Advanced Monitoring with System Center Operations Manager 2007 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager : Tools & Utilities

Hyper-V Client for Windows 7 (Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7)

walterch — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:35:49 GMT

In order to communicate with Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008, you will need the Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=82516c35-c7dc-4652-b2ea-2df99ea83dbb&DisplayLang=en

Microsoft System Center Management for Virtualization

walterch — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:06:14 GMT

http://www.microsoft.com/video/en/us/details/c754f940-b5a1-43ee-99f1-d9e083dbc81a

Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer

walterch — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:37:42 GMT

This has always been an issue with OpsMgr, to get the "outside perspective:. This tool will provide the necessary capabilities for Exchange Internet connectivity. http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/03/25/450908.aspx

Toolbox Recommendation - Mobile Admin 4.2

walterch — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:06:53 GMT

One of the biggest paradigm shifts in operations management was the move from a server-centric / reactive strategies to service-centric / proactive monitoring solutions such as those OpsMgr 2007 clearly provides. One of the challenges I have faced is when I am away from the Operations Console. Although Notifications can deliver a wealth of information to my mobile device…they are reactive…..triggered by an event, so I am back again in reactive mode and not scrambling for operations console access. With the recent release of Mobile Admin 4.2, you will never have to take your finger of the the pulse of your enterprise infrastructure.

As expected, users will be able to view and filter events raised by OpsMgr and to execute actions to resolve critical situations.

More effective and equally important, users can get server health states too.

There is also functionality for the monitoring of virtualized environments. Mobile Admin 4.2 allows users can check and administer their VMware system on a global basis. But lets not forget about Hyper-V! With the integration of SCVMM 2008 and OpsMgr 2007, users can also monitor their Hyper-V environments so now the health of your entire infrastructure is now in your pocket! (Be sure to lock the keyboard).

It gets better….you can access Powershell too. Mobile Admin has a Powershell plug-in. For a server equipped with Powershell, you will see a Powershell icon appear when you access that server via Mobile Admin. Clicking on the icon will give you a console interface that can be used for Powershell access.

Enough writing…go to http://www.roveit.com/trial/ and test it for yourself….IMHO…..you will not be disappointed.

Really Important: The Windows Mobile client is much improved and now contains SSH, Telnet and VNC capabilities. Best of all, it has been developed for the BlackBerry and supports the iPhone through the Mobile Admin web interface and the Safari browser on the device. This is a crucial accessibility feature since all organizations may not use the Windows Mobile client AND typically, the largest handheld displays are on the iPhone and Blackberry.

Change of Topic

walterch — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:58:00 GMT

It’s been a terrific run and the community support for System Center Operations Manager has never been stronger. I've been fortunate to be engaged in much virtualization work including advanced monitoring with SCVMM and OpsMgr. Unfortunately I simply don’t have time to blog on both topics but don’t wish to abandon them either.

I've decided to merge the two topics and focus on advanced monitoring of physical and virtual environments using OpsMgr and SCVMM. There is no denying the data center space is rapidly becoming a healthy mix of both physical and virtual environments and clients are demanding a ubiquitous monitoring solution for both environments to ensure data center performance optimization. That a tall order for any monitoring solution but I know OpsMgr R2 and SCVMM R2, together, can deliver.

This blog will now focus on advanced monitoring of heterogeneous data centers. This includes traditional physical servers, both Microsoft and non-Microsoft platforms. It will also include the virtual space, both Hyper-V as well as VMware. Lastly, it absolutely will include networking components!

Extend OpsMgr Reach with Mobile Admin

walterch — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:23:00 GMT

Extend your IT Reach with Mobile Admin

I've been testing Mobile Admin and wanted to share with the community. I will be posting a follow up review in a few days. : http://www.roveit.com/trial/

About Mobile Admin

Mobile Admin enables the administration of your IT environment via mobile devices. Once the Mobile Admin Server is deployed within your network, your users can perform a wide range of administrative tasks from a variety of mobile devices, including BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and the Web Interface.

Many of the world’s top organizations, such as Lexmark, Boeing and CI Financial, use Mobile Admin to manage their IT environment. With its powerful and secure capabilities, Mobile Admin:

Leverages your existing IT infrastructure.
Helps you avoid costly and highly visible system downtime.
Lowers your operation costs.

Mobile Admin Functionality

The Mobile Admin Server is the key to extending your IT management capabilities. Once deployed inside your network, the Mobile Admin server will extend support of your IT environment to your mobile devices.

The Mobile Admin Client, supported on a variety of mobile platforms, provides secure access to your IT environment through the Mobile Admin Server. An intuitive user interface allows IT administrators to perform administrative tasks from anywhere.

New Feature for Mobile Admin 4.2: Managing Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager 2007

Mobile Admin supports management of the Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager.

· Users are able to view and filter events raised by SCOM and take proactive actions to resolve critical situations.

