Latest Blogs

Orcehstrator 2012: Six more “must read” articles from Robert Hearn

Tommy Gunn — Fri, 25 May 2012 01:17:46 GMT

This guy is on fire writing some great articles covering the lessor known (or completely unknown) points within Orchestrator 2012. Check these out…especially the ‘Understanding IP Installation”….great stuff!

Cool Tool: New Command Line Utility to Start a Runbook

Quick Tip: Understanding Multi-Value Data and the Databus

Automating Builds of Orchestrator Integration Packs

Community Spotlight: Putting a “Send Popup” Activity Back in Orchestrator

Using Windows Task Scheduler to Invoke Scheduled Runbooks

Understanding IP Installation: What Does Register/Unregister/Deploy/Undeploy Really Mean?

SCOM 2012 – Side-by-Side Migration Phase 7.1 – Installing additional roles: Web Console

Andreas Zuckerhut — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:46:05 GMT

Table of Contents
- Intro
- Preparations for Web Console setup
- Installing the Web Console
- Post Setup Tasks

Intro
Maybe it’s just me but the documentation for the Web Console appears to be quite chaotic with a truckload of notes and cross-references to other articles. Reading through it kinda felt as linear as Skyrim with Sidequests all over the place.

Once I was done setting up the Web Console including SSL Support, etc. I launched it and… it didn’t really work. It loaded but every view was stuck in Loading. Therefore I thought I had made a mistake somewhere along the way or I have missed a step.
Turns out though, once you have clicked a few views it works just fine. Give it time.

Also I remember that we had major issues with Integrated Authentication in the old console, not so in the new one, worked out of the box with the steps described below. In case it doesn’t work for you, there’s a guideline for enabling it – it was actually written for SCOM 2007 R2 but it’s linked in the 2012 documentation therefore I guess it still applies - http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2008/01/31/running-the-web-console-server-on-a-standalone-server-using-windows-authentication.aspx

Altogether, I’m a bit underwhelmed by the Web Console and don’t see it as a real alternative to the Operations Console. It’s generally a bit slow, you can’t personalize views and I don’t like Web Consoles anyway.
However, I guess it works fine for users that really only occasionally need to use SCOM for checking Performance or some specific Alert.

Preparations for Web Console setup
Supported Configurations - http://technet.microsoft.com/library/hh205990.aspx#BKMK_RBF_WebConsole
Installation Documentation - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh298606
Web Console Security - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh467899
How to implement SSL in IIS - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh467901

I’ll be installing the Web Console on the same machine as the Reporting Services thus I’m good with the Operating System Requirements (2008 R2 SP1) and .NET. (4.0 and 3.5 SP1). However, I need to verify that all the required IIS Features are enabled.
Required Features:
- Static Content
- Default Document
- Directory Browsing
- HTTP Errors
- HTTP Logging
- Request Monitor
- Request Filtering
- Static Content Compression
- Web Server (IIS) Support (Note: I guess they mean the actual role with this as it’s not a sub feature)
- IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility
- ASP.NET
- Windows Authentication

Enabling ISAPI and CGI Restrictions
In the IIS Manager double-click ISAPI and CGI Restrictions

Enable both ASP.NET v4.0.30319 versions. One is for 32, one is for 64 Bit assemblies.

Registering .NET Framework 4
In case IIS was installed before .NET Framework 4 it must be registered with IIS. Since the machine was set up by a different department including IIS and .NET Framework 4 I don’t know in which order they installed it.
I guess it can’t hurt to run the tool again, thus launch cmd as administrator and run %WINDIR%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe –r

Enabling SSL
In order for SSL to work you need a certificate for your server first of course. Since this is done by a different department I can’t say much about it.

In the IIS Manager select the Web Server and open Server Certificates

Right-Click somewhere and select Import (assuming you have already created the Certificate).
Locate your certificate and enter the password for it. Click OK.

Right-Click the Web Site you want to use for the Web Console and select Edit Bindings.

Click Add, switch Type to https and select your certificate.
Click OK and Close.

Open SSL Settings for the Web Site

Enable Require SSL and hit Apply

Installing the Web Console
Once done with the preparations, launch setup and hit Install.

In my case I have to select Add a feature

Select Web Console

Verify that the prerequisites were passed.

I will install it on the Default Web Site, and also I want to enable SSL.
It will run some checks against the Web Site, in case there are errors you’ll be presented with a Critical State icon, by hovering over it you’ll see what the issue is.

Use Mixed Authentication (recommended for INTRANET scenarios).

I’ll patch it myself

Review the summary and hit Install

Make sure the Setup completed successfully

The Web Console will not work as of yet.

Post Setup Tasks
Permissions Inheritance for the Web Console
Open the Security settings for the folder C:\Program Files\System Center 2012\Operations Manager\WebConsole\MonitoringView\TempImages
Open Advanced Security Settings and select Change Permissions.

Remove the System and Administrators Entry.
Enabled "Include inheritable permissions from this object’s parent
Apply – OK – OK – OK

Verify the Web Console works
Either access the Web Console through All Programs\System Center 2012\Operations Manager\Web Console or launch the browser, navigate to the website you used in the subfolder OperationsManager

You may be presented with a Certificate Error in case you browsed to https://localhost/OperationsManager – like me, as the certificate isn’t valid for localhost of course.
Just click Continue to this website

And, no credentials prompt, that’s great. And the console works.

In my case the first few views I’ve opened were stuck in Loading… …. … just click around a bit in different views, then it works just fine.
I guess it needs to cache some stuff first, be patient.

SCOM 2012 – Side-by-Side Migration Phase 7 – Installing additional roles: Reporting

Andreas Zuckerhut — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:22:55 GMT

NOTE! This is to be considered an experience report and not an official guideline.

Table of Contents
- Intro
- Preparations for Reporting Services Setup
- Installing SQL Server Reporting Services
- Configuring SQL Server Reporting Services
- Installing SCOM Reporting Services Role

Intro
Finally I’ve found some time again to continue with my migration and the first thing I want to do is setting up the other roles I need: Reporting Services, Web Console – starting with Reporting Services.
It’s a pretty straight forward process and mostly a next-next installation. However, it can’t hurt to document it.

Preparations for Reporting Services Setup
Preparations
The first thing I want to do is reading the official guidelines of course: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh298611

There’s absolutely no guideline here on how to set up the actual SQL Reporting Services therefore it’s pretty much a next-next Installation I would imagine.
According to the Supported Configurations what I need is:
- Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 64-Bit
- Database and Reporting must be SQL Server 2008 SP1, 2008 R2 or 2008 R2 SP1
- Remote Registry service must be enabled
- Don’t use SharePoint integrated mode… well why would I do that anyway?
- .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and .NET Framework 4

Notes
.NET Framework 3.5 SP1
In case you are using Windows Server 2008 R2 you don’t need to install .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, you have to enable it in the Features relatively verify that it’s enabled.

Enabling Remote Registry service
In the services.msc make sure the Remote Registry service is running and set to Automatic Startup Type

Installing SQL Server Reporting Services
I’ll be using SQL Server 2008 R2 including CU6 for my Reporting Services.

Configuration Checker
Launch Setup, switch to Planning and run the System Configuration Checker.

Once it’s done you are presented with a list of checks and information on whether or not they passed.
Make sure it’s all green and in case there are Errors or Warnings, fix them.

Passed, passed, passed, passed whooops – a Warning

It complains about not being able to connect to the Internet – no problem. I don’t see why this would be a Security issue though.

Setup
Once done fixing any missing prerequisites, switch to Installation and select “New installation or add features to an existing installation.”

First screen is a prerequisites checker again, make sure it’s all green and fix any errors or warnings.

Next screen, enter Product Key

Carefully read and accept the License Agreement.

And finally hit Install – This is just for the Setup Support Files though.

The System Configuration Checker runs again.

Select new SQL Server Feature Installation

Select the Reporting Services Feature

Verify that all checks passed

Configure the Instance

Configure the Service Account

Select Install, but do not configure the report server

And AGAIN, verify all checks passed.

