It’s not on MSDN downloads quite yet, but it should be there soon.

convert this post to pdf.

As usual, Anders is the first post over there!

convert this post to pdf.

A feature like that added to OpsMgr reporting would go a long long way to allowing us to generate custom reports.
Why?
Well, the SQL schema for OpsMgr is not, and never will be, given out. It’s like that because once they’ve shared a schema, then they are more or less stuck with it and it makes adding, removing, or making more efficient sql much more difficult. So they just don’t share it. They didn’t in MOM2005 either, but it was significantly easier to figure things out there, since we had the one MOM database, and all of the warehousing data was pulled from that one via DTS packages, so the whole thing functioned easier. With OpsMgr 2007, data is written to the OpsMgr database and the reporting database concurrently, and they are more less independent of each other. Because of that a lot of the tables and such are a lot more confusing and a lot more happens behind the scene. So adding something simple like “Show me the SQL used to generate this query” would open up a whole new world to us.

Let’s face it. For the vast majority of us, we’re either System Administrators that handle day to day duties as well as the OpsMgr infrastructure, or we’re full time OpsMgr Admins. We’re IT renaissance men, Jacks (and Jills) of all trades. We know a little bit about all of the applications, operating systems, hardware, etc of our company, but we’re not an expert in one thing. Since OpsMgr uses SQL Reporting Services to issue up reports, that means we need either:

• High level knowledge of SQL Reporting Services
• Full access to someone that is an expert of SRS
  or
• An easier, more guided method of generating reports

What I normally run across is:

1. I know SQL, I can bang together most of the things I need with the help of the SQL Books and Google. But SRS? No idea!
2. Every SQL DBA I know is either swamped with work, or they themselves don’t use SRS and have no idea how to help me
3. To say reporting is not very intuitive would be an under-statement

But, if we had a way of looking at the SQL queries a particular report uses to pull up it’s information, we’d be able to bang something together. Jonathon Hambrook showed us how to create the report model and get started. Kevin Holman shows us a different way, and also shows us a real world query to use.

While those are great starting points, I want more information. I want to create a report through the reporting tab - let’s say we want to look at the CPU usage over a 4 week period for all of the exchange servers. I then want to see exactly what SQL voodoo was run, and then re-create the report myself in the SQL BI suite, that way I can prepare something for a presentation, and make sure this report adheres to my companies style and branding guides. Just that one simple change would be the bridge that lets us go from “No idea” to “Hey, I have a great idea!”.

Hopefully I’ve got you fired up enough to rate my suggestion - if we get it high enough there’s a good chance it’ll be included! So open up suggestion #436472, and rate it! If you’ve never been to MS Connect before, login to the site and subscribe to the OpsMgr connection, #446. Then you’ll be able to click on the suggestion above to go directly to it. In the mean time, I’m trying to figure out how to pull up this info via ‘other means’.

Until next time!

convert this post to pdf.

• Tracking your Dominoes pizza
• Recording and reporting on things other then performance data - like stock prices, the weather, etc
• Get emailed when your friend’s flight is about to land
• Interacting with the physical environment using the Arduino microcontroller (Think: Turning on a fan when the heat gets too high)
• And much much more!

So I’m rebuilding my current SP1 environment and turning it into an R2 RC one. Then I’ll start adding wacky monitors. And I’ll create a full management pack to do it, and you’ll learn step-by-step. It’ll be a fun time! So stay tuned, and you stay classy, San DIego!

convert this post to pdf.

1. If you need someone in the Twin Cities area, please shoot me an email - it’s my first name@my last name.net.

I thought that behavior was a little odd, because most other providers will attempt to auto-complete known cmdlets first THEN go through the local directory. So I went to MS Connect and logged a bug report, bug ID #436239.

And this morning I received a response from Cory Delamarter, the Senior Program Manager for Operations Manager. He wrote:

Jeremy - Thank you very much for reporting this. We’ve confirmed this behavior and we will defintely look into how we can improve this in future releases.

The feedback is much appreciated!

So hopefully we’ll get that fixed soon and it’ll be just as fast as all the other providers out there! There really isn’t a work-around for this, as most (If not all) of the OpsMgr commands need to be run from the monitoring:: provider, or else they will fail. So we’ll have to live with it for just awhile longer.

convert this post to pdf.

To figure this all out, I talked to my friends up the street at MultiTech and had them send me a few of their SMS modems so I could figure it all out. They sent me 3 GPRS modems¹. This article will focus on the USB and RS-232 versions, which are almost completely identical in setup, and the same in operations. The MultiTech MultiModem GPRS² is a small (4 inches long, 2.5 inches wide, 1 inch high) device that accepts a SIM³ card and talks to your computer (Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008) via USB or RS-232 Serial (They have an additional model which uses Ethernet, that will be in part 2). Here’s the Cliff’s Notes Version:

1. Open the modem
2. Install SIM card into modem
3. Plug in antenna, plug in USB, plug into your server
4. Download and install the drivers
5. Open the OpsMgr admin console, and place a check in the box to enable SMS

Now, if you want a more indepth step by step via, with plenty of pretty pictures to look at read on after the jump! How To Setup System Center Operations Manager 2007 (And Windows!) to use native SMS Note: The example pictures are from Windows Server 2008, 64bit. This has also been tested on Server 2003 32bit & 64bit, as well as VIsta (Which didn’t work - the drivers arent certified and as such Vista refuses to use them!) What You’ll Need

• MultiTech MultiModem GPRS Model #MCTBA-G-U-F4 (USB version, though the serial version will work as well)
• An AT&T PrePaid "GoPhone" - though an prepaid cellular phone that provides a SIM card will work; this means AT&T or T-Mobile in the USA - Sprint & Verizon will not work sadly!
• Some time

What We’ll Do

1. Get your AT&T GoPhone. I went to my local big box store and bought the Nokia 2610 model for $19.99. As a phone, it’s not much, but we don’t care about that.
2. Rip open the phone, rifle through all of the documents and find the SIM card. This is what we care about. Go online, activate and fill it with some minutes. I put $25 on the phone, which gave me an additional $10 in credit.
3. The plan you choose doesn’t really matter, we’re just using this setup to test. I’m only planning on using this a limited amount of time, so the plan I chose has a fee of .20¢ per SMS. If you’d rather, you can pay a flat fee of $20.00 for unlimited messages.
4. Break out the SIM card from the little packaging it’s in, and remove the rubber cover on the front of the modem. Then slide your SIM card into the modem - pay attention to the orientation as is shown in the picture. It doesn’t go in the intuitive way!
5. Turn it around and connect the USB cable and