List of Supported Servers in Mobile Admin 4.2

VMware Virtual Center Microsoft System Center Operation Manager

Blackberry Enterprise Server Microsoft Active Directory & Exchange

Microsoft Windows Lotus Domino Administration

Microsoft DHCP, DNS and IIS Microsoft Cluster Servers

Microsoft SQL Server BlackBerry Enterprise Server

Citrix Lotus Domino

VMware Oracle

Novell Veritas (Symantec) Backup Exec

HP Integrated Lights Out (iLO) RSA Authentication Manager

UNIX and Linux Servers AS/400 and iSeries Servers

IBM Mainframes

About Rove

Rove is a developer of network administration software that provides IT administrators mobile management of their IT system. More than 2,400 organizations—including over 75 Fortune 500 companies—in 54 countries use Mobile Admin in the private, public and non-profit sectors to lower costs, protect Service Level Agreements and improve operational efficiencies.

Operations Manager and PerformancePoint Server

walterch — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:47:05 GMT

Courtesy of Daniel Savage - http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2009/02/04/operations-manager-and-performancepoint-server.aspx

New and Updated Tools for Operations Manager 2007 Administration and Testing

walterch — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 16:25:07 GMT

Courtesy of Pete Zerger - http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/systemcenterforum/~3/507636791/

Peter has updated the Community Tools page (systemcenterforum.org/tools) a couple of times in the last few weeks with some new and recently updated tools. I expect a couple more next week actually, but here are the recent adds.

New today is the creation of OpsMgr product team guru Marius Sutura called the Restart Monitoring Tool. Marius has created an Operations console integrated method for resetting health monitors for groups of monitored objects to effectively restart monitoring on demand. I have not loaded this on Essentials yet, but assume it should work given they share the same SDK. I expect this one will be very popular!
A few days ago I added version 2 of the SNMP Device Simulator from Jalasoft. This GUI tool allows you to run multiple “synthetic” network devices you can then discover through the network device discovery in the Add Monitoring Wizard. This is really a sweet add for lab testing.I am a big fan of this one as well.
Finally, one I discovered a two or three months ago is the OpsMgr Cleanup Too l from Walter Chomak of the MS Premier Field ranks. If you’ve ever had trouble removing an OpsMgr install so you could start fresh, this is a brilliant add. As our friends across the pond would say, “Works a treat”!.
The latest tool comes from a community pal of mine, Stefan Koell (of code4award.net fame). We were talking over dinner a few weeks ago about what’s Stefan’s been up to, and I said “brother, you need to share this stuff!”. Well, he’s done it. I thought he’d be next week getting it published, but today he’s released v1 of LogSmith for Operations Manager. LogSmith connects to your RMS and allows you to filter and sort events in the Operations Manager Event Log with ease - very nice for slicing and dicing the log quickly in large environments.

OpsMgr Powershell TIP: Desktop Shortcut for Enabling Group Maintenance Mode

walterch — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:14:20 GMT

Courtesy of Pete Zerger - http://www.systemcenterforum.org/news/opsmgr-powershell-tip-desktop-shortcut-for-enabling-group-maintenance-mode/

4 Tools in the SecureVantage ACS Resource Kit Worth Checking Out

walterch — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 01:15:47 GMT

Courtesy of SystemCenterForum.org - http://www.systemcenterforum.org/news/4-tools-in-the-securevantage-acs-resource-kit-working-checking-out/

Remote Maintenance Mode Scheduler v1.7

walterch — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:48:09 GMT

Courtesy of Everything System Center Operations Manager 2007 - http://www.scom2k7.com/scom-remote-maintenance-mode-scheduler-20/

Version 2.0 has been released that replaces v1.7

UPDATE: General Diagnostics Management Pack 1.0

walterch — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:26:00 GMT

I've pulled the MP since I have quickly learned I am no MP Author. For those of you who faced some resource challenges, sorry. I hope to quickly remedy, improve and post.

UPDATE: Version: 1.0.0.1 Thanks to Stefan Stranger for pointing out some errors in the MP. Addtionally, I've updated it to not include DC shutdowns since the rule for that Alert view is part of the ADMP. Also, please note that the Missing Perfmon Counters view is based on the 'Performance Module could not find a performance counter' rule which does not neccessarily mean there is an issue with the perfomon library, it just so happens most of the time it does. For addtional information please check out: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2008/03/01/performance-module-could-not-find-a-performance-counter.aspx

It does not get any simpler than this. In fact, I might be stretching it a bit even calling this a Management Pack. This management pack is a collection of Alert Views I have found very useful when tuning Management Groups. It is not sealed so you can do as you wish with it. I've attached a screen shot of the views as well as the MP in an atachment named GDMP.zip.

Remote Maintenance Mode Scheduler 2.0

walterch — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:59:00 GMT

Check out Tim McFadden's blog entry at http://www.scom2k7.com/scom-remote-maintenance-mode-scheduler-20/ A very useful utility!

Cleanup Tool for Operations Manager 2007

walterch — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 01:47:00 GMT

An must have tool in your arsenal. If the standard GUI fails for whatever reason you can rely on this tool. I have tested it in Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2008, both 32 and 64 bit platforms.

Enable Agent "Act As A Proxy" in bulk via PowerShell

walterch — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:17:00 GMT

This script, originally posted at SystemCenterForum.org, is tremendously valuable in large ADMP environments. I just executed against 500 domain controllers while eating a bagle.