Hit Install

Done

Configuring SQL Server Reporting Services
Once setup is done, we need to configure the SQL Server Reporting Services.

Under All Programs\Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2\Configuration Tools launch the Reporting Services Configuration Manager.
Connect to your Instance

Web Service URL
Configure the Web Service URL and hit Apply. Wait for it to be finished.

Database
Select Change Database

Create a new report server database.

Connect to your Report Server – in my case I drop the database on the machine on which the DataWarehouse runs. It’s a beast, it can handle it ;)

Configure the Database Name and leave it in Native Mode

Configure the Account.

Review configuration, hit Next and wait for the configuration to be finished.

Finish.

Report Manager URL
Pick your Virtual Directory and hit Apply.

Scale-out Deployment
Verify that the Status is Joined

And that’s all I need.

Verify functionality
Verify that both websites load properly: Report Manager, Web Service

On the Report Manager URL, create a new folder.

Give it a name and hit OK.

Verify that the Folder is there, and then delete it again.

Installing SCOM Reporting Services Role
Setup
Launch Setup and hit Install.

Select Reporting Server Role.

Verify that the prerequisites are all passed.

Specify your Management Server Name.

Specify your SQL Server Reporting Services instance.

Configure the DWH DataReader account.

Just in case that machine ever has an Internet connection.

Nope, I patch that thing myself

Review the configuration and hit Install. It takes forever btw.

Verify that Setup is good.

Verify Functionality
In case you already have the Operations Console open, re-open it otherwise the Reporting tab won’t be available.

Switch to the Reporting tab and launch some random Report.

Verify that it works properly

System Center 2012-using a common SQL backend database (#SYSCTR, #SCOM, #SCSM)

Cameron Fuller — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:29:55 GMT

Now that System Center 2012 is one “product” we’re seeing a heavier focus towards using a common back-end for the products. Microsoft has done a good (not great) job on providing a consistent set of back-end database requirements so that a single version of SQL 2008 R2 SP1 CU6 should be sufficient for all of the System Center components.

<Start disclaimer here>

Before really getting into this let me state up front – this is not the approach that every environment will want to take. Some environments will require more dedicated resources including breaking down separate System Center components onto different database servers. Other environment (such as a lab) may be small enough that all of the databases could be configured to run in a single instance (if reporting services conflicts between the components was not a constraint).

<End disclaimer here>

In terms of database sizing, the largest databases we are seeing in our labs (and those requiring at least the most disk resources) are Service Manager, Operations Manager and Configuration Manager. Based upon lab testing up to this point, the following is the breakdown of database size for a lab environment which includes 25 servers, no workstations and a small number of users.

System Center Service Manager (ServiceMgr): 25 GB
System Center Operations Manager (OpsMgr): 12 GB
System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr): 6 GB
System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM): 1 GB
System Center App Controller (App Controller): < .1 GB
System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM): .2 GB
System Center Orchestrator (Orchestrator): .1 GB

What about IOPS? (Input/output Operations Per Second)There is a lot of discussion on the number of IOPS required for various System Center components, do they really require the number of IOPS specified in the sizer? Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. The next picture shows the IOPS for a database server with about 2000 agents that has LUNS shared for the OperationsManager database and the OperationsManagerDW.

So… That 1000 IOPS estimation (mentioned later in this article) on the data warehouse for OpsMgr doesn’t seem so far fetched now! (total hovering around 1000, primarily write but with a significant amount of read)

The following is IOPS for the same environment (approximately 2000 agents) just for the OperationsManager database: (total hovering around 400, primarily write)

And the IOPS for the same environment for just the OperationsManagerDW: (total hovering around 200, primarily write)

What about SQL Collation? That’s a big question that’s been going around recently – I’ve heard rumor that an official writeup will be available on this soon and when that occurs I’ll update this blog entry to point to that discussion.

Can System Center components share an instance? There is not documented requirements to have a separate instance for each component of System Center. As long as the requirements for each database are met they can share but you need to take scale and performance into consideration. SRS is the one exception to this rule that I am aware of, requiring separate instances of reporting services for each component of System Center that uses SRS.

Case Studies:

For this blog article we are showing two similar case studies.

Case Study #1:

As a first case study example we installed a single two-node cluster to provide System Center back-end database functionality for ConfigMgr, OpsMgr, ServiceMgr and DPM. The client has approximately 200 servers that they are monitoring, and they have approximately 3000 workstations that they are managing and there are 5000 users in the environment. They are interested in potentially deploying all of the System Center components off of this back-end database. The following are the key pieces of the proposed back-end database:

Installing two physical servers on Windows 2008 R2 which are running a quad core with 32 gb of memory.

The two servers are connected to a SAN infrastructure to store all of the database and log files.

Instances are created on a per-component basis:

ConfigMgr
OpsMgr
ServiceMgr (2x)
DPM

Each instance is configured with separate spindles on the SAN for that instance’s database and log files.

Creating a separate reporting instance for each component that requires it (OpsMgr, ConfigMgr, Service Manager)

This cluster will only be for System Center back-end functionality.

Disk Sizing for Case Study #1: (based upon the Microsoft sizers)

ServiceMgr: 225 GB
OpsMgr: 160 GB
ConfigMgr: 100 GB
Total: 341 GB

Case Study #2:

As a second case study example, speaking with a client recently, we came to the consensus of creating a single two-node cluster to provide all System Center back-end database functionality. The client has approximately 2500 servers that they are monitoring, and they have approximately 6500 workstations that they are managing and there are 3500 users in the environment. They are interested in potentially deploying all of the System Center components off of this back-end database. The following are the key pieces of the proposed back-end database:

Installing two physical servers on Windows 2008 R2 which are running two socket/six core with 96 gb of memory.
The two servers are connected to a SAN infrastructure to store all of the database and log files.

Instances are created on a per-component basis: (gathering smaller sized databases into a single instance)

ConfigMgr
OpsMgr
ServiceMgr (2x)
DPM, App Controller, VMM, Orchestrator

Each instance is configured with separate spindles on the SAN for that instance’s database and log files.

Creating a separate reporting instance for each component that requires it (OpsMgr, ConfigMgr, Service Manager)

This cluster will only be for System Center back-end functionality.

Disk Sizing for Case Study #2: (based upon the Microsoft sizers)

ServiceMgr: 225 GB
OpsMgr: 1900 GB [Based on lab tests performed up to this point in time, it is reasonable to believe that the estimate from the sizer may be over-estimating for OpsMgr. We have one client with 2000 servers and a fully populated data warehouse in OpsMgr 2007 R2 has not crossed 500 GB yet, and another with about 1100 servers that has not crossed 1000 GB yet]
ConfigMgr: 100 GB
Total: 2225 GB

Sizing per Microsoft estimation methods for case study #2: (details on ServiceMgr, OpsMgr and ConfigMgr are contained in the appendix of this blog article)

ServiceMgr: 225 GB (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27850 or http://t.co/8ht9rAOQ)

OpsMgr: 1900 GB (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29270)

ConfigMgr: 100 GB (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh846235.aspx#BKMK_ReqDiskSpace)

DPM: .9 GB (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh757757.aspx)

App Controller: 1 GB (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg696060.aspx)

VMM: 150 GB (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg610574.aspx)

Orchestrator: 1 GB (http://blogs.technet.com/b/meamcs/archive/2011/11/02/orchestrator-2012-deployment-amp-configuration-step-by-step-part-2-system-requirements.aspx)

In terms of database sizing from the Microsoft sizing estimates, the largest databases (and those requiring the most resources) are Operations Manager, Service Manager, Virtual Machine Manager and Configuration Manager which represent the statistically relevant database sizes.

