Automatically and Centrally Secure Data
  In this lab, you will explore Dynamic Access Control in Windows Server "8". You will learn how to create Central Access Policies, explore the new Access Denied Remediation features, as well as learn how to use the audit capabilities built into Dynamic Access Control.