Common System Center 2012 Database Recommendations:

Limit each SQL Instance memory where the SQL total memory setting allows a minimum of 1 GB and preferably 2 GB of free memory after all services are running.
SQL Server will need to be Standard or Enterprise edition (Datacenter in some situations)
Install dual gigabit network adapters teamed with full duplex
Disks should be formatted to a 64K allocation unit size
Disks should be configured to allow 20% free space after all calculations for monitoring and set growth upper limits to not exceed this space limit.
The SQL Cluster should be running Active-Passive unless resources are proved to be insufficient
Common objections to sharing databases is contention for resources resulting in bottlenecks – processors, memory, and especially disk spindles. Use Operations Manager to identify these potential bottlenecks.
OpsMgr will not support SQL dynamic ports which is the default SQL setting, change each SQL instance dynamic port to a TCP port.
If OpsMgr will be providing monitoring for network devices, increase the size of the SQL temp in that instance.
Set the SQL Database Engine Domain Account(s) to auto register the SQL SPN values which occurs every time the service starts up
If you are using heart beat and iSCSI connections – make sure to remove all connection options except IPv4 and remove any DNS and Gateway entries as well.

Summary: Do you want to use a common SQL server for multiple components of System Center 2012? You can, but be sure to consider the requirements of each component and see the guidance above for sizing, instance details and general recommendations.

Special thanks on this one to: Travis Wright from the Microsoft product team for his second perspective, Louis Oliver for his help with the IOPS statistics, Chris Ross for his assistance with this from a Service Manager perspective!

Appendix: Sizing for OpsMgr, Service Manager and ConfigMgr from the Microsoft sizing estimators.

OpsMgr 2012 sizing:

In terms of currently available tools, there is a sizer for OpsMgr available at: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29270.

For the OpsMgr database in an organization this size the results are:

(Bolded Red items below are showing the Case Study #2 example with approximately 2000 OpsMgr agents)

DB Estimated Random IO Per Second for Maximum Load Configuration [80% Write, 20% Read]
# of Agents	Estimated IOPS
1-500	250
501-1000	500
1001-3000	750
3001-6000	1125
6001-10000	1250
10001-15000	1500

OpsMgr DB: Number of Days for Data Retention	7
Number of Server Computers	2500
Number of Network Devices	50
Number of APM-enabled Computers	0
Total Size (MB)	42276.18
Total Size (GB)	41.29
Total Size (GB) with 50% Buffer	61.93

For the OpsMgr DW in an organization this size the results are:

DW Estimated Random IO Per Second for Maximum Load Configuration [80% Write, 20% Read]
# of Agents	Estimated IOPS
1-500	500
501-1000	875
1001-3000	1000
3001-6000	1500
6001-10000	2000
10001-15000	2500

OpsMgr DW: Number of Days for Data Retention	365
Number of Server Computers	2500
Number of Network Devices	50
Number of APM-enabled Computers	0
Total Size (MB)	1707732.56
Total Size (GB)	1667.71
Total Size (GB) with 10% Buffer	1834.48

ServiceMgr 2012 sizing:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=27850

Service Manager database Size
Retention for Work Items (days)			90
Number of work items for computers/month	6150
Total Size (GB)			6.84
Suggested Space Allocation
with 50% buffer (GB)			10.26

Service Manager data warehouse Size Note: The details below for each database include the recommended 50% buffer.
			We also recommend placing each database on a separate physical drive if possible to optimize performance.
Number of Days			1095
DWStagingandConfig			20.53
Repository			61.58
DWDataMart			61.58
TempDB			51.32
DWASDataBase			18.47
		Note: The DWASDataBase size approximation is based on the default aggregation level set by Service Manager.

Total Size (GB)			213.49

Suggested Space Allocation			213.49
with 50% buffer (GB)

From download.microsoft.com/.../SC2012_ServiceMgr_Planning.docx

Service Manager database

Dual Quad-Core 2.66 gigahertz (GHz) CPU

8 gigabytes (GB) of RAM for 20,000 users, 32 GB of RAM for 50,000 users (See the Hardware Performance section in this guide.)

80 GB of available disk space

RAID Level 1 or Level 10 drive*

Data warehouse databases

Dual Quad-core 2.66 GHz CPU

8 GB of RAM for 20,000 users, 32 GB of RAM for 50,000 users (See the Hardware Performance section in this guide.)

400 GB of available disk space

ConfigMgr 2012 sizing:

from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh846235.aspx#BKMK_ReqDiskSpace

Data usage	Minimum disk space1	25,000 clients	50,000 clients	100,000 clients
Operating system	See guidance for the operating system.	See guidance for the operating system.	See guidance for the operating system.	See guidance for the operating system.
Configuration Manager Application and Log Files	10 GB	10 GB	10 GB	10 GB
Site database .mdf file	75 GB for every 25,000 clients	75 GB	150 GB	300 GB
Site database .ldf file	25 GB for every 25,000 clients	25 GB	50 GB	100 GB
Temp database files (.mdf and .ldf)	As needed	As needed	As needed	As needed
Content (distribution point shares)	As needed	As needed	As needed	As needed

SCOM 2012 uninstallation

Natalya — Wed, 23 May 2012 01:10:06 GMT

While everybody installs SCOM 2012 these days, today I've got experience to uninstall it
Spent a few seconds to realise that the "Install" word should be clicked to begin uninstallation process. Really liked the warning from the system which reminds to uninstall agents, disconnect databases, redirect traps, etc.
Manually cleaned the rest of SCOM folder under Program Files, as well user’s SCOM settings in registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager. Noticed that there are no other SCOM leftovers in the registry. Next installations\uninstallations are coming…

Cloud: Partitions on non-system VHDs in Hyper-V VMs deployed from template appear as ‘Uninitialized' [PCITRW]

Pete Zerger — Tue, 22 May 2012 05:52:08 GMT

Here’s a not-so-minor aggravation related to VM deployment and a workaround I wanted to share with you as another lesson in the “private cloud in the real world” series. It's not every day you create a VM templates with multiple logical drives, especially with specific configuration or partitions. Every now and again, when these come up I seen problems with the second VHD containing the application partition (or partitions) coming online in the disconnected state when the VM is deployed from the template. The potential cause of the issue may not be apparent until you get an error message saying:

"the disk is offline because of policy set by an administrator".

Truth be told, this still doesn’t make the issue obvious. As it turns out this message is related to the default setting in Windows 2008 related to the San Policy.

SAN policy was been introduced in Windows Server 2008 to protect shared disks accessed by multiple servers. The first time the server sees the disk, it will be offline, but after being brought online once, should be online even after reboot.You can change the San Policy setting to OnlineAll setting to get around this, but it must be very clear that if the disks are shared among servers, this can lead to data corruption. Users are encouraged to use the proper SAN policy to protect data.

However, the VHD file in a highly available VM is not a shared disk in the same fashion, so in this case it should be safe. To avoid the issue newly deployed virtual machines, you'll need to implement the fix in the VM before you sysprep the OS (create a template). You can check the current setting of the San policy using the DISKPART utility as follows:

DISKPART.EXE

DISKPART> san

SAN Policy : Offline Shared

The Fix

The fix is to use the DISKPART utility (native to Windows 2008 OS) is to make a SAN policy change within the VM that will become the template. The steps are:

DISKPART> san policy=OnlineAll

DiskPart successfully changed the SAN policy for the current operating system.

That’s all there is to it. You’re now ready to turn this VM into a VM template.

Additional Resources

Here are a few additional resources related to the MS Private Cloud and System Center 2012

Orchestrator is AWESOME, but WHERE DO I START? [PCITRW]

OpsMgr: A 5 Step Plan for Developing an Effective LOB Application Monitoring Strategy (PCITRW)

[Series] System Center 2012 and the Private Cloud in the real world

Private Cloud in the real world: 5 lessons from the private cloud fabric

Cloud: A quick note on accurately measuring Hyper-V host performance and utilization

Orchestrator Jumpstart Series

Orchestrator 2012 Jumpstart: Day 1– Runbook Concepts, Components and Databus Rules

Orchestrator Runbook Automation JumpStart: Part 2 – Advanced Features and Functionality

Orchestrator Runbook Automation Jumpstart (Part 3)–Bridging Gaps, Extending Capabilities, Best Practices

Using Orchestrator 2012 to Schedule MMode for OpsMgr Groups

MGoedtel — Sun, 20 May 2012 01:11:13 GMT

With Operations Manager 2007 and 2007 R2, scheduling maintenance mode for a group of servers during a defined service window typically required using a custom PowerShell script, management pack, or custom program (just to name a few solutions/approaches readily available). With System Center Orchestrator and the Operations Manager 2012 Integration Pack, you have learned how we can leverage a single solution to automate maintenance mode for a single agent-managed system, or multiple systems depending on your requirements.

This solution is using a SQL query against the Operations Manager operational (OperationsManager) database. I decided to take this approach for two reasons – efficiency and simplicity. Sure I could have done this in PowerShell, but until recently I found there were challenges with running PowerShell scripts that invoke cmdlets from any one of the Microsoft products that leverage PowerShell for administration (there are multiple blog posts on this topic providing different guidance on how to approach this if you search on PowerShell and Orchestrator). Next posting I’ll share how this can be accomplished with PowerShell using a few lines of code.

The following example demonstrates how to start maintenance mode for all members of a group.

1. On the computer where the Runbook Designer is installed, click Start, point to All Programs, click System Center 2012 - Orchestrator, and then click Runbook Designer.

2. In Runbook Designer, in the Connections pane, click the Runbooks folder.

3. In the Connections pane, click the Create a new runbook icon

4. In the Runbook Designer Design workspace, right-click the Runbook tab, and then select Rename.

5. Enter a name for the runbook, such as “SchedMMode” and press Enter.

6. Create a Schedule (under Global Settings) and call it “Svc Window - Saturday 9PM-1AM” and set it so that it runs on any Saturday, and that the only hour permitted is from 9 pm to 1 am.

7. From the Connections pane in the Runbook Designer, expand the Global Settings folder, and click the Variables folder.

8. Right-click the Variables folder or a subfolder of the Variables folder, point to New, and then click Variable to open the New Variable dialog box.

9. Type a Name for the variable. This variable will represent the actual name of the group defined in Operations Manager that we will be querying for the members of the group to place into maintenance mode.

10. Type a Description that explains the purpose of the variable.

11. Type the Value of the variable, which is the actual name of the group in Operations Manager. This value replaces the placeholder in the Query Database activities where the variable is inserted.

12. Click Finish.

13. In the Activities pane, drag the Monitor Date/Time activity from the Scheduling category to the Design workspace of your runbook.

14. Double-click the Monitor Date/Time activity to open the Properties dialog box for that activity.

15. In the properties for the Monitor Date/Time activity, on the Details tab for the At setting, select an absolute time for the runbook to run that aligns with the start time of your scheduled service window. For example, if it is scheduled for 9:00 PM, select 9:00 PM for the value.

16. Click Finish.

17. In the Activities pane, drag the Check Schedule activity from the Scheduling category to the Design workspace of your runbook.

18. Double-click the Check Schedule activity to open the Properties dialog box for that activity.

19. Select the Details tab, and next to the Schedule Template box, click the ellipsis (...) button and in the Select a Schedule dialog box, select the Schedule that you created in step 6.

20. Click Finish.

21. In the Activities pane, drag the Query Database activity from the Utilities category to the Design workspace of your runbook.

22. Double-click the Query Database activity to open the Properties dialog box for that activity.

23. Select the Details tab, and in the Query text box, copy and paste the following query:

select TargetObjectDisplayName as 'Group Members'

from RelationshipGenericView

where isDeleted=0

AND SourceObjectDisplayName = ' '

ORDER BY TargetObjectDisplayName

24. Select the Connection tab, and select from the Database type drop-down list, SQL Server. For Authentication, verify the radio button for Windows Authentication is selected.

25. On the Connection tab, and next to the Server box, type in the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the SQL Server hosting the Operations Manager operational database.

26. On the Connection tab, and next to the Initial Catalog box, type in the name of the Operations Manager operational database, which by default is OperationsManager.

27. On the Security tab, provide a username and password of an account that has read rights to the OperationsManger database. By default, the service account associated with the Runbook service has not been granted this right to the database and this activity will fail by default.

28. Click Finish.

29. In the Activities pane, drag the Start Maintenance Mode activity from the SC 2012 Operations Manager category to the Design workspace of your runbook.

30. Create smart links between the Monitor Date/Time, Check Schedule, Query Database, and Start Maintenance Mode activities.

31. Double-click the Start Maintenance Mode activity to open the Properties dialog box for that activity.

32. Select the Details tab, and next to the Server Connection box, click the ellipsis (...) button and in the Item Selection dialog box, select the connection defined for the Operations Manager Integration Pack.

33. Next to the Monitor box, type the following: Microsoft.Windows.Computer: and then right-click and select Subscribe\Published Data.

34. In the Published Data dialog box, verify in the Activity drop-down list the Query Database activity is selected and in the middle pane select the published data – Full line as a string… and press the OK button.

35. Next to the Reason box, click the ellipsis (…) button and in the Reasons dialog box, select the appropriate reason from the list and press OK.

36. Next to the Duration box, enter a value representing the total number of minutes to place the monitored objects returned from the Query Database into maintenance mode.

37. Next to the Comment box, type in a comment to indicate why the maintenance mode activity is initiated for the monitored object.

38. Click Finish.

The other activities in the runbook are utilizing the Operations Manager Create Alert activity to handle errors that may arise and inform when the runbook completes successfully.

I can confirm from testing that the Start Maintenance Mode activity does place the object and all child objects into maintenance mode. Hopefully you experience the same results as I do.

Any questions, feel free to email me at mgoedtel@itcentric.biz.

New Video: QMX - Configuration Manager for iPad, iPhone, Android - Mobile Device Management

Heterogeniuses — Mon, 21 May 2012 21:28:02 GMT

New Video:

QMX - Configuration Manager iPad, iPhone, Android Mobile Device Management

QMX - Configuration Manager Edition - Now Supporting Android Mobile Devices (effective 4/20) in addition to iPads & iPhone.

View the videos on:

Quest TV: http://quest.com/tv/All-Videos/1558920731001/QXM---System-Center-Configuration-Manager-Brief-Feature-Overview/Video/

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z-WU4i5E3Y

Check out the new Android extension: Security features include Remote Wipe, Lock and Reset Passcode; Inventory information showing installed applications and device/OS properties; set password requirements via profile distribution and more.

Check out the new iOS extension: All of the above and app deployment, too!

IT Consulting: The power of singletasking, chunking it down & a mini-sabbatical

Cameron Fuller — Thu, 17 May 2012 23:47:42 GMT

What do you do when you are falling behind on the big things in life that need to get done but there just don’t seem to be enough hours in the day?

Please note – this blog article is really about a process of my own learning how to integrate writing into my life. It may be interesting just to see the behind-the-scenes on this this works or it may not. If it’s not, please feel free to stop reading here and move on to something more interesting in life! My blog will be back on it’s regular technical channel on my next post. [insert smiley here]

I’ve been failing to get some important things done that I have committed that I would do this year. Specifically, at the Microsoft Management Summit I was asked several times when the Operations Manager 2012 Unleashed book will be available and I didn’t have a really good answer at this point because I am behind schedule on my deadlines. For me, starting on a major project like this feels like looking up to the top of the mountain…

Versus standing at the top of the mountain… (yes, that’s me on the right side after short-mountain climb last year in Colorado and no, the mountain above is not the one that I actually climbed)

Everyone I meet in IT is busy – I don’t think I’ve met a person in IT recently who has told me that they have spare time. I’m not saying that I’m any more busy than anyone else out there, but I am trying to figure out how to catch up when there is a giant set of deadlines which are past-due and what seems like not enough time to catch up on them. This has been an extremely busy year with SystemCenterUniverse, the release of System Center 2012 and the Microsoft Management Summit. The problem I’ve been experiencing is complete overload trying to keep up with items that need to be done and can’t be delayed while dealing with constant interruptions. With email, twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, phone calls, Instant Messages, text messages (just kidding) and more there is a constant stream of interruptions which eat up a day extremely quickly. To address this situation, I’m embracing three concepts in this blog article: “singletasking”, chunking it down and a mini-sabbatical.

Multitasking versus Singletasking:

I know singletasking is not a word, but I like to make up words – it’s a hobby of mine (for a previous example, see “complify”). There is an inherent expectation that we will multitask in IT. If you don’t believe me, try ignoring email and calendar for a couple of days to focus on one specific technical issue and see how your coworkers and boss act towards you… (assuming you are still employed at that point in time).

There is a lot of discussion about the problems with humans multitasking, some good article links below:

The summary of this all boils down to one statement: computers multitask well, people do not

I’m attempting to avoid my tendency to multitask by breaking my larger tasks into smaller chunks and to focus one topic in a dedicated timeframe where possible.

Chunking it down: Breaking down the mammoth tasks into smaller segments to move forward

One of the challenges I’ve been facing trying to fit writing into a day is that it’s too big. That’s one of the reasons why I blog as much as I do – I can spend an hour and put together a blog article (an exception is something like this which is relatively complex and takes a few hours to put together). For a book, the smallest chunk this a I had been breaking things down to was a chapter. Writing on a chapter takes me about 40 hours to complete and requires dedicated time to focus on where the chapter is at and what next steps are for the chapter. Breaking a chapter down into chunks and working through them makes it faster to pick a chapter back up in mid-write and move forward with it. I started doing this exercise with my third chapter on my fourth book I was co-authoring. Here’s the “chunks” I broke it down to: [stored in OneNote, shared on my skydrive, one section per chapter, the full book as a section group]

Write the chapter outline

Create a folder in email to store tips and tricks

Assemble sources for the chapter and put them in the chapter folder

Move the chapter outline into the template and format headers

From the outline assemble 4-6 top level topics - each becomes a chunk my topics in this chapter:

Understanding Core Concepts

Discovering and Deploying Agents

Managing agents

Troubleshooting Tips

Fast Track/Summary

Integrate tips and tricks from email

Initial authoring complete - email to lead author

Initial comment review, edits and email to lead author

Create an email folder to store updates identified post-author review

Email and review cycle until "Author Complete" state

As each of these are accomplished I get to checking something off of a completed list and if I have to leave the chapter I know where I was with it so it’s quicker to get back on track. By breaking a chapter down into more manageable chunks this makes it easier to get back on track by assigning an hour at a time to work on a specific chunk of a chapter versus having to block an entire day to focus on a chapter.

Mini-Sabbatical: (a rest from work, or a hiatus)

To start to catch up, I had to try something new – a mini-sabbatical focused on writing. I’ve done this once before for this book to get myself moving and I’m at it again this week. For a mini-writing-sabbatical I am taking vacation time to catch up and focus on getting one big thing done (such as writing a chapter which generally takes about 40 hours for me to bring to an author complete stage). One of the benefits of this approach is that it lets me focus on a single thing that needs to be done and ignore other items that pop up as distractions. The topics I’m writing about for this mini-sabbatical were:

Removing distracting to-do items
Minimizing distractions
Going back to the basics

Removing Distracting to-do items:

I started this mini-sabbatical by mapping out the top six things which I needed to get done that were stressing me out, and putting them onto a list to tackle the first day. The goal was to eliminate the items which were likely to cause me to try to multitask and spanned both work related and non-work related items. For me the list was:

1) Email – the bane of my existence. Catching up with email items because I prioritize out of my inbox.

2) Testing my son’s birthday present to make sure it worked (no details here since it’s a surprise).

3) Installing the replacement cabinet microwave since the last one blew up when my wife left town.

4) Mowing – the back yard length had reached the point where I might lose a small dog out there.

5) Expenses – Catching up on back expenses for work.

6) Cleaning out the frog’s tank – they never thank you for things like this do they?

The details of what was on the list is not important, just that these were all items which were on my mind that needed to be done. By getting them done it cleared my plate to make it easier to focus on putting something bigger onto it. I took the above list and spent a day balancing between easier to resolve writing issues (review and comments on a chapter) and working on these items – alternating between the two to keep things lively.

Minimizing Distractions:

On a previous mini-writing-sabbatical I actually went out to a cabin in the woods of Oklahoma to get away from all distractions and focus on writing. While that’s a bit extreme it is useful. A simpler approach was to choose a weekend when my family was out of town. Key points to remember when minimizing distractions:

Turn off the cell phone if possible
Log out of email
Find a quiet place with minimal distractions
Get the distracting to-do list taken care of (see the previous section of this blog post)

Back to the basics: Sleep & Exercise

One of the first things that often gets put to the back burner when there is too much to do and not enough time to do it is sleep. Unfortunately while this helps in the short term in the long-term it just makes things worse. The first priority for the sabbatical was to get a good night’s sleep and to allow some nap time to catch up on sleep deprivation over the last couple of weeks. Trying to write on a lack of sleep is a complete waste of time from my experience.

Exercise is the second thing that often gets put on the back burner. For me, exercise breaks during a long writing period make a good way to relax at logical break points.

The idea of a mini-sabbatical really provides a way to break away from the regular routine of work and doesn’t have to be specific to accomplishing a writing project – it could be any large project that keeps getting pushed out by the day-to-day noise of life.

What were the result of this mini-sabbatical?

1) One chapter which had been nearly completed moved to author complete stage.

2) One chapter written nearly to completed (which normally takes about 40 hours for me to accomplish)

[P.S. Bill, this one’s for you man!]

How to convert a VMware VM Guest to Hyper-V in VMM 2012 (without vCenter integration)

Pete Zerger — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:47:52 GMT

Problem: I had to convert a VMware VM guest in my VMM 2012 test environment, but the virtualization team would not let me connect to vCenter from System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager. This means a virtual-to-virtual (V2V) conversion is not possible.

Solution: As a workaround, I decided to treat the VMware guest as a physical machine and perform a physical-to-physical (P2V) conversion.

FAQs of P2V Conversion in VMM 2012 <<< (good explanation of differences in ‘offline and online conversion)

P2V Wizard Selections

1 – In the VMs and Services workspace, Open VMM 2012 and go to home tab, then click on Convert Physical Machine under Create Virtual Machine button on ribbon.

2 - Put Server’s IP or name, followed by domain and login credentials. Keep in mind you need administrative rights on physical server (the VMware VM in this case) and it needs to be accessible from VMM server.

3 - Click Next and provide the name of the VM as it will appear in the VMM console.

4 - Click on Scan, which will then take a few minutes to scan the source VMware VM guest. Clicking on Scan installs an VMM agent on physical machine to gather the details about hardware and software on the source.

5 - Click next to proceed after finishing a scanning process. Now choose partitions you want to convert. You can also choose disk type (e.g. dynamic or fixed).

Note: System reserved volume is required, otherwise your new VM will not able to boot properly - this volume is preselected and greyed out to prevent mistakes. You will find you cannot set a smaller volume size (regardless of free space)…only larger

6 – Select number of processors and amount of RAM you want to assign the VM. Click Next to proceed.

7 – Intelligent placement in VMM will present suitable and available host in descending order based on available resources. Choose one and proceed by clicking on next to place you newly converted VM.

8 – Next, choose storage location for VM.

9 – Select the network interface to connect the VM to the same network as in the VMware environment. Click Next to proceed.

10 - Next choose automatic actions. In this VMM will validate all steps and it will display issues if any blockers are found. You must resolve any issues identified before clicking Next. If no issues are found, you are ready to proceed with P2V process.

11 - Make sure everything is correct on the Summary page. Do not choose to start automatically after deploy to avoid confliction between the old physical server and newly converted virtual machine. Click on create button to start p2v process. It will take some time according to your network speed and size of the source VMware guest. After clicking the Create button you can see the action in process under Jobs, where you can monitor progress of the conversion.

12 – When the P2V process is complete, turn off the source VMware VM guest before starting the Hyper-V guest to avoid network conflicts (since the newly converted machine is a clone of physical server).

Additional Information on System Center 2012 and MS Private Cloud

Here are a few of the many System Center and MS Private Cloud-related System Center 2012 articles here on SCC

Implementing rapid scale-out of a machine tier in VMM 2012 via PowerShell

Cloud: A quick note on accurately measuring Hyper-V host performance and utilization

What’s new in the Cloud Services Process Pack (CSPP) Release Candidate for System Center 2012?

Private Cloud in the real world: 5 lessons from the private cloud fabric

How to prepare for Orchestrator? Learn Opalis in a month of Friday afternoons! (free online resources)

PowerShell Scripts for System Center (Master Collection)

[Private Cloud]: Configuring anti-affinity between VMs on Hyper-V 2008 R2 SP1 and VMM 2012

SCVMM Tip: Testing PRO Integration in VMM / OpsMgr 2012

4 Hyper-V performance testing tips for the private cloud

Hyper-V Network Optimizations and Best Practices [Private Cloud]

Streamlining Linux VM configuration on Hyper-V with the Set-LinuxVM PowerShell module

Cumulative Update 6 for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 is available

rorymccaw — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:34:08 GMT

KB2626076 - Cumulative Update 6 for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 is available

If you haven’t updated your SCOM 2007 R2 environment in a while, consider taking a look at CU6. This CU provides some xplat features and a number of fixes to bugs. Some of them particularly important with RMS upgrades.

Have fun, learn System Center. www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php.

Download Infront’s free Orchestrator MP which monitors your Runbooks!! www.infrontconsulting.com/mp.php

Subscriptions do not fire for sub-groups members in OpsMgr (#SCOM, #SYSCTR) or DO they…

Cameron Fuller — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:48:10 GMT

During a recent discussion on OpsMgr 2007 R2 environments, I was told that OpsMgr subscriptions do not fire for sub-group members. I decided to test this and see if this works the same way in OpsMgr 2012. To test this I created a total of three groups: A top level one called “Top Level Group” with no members. A second group called “Sub-Group1” with one computer object and a third computer group called “Sub-Group2” with a different computer object. Then I added the two sub-groups to the top level group which looks like this:

For this test, I used the Alert History addition blog that I had recently written. To test this, I created a new subscription which was targeted to all alerts which occurred for my “Top Level Group” and tested changes to a variety of alerts in OpsMgr to see if the subscription would fire correctly for the two entities I had put into the sub-groups. The new subscription looks like this:

[As a side-note, don’t ever use the Alert History addition idea without setting a restriction on it to only “New” alerts as I accidentally set it to the group and not restricted as well to just new. The result was that the subscription started continually re-processing all alerts in the environment which spun up a whole lot of PowerShell scripts that really beat up my lab environment.]

I was pleasantly surprised to see that my test actually worked! For my subscription which was defined on the top level group, alerts were processing correctly through the subscription. See the example below where a ticket was generated in service manager and the history was added to the alert since it matched the condition.

For OpsMgr 2007: If you create a top level group, with sub-groups under it and try to create a subscription from the top level group it does not fire the subscription for the members of the sub-groups. Workaround: When creating subscriptions, use the sub-groups if entities are stored within the sub-groups in OpsMgr.

For OpsMgr 2012: It appears that subscriptions can be defined on top level groups and will include the members of the sub-groups in the subscription!

KB2686249: Update Rollup 1 for System Center 2012 (KBs and hotfixes)

Tommy Gunn — Wed, 16 May 2012 15:33:09 GMT

This update rollup contains updates for the entire System Center 2012 family:

Virtual Machine Manager Server Update (KB2663959)
Virtual Machine Manager Console Update (KB2663960)
Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal Update (KB2663961)
App Controller Update (KB2677596)
Operations Manager Update (KB2674695) – Windows monitoring
Operations Manager Update (KB2674695) – Unix and Linux monitoring
Operations Manager Update (KB2674695) – New feature

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2686249

Download

Here at the download links per-product

Virtual Machine Manager Server Update (KB2663959)

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Search.aspx?q=2663959

Virtual Machine Manager Console Update (KB2663960)

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Search.aspx?q=2663960

Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal Update (KB2663961)

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Search.aspx?q=2663961

App Controller Update (KB2677596)

http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Search.aspx?q=2677596

Operations Manager Update

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c593536c-94f3-4c71-b963-5ab3b7fc05e1

Two Orchestrator 2012 Utilities You Need to Try!

Pete Zerger — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:31:40 GMT

If you're an Operations Manager administrator or an Orchestrator 2012 enthusiast, there are two utilities you have to check out…

Cool Tool: New Command Line Utility to Start a Runbook -This utility is an OpsMgr administrators dream, enabling easy execution of orchestrator runbooks from diagnostic and recovery tasks in OpsMgr 2007 or 2012 with simple command line syntax. No need for PowerShell or XML to call your go-to runbooks for incident remediation.

Community Spotlight: New Tool to “Sanitize” Runbook Exports - This utility is used to manipulate ois_export files, and is a great way to automate sanitizing Orchestrator runbooks without the need for a staging environment to perform manual cleanup of those unwanted global configuration items, counters, variables, etc.

Put these on your to-do list for your next lab session.

Why don't the CPU totals match on the diagnostic in Health Explorer for OpsMgr? (#SCOM, #SYSCTR)

Cameron Fuller — Tue, 15 May 2012 16:59:29 GMT

Background: Operations Manager has a feature which alerts which a monitor has exceeded a certain threshold for processor utilization and processor queue. If you use Health Explorer you can see what processes were occurring when the processor went to an unhealthy state. I discussed this concept and other Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) in a Windows IT Pro article available at: http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/microsoft-system-center-operations-manager-2007/Operations-Manager-Key-Performance-Indicators-128969/.

Issue: The results from the diagnostic may not add up to the threshold which was exceeded in Operations Manager. As an example, in the diagnostic example I included with the article (http://www.windowsitpro.com/content/content/128969/Fuller%20WIN2293Fig3.JPG) the numbers add up to about 57% and the threshold is defined at a processor utilization of 95%.

What we found:

The first thing to understand is that the threshold for the monitor is correlated based on CPU Queue Depth and Processor Utilization. This diagnostic fires when the threshold has been exceeded which is defined. Processor utilization must stay above 95% for 5 samples 2 minutes apart (8 minutes, counting sample one as 0 minutes) and Queue Depth must stay above 15 for 2 consecutive samples. Once this happens, the diagnostic fires.
This is where it gets interesting: The diagnostic queries WMI 5 times 2 seconds apart and records ONLY THOSE PROCESSES THAT REPORT ABOVE 0% CPU USAGE FOR ALL 5 SAMPLES. Thus you will get some odd results if you have spiking or disappearing processes. Considering the 8 second gap that occurs between the threshold for processor and queue and the result set calculation, the process list may appear to be missing some data.
This behavior can be changed by setting the sample count (5) to 1 and the delay (2000) to 0 so it just snapshots the process list for all processes above 0% when the diagnostics fire. Understand that there will still be a delay between the threshold crossing and the list being generated, but it would be more reflective of what was running when the Utilization/Queue threshold was crossed.

Thank you to Louis Oliver for tracking this down and helping me to put this into something that can be shared with the community! And thank you to Pete Zerger for his contributions on this as well!

Cumulative Update 6 for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 (KB2626076)

Tommy Gunn — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:28:18 GMT

It’s here! Cumulative Update 6 contains a number of fixes for Operations Manager 2007 R2, as well as all of the fixes from Operations Manager 2007 R2 CU5. A number of fixes may require manual steps to install.

Overview

Cumulative Update 6 contains a number of fixes for Operations Manager 2007 R2 including cross platform components, support for IBM AIX 7.1 (POWER), support for Oracle Solaris 11 (x86 and SPARC), as well as all of the fixes from Operations Manager 2007 R2 CU5. A detailed list of fixes and instructions can be found in Knowledge Base article KB2626076.

Auto-closing alerts via a subscription in OpsMgr (#SCOM)

Cameron Fuller — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:16:02 GMT

Problem: We have legacy Alert Generating Event Collection rules that legitimately create alerts so that a particular group gets notified of changes to security accounts and groups in Active Directory. In hind sight they should have been TIMER RESET event Monitors, but there are so many of these rules that it would be a significant undertaking to convert them all (read that as re-create as Timer reset Monitors). We want to close all the alerts generated from these rules as soon as they fire an email to the team since no one will ever directly address the alert.

Solution: PowerShell to the rescue! Using a command channel to call PowerShell with the alerted, we can close the alert when the subscription fires. Since all of these rules are isolated and alerted by a single subscription it makes the job that much easier.

1. Write some code to pull the specific alert (See the code at the end of this blog article)

2. Setup a channel to call the PowerShell script and pass the alerted:

3. Setup a subscriber for the new PowerShell channel:

4. Add the Subscriber and Channel to the Subscription firing the alerts for the rules in question:

5. Test it by triggering one of the events on a system the rules are deployed to. The event should fire an alert , send an email and the alert should close.

Here’s the PowerShell script to accomplish this in OpsMgr 2007 R2: (and thanks again to Graham Davies whose original script was used as the starting point for the one shown below)

Param($alertid)

$alertid = $alertid.toString()

# Script to Output Alerts from Operations Manager 2007

# Graham Davies

# May 1st 2008

# Name of Root Management Server

$RMS=""

# Initialise OpsMgr Provider

## prepare OpsMgr shell

if ((Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.OperationsManager.Client'}) -eq $null) {

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.OperationsManager.Client -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable Err

if ($Err) { $(throw write-Host $Err) }

}

if ((Get-ManagementGroupConnection | Where-Object {$_.ManagementServerName -eq $RMS}) -eq $null) {

New-ManagementGroupConnection $RMS -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable Err

if ($Err) { $(throw write-Host $Err) }

}

if ((Get-PSDrive | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'Monitoring'}) -eq $null) {

New-PSDrive -Name: Monitoring -PSProvider: OperationsManagerMonitoring -Root: \ -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable Err

if ($Err) { $(throw write-Host $Err) }

}

Set-Location Monitoring:\$RMS

$alert = Get-Alert -Criteria "Id = '$alertid'"

$alert.ResolutionState = 255

$alert.CustomField10 = $alertid

$alert.Update("")

All of the credit on this one goes to Louis Oliver who built this solution and provided me with all of the details as to how he did it. Way to go Louis!

Hyper-V Replica in Windows 2012 in 10 Minutes [2-Minute Overview and Video demo]

Pete Zerger — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:09:57 GMT

I am going to run through a quick 2-minute synopsis of a few of the most important Hyper-V features in Windows 8 Beta (now Windows Server 2012) for a customer, and thought I would share with the community at the same time. Below you’ll find a brief description covering the high points of the solution and a short recorded video where you can see the feature in action.

What is Hyper-V Replica?

Hyper-V replica is a game-changing technology that provides a high availability solution that is storage agnostic and very flexible in terms of security (Active Directory not required). This feature enables you to replicate virtual machines between storage systems, clusters, and data centers in two sites to provide business continuity and disaster recovery. Hyper-V Replica is new functionality added to the Hyper-V Role in Windows Server 2012. Hyper-V Replica enables organizations to implement an affordable Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) solution for virtualized workloads. This allows virtual machines running at a primary site to be efficiently replicated to secondary location (Replica site) across a WAN link.

Hyper-V Replica provides a storage-agnostic and workload-agnostic solution that replicates efficiently, periodically, and asynchronously over IP-based networks, typically to a remote site. Hyper-V Replica allows a Hyper-V Administrator, in the event of a failure at a primary site (e.g. fire, natural disaster, power outage, server failure etc.), to execute a failover of production workloads to replica servers at a secondary location within minutes, thus incurring minimal downtime. The configurations at each site do not have to be the same with respect to server or storage hardware.

What’s the big deal? (the value add)

This feature makes it easier and less expensive to plan and implement business continuity and disaster recovery solutions for your virtual machines. Hyper-V Replica provides the necessary management APIs that enable IT management vendors to build disaster recovery (DR) solutions for enterprise customers. Likewise, hosting companies that host dedicated/virtual servers for their customers can more easily offer DR as a service, (especially Small and Medium Business (SMB) customers).

The solution is basically storage agnostic. This component is designed in such a way that it makes the scenario work irrespective of where the virtual machine VHD file(s) resides (VHD files can be hosted on Direct Attached Storage (DAS), a SAN LUN, an SMB share on a File Server, or a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV).

Installation and Security

From a security perspective, Hyper-V Replica can also be implemented between un-trusted domains/workgroups. Hyper-V Replica is implemented as part of the Hyper-V Role. The Hyper-V Role can be enabled on a standalone Hyper-V server or on servers that are members of a Failover Cluster. Hyper-V servers can function as members of a Workgroup or as member servers in the same or different Active Directory domains. It is not required that Primary and Replica servers be part of the same Active Directory domain. If the Hyper-V server role is enabled on servers that are members of a Failover Cluster, those servers must be joined to the same Active Directory domain.

What works differently? You can use a built-in solution to configure virtual machines to be replicated to a second server running Hyper-V. For more information, see Maintaining Business Continuity of Virtualized Environments with Hyper-V Replica: scenario overview.

Video: Configuring and Operating Hyper-V Replica in Windows Server 2012 (Beta)

Here’s a short video where you can see Hyper-V Replica in action.

Configuring and Operating Hyper-V Replica

Additional Information

Hopefully this helped you get the concept in hand. If you’re ready for the deep dive, MS has published an 80+ page whitepaper on the topic at Understand and Troubleshoot Hyper-V Replica in Windows Server "8" Beta

And just a few of the many System Center and MS Private Cloud-related System Center 2012 articles here on SCC

Implementing rapid scale-out of a machine tier in VMM 2012 via PowerShell

Cloud: A quick note on accurately measuring Hyper-V host performance and utilization

What’s new in the Cloud Services Process Pack (CSPP) Release Candidate for System Center 2012?

Private Cloud in the real world: 5 lessons from the private cloud fabric

How to prepare for Orchestrator? Learn Opalis in a month of Friday afternoons! (free online resources)

PowerShell Scripts for System Center (Master Collection)

[Private Cloud]: Configuring anti-affinity between VMs on Hyper-V 2008 R2 SP1 and VMM 2012

SCVMM Tip: Testing PRO Integration in VMM / OpsMgr 2012

4 Hyper-V performance testing tips for the private cloud

Hyper-V Network Optimizations and Best Practices [Private Cloud]

Streamlining Linux VM configuration on Hyper-V with the Set-LinuxVM PowerShell module

Extending Service Manager 2012 CMDB Automation and with System Center 2012 and PowerShell

Pete Zerger — Sun, 13 May 2012 04:26:59 GMT

System Center 2012 Service Manager includes several product connectors for importing data into the CMDB automatically on a recurring basis with minimal effort. But what can you do when these connectors do not provide the configuration item (CI) data needed by your organization? How can this functionality be extended, initiated on a granular schedule or even on demand?

In this article, I will explain a couple of the options for extending CMDB automation in Service Manager 2012 with Orchestrator, Operations Manager and PowerShell. Also included with be links to several resources to guide you in implementing these ideas in your own System Center 2012 deployment.

Extending the default CI data collection of the Operations Manager CI Connector

An interesting point to note on the Service Manager 2012 architecture is that Service Manager was based on the Operations Manager 2007 R2 architecture. As such, Service Manager leverages the concept of management packs from Operations Manager, and in fact uses an extended version of the management pack schema.

By default, only a subset of classes defined in Operations Manager are imported into Service Manager via the Operations Manager CI Connector in Service Manager. So what if you want the data collected from a management pack not included in this default configuration? data from a third party management pack even?

This is a synopsis of the process.

(1) Find out what the correct class name is (e.g - Microsoft.Unix.Computer).

(2) import the management pack that contains that class definition (fi: Unix.library.mp) into SM.

(3) use the PowerShell cmdlet to add the class to the whitelist.

(4) edit the properties of the CI connector and put a checkmark in the box before your MP name so it will sync it and then hit "Sync Now".

(5) Create a new view under Configuration Items that shows any CI object of that class type (so you can see them).

You can find full details in Oskar Landman’s article, System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) –> System Center Service Manager(SCSM) CI Connector and my article SCSM: Including non-Windows devices from OpsMgr in the Service Manager CMDB, both here on SCC.

Configuring Granular Scheduling and On-Demand Execution of SM Connectors

As Stefan Koell pointed out recently, it's not easy to configure a more granular sync schedule for the connectors in Service Manager 2012. By default, connectors are scheduled to synchronize one a day at same time of day the connector was initially created.

However, using a modified version of Stefan's script as a starting point, you can create an Orchestrator runbook allowing you to initiate any Service Manager connector on a more granular schedule. You can take this a step further and even configure synchronization on demand using Orchestrator 2012 and PowerShell. The sample runbook is a simple two activity runbook (Initialize Data and Execute PS Script) as pictured in figure 1. The Initialize Data activity accepts two parameters

ConnectorName – Display Name of the connector in Service Manager 2012
SMServer – FQDN of the Service Manager 2012 Server

Figure 1. Sample runbook to synchronize Service Manager connectors on demand

The only modification to the PowerShell script is to add published data to pass in the name of the Service Manager 2012 connector and management server from the Initialize Data activity, as shown in figure 2.

Figure 2. Modified PowerShell script to accept Service Manager server and Connector Name parameters.

Now you have a runbook that can be easily initiated from the Orchestration Web Console or integrated into the Self-Service Portal.

Extending CMDB automation with CSV Import, PowerShell and Orchestrator 2012

When no connector includes the CI data you were hoping for, Service Manager 2012 includes a CSV Import connector that can be used to import CI data from external sources via a comma-separated value (CSV) file, and requires an xml schema file to define the contents of the CSV file. This import process is explained in detail in the Using the CSV Import Feature in Service Manager on TechNet blogs.

With Orchestrator and PowerShell, you can automate the import of CSV data on a schedule or on demand as part of an Orchestrator runbook. How your runbook is constructed will depend on whether your goal is to import data on a schedule or import data on demand. The runbook would look very similar to the example shown in figure 1 (would use the same activities). The bulk of the work will be creating the PowerShell and XML schema file for the import. Fortunately, Travis Wright has done the hard work already with a great sample for Service Manager 2012 in SCSM 2012: Import Holidays in SLA Calendar

Additional Resources

Hopefully, this article provides some food for thought in augmenting off-the-shelf functionality in Service Manager 2012. The HOW-TOs referenced in this article are shown below

[Infographic] Browser Wars: How does IE stack up versus Google and Firefox?

Tommy Gunn — Sat, 12 May 2012 01:57:02 GMT

This is an excerpt from an interesting infographic from bopdesign.com…check out the massive shift in less than 5 years!

QuickTricks: What user roles can put a server into maintenance mode in #SCOM?

Cameron Fuller — Sat, 12 May 2012 00:29:24 GMT

Summary: Operator role and higher (operator, advanced operator, and administrator) should be able to put systems into maintenance mode.

My testing: For due diligence I tested this in my lab environment as well for the Administrator role, Operator Role and Read-Only Operator Role and the results are shown below.

Administrator: (Maintenance mode is available)

Operator: (Maintenance mode is available)

Read-Only Operator: (Maintenance mode is NOT available)

For additional details, Microsoft has provided a set of what privileges are associated with each role in OpsMgr which is included in this post for reference purposes (The following content of what roles have what privileges is re-arranged from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh872885.aspx)

1.1 Administrator

The Administrator profile includes full privileges to Operations Manager. No scoping of the Administrator profile is supported. The Administrator profile contains all of the privileges found in the Author, Advanced Operator, Operator, and Read-Only Operator profiles in addition to those listed below.

Create a resolution state
Delete a resolution state
Update a resolution state
Deploy an agent
Repairing or update an installed agent
Uninstall an agent
Enumerate agent settings
Update agent settings
Enumerate agents
Start or stop managing computers or devices via a proxy health service
Enumerate computers or devices managed via a proxy health service
Insert a new instance of a computer or device
Delete an instance of a computer or device
Run discovery task
Create events
Enumerate global settings
Update global settings
Export Management Packs
Enumerate Management Servers
Delete notification endpoint
Update notification endpoint
Create performance data
Create Run As Accounts
Delete Run As Accounts
Enumerate Run As Accounts
Update Run As Account
Create mappings between Run As Account and Run As Profiles
Delete mappings between Run As Account and Run As Profiles
Enumerate mappings between Run As Account and Run As Profiles
Update mappings between Run As Account and Run As Profiles
Create connected management groups
Delete connected management groups
Enumerate user roles
Delete user roles
Update user roles
Write favorite reports
Delete favorite reports
Read favorite reports
Update favorite reports
Read reports
Run reports

1.2 Author

The Author profile includes a set of privileges designed for authoring of monitoring configuration. A role based on the Authors profile grants members the ability to create, edit, and delete monitoring configuration (tasks, rules, monitors, and views) within the configured scope. For convenience, Authors can also be configured to have Advanced Operator privileges scoped by group. The Author profile contains all of the privileges found in the Advanced Operator, Operator, and Read-Only Operator profiles in addition to those listed below.

Create Management Packs
Delete Management Packs
Enumerate Run As Profiles

1.3 Advanced Operator

The Advanced Operator profile includes a set of privileges designed for users who need access to limited tweaking of monitoring configuration in addition to the Operators privileges. A role based on the Advanced Operators profile grants members the ability to override the configuration of rules and monitors for specific targets or groups of targets within the configured scope. The Advanced Operator profile contains all of the privileges found in the Operator and Read-Only Operator profiles in addition to those listed below.

Update Management Pack
Enumerate templates

1.4 Operator

The Operator profile includes a set of privileges designed for users who need access to alerts, views, and tasks. A role based on the Operators profile grants members the ability to interact with alerts, run tasks, and access views according to their configured scope. The Operator profile contains all of the privileges found in the Read-Only Operator profile in addition to those listed below.

Update alerts
Run diagnostics
Create favorite tasks
Delete favorite tasks
Enumerate favorite tasks
Updates favorite tasks
Run recovery routines
Update maintenance mode settings
Enumerate notification actions
Delete notification actions
Update notification actions
Enumerate notification endpoints
Enumerate notification recipients
Delete notification recipients
Update notification recipients
Enumerate notification subscriptions
Delete notification subscriptions
Update notification subscriptions
Enumerate tasks
Enumerate task status
Run tasks

1.5 Read-Only Operator

The Read-Only Operator profile includes a set of privileges designed for users who need read-only access to alerts and views. A role based on the Read-Only Operators profile grants members the ability to view alerts and access views according to their configured scope.

Read alerts
Retrieve the instance of the data warehouse for the Management Group
Read state of a resolution
Read instance of a connector
Read a console tasks
Enumerate diagnostic objects
Enumerate the results of diagnostics
Enumerate discovery objects as defined in a Management Pack
Read a discovery rules
Read events
Write to favorite console tasks
Delete favorite console tasks
Enumerate favorite console tasks
Update favorite console tasks
Write a favorite view
Delete a favorite view
Enumerate a favorite view
Update a favorite view
Enumerate monitoring objects
Enumerate monitoring classes
Enumerate monitoring relationship classes
Enumerate Management Packs
Enumerate monitor types
Enumerate module types
Enumerate monitors
Enumerate overrides
Enumerate performance data
Enumerate discovery objects as defined in a Management Pack
Enumerate the status of past recoveries
Enumerate relationship between monitored objects
Enumerate rules
Enumerate saved searches
Update saved searches
Write to saved searches
Delete saved searches
Enumerate state
Allows access to connected Management Groups
Enumerate views
Enumerate view types

1.6 Report Operator

The Report Operator profile includes a set of privileges designed for users who need access to Reports. A role based on the Report Operator profile grants members the ability to view reports according to their configured scope.

Retrieve the instance of the data warehouse for the Management Group
Write to favorite reports
Delete favorite reports
Read favorite reports
Update favorite reports
Read reports
Run reports

1.7 Report Security Administrator

The Report Security Administrator profile includes a set of privileges designed to enable the integration of SQL Server Reporting Services security with Operations Manager.
Export Management Packs
Enumerate classes as defined in the Management Packs
Enumerate Management Packs
Run a report
Enumerate rules

Thank you to Paul Johnson for his assistance putting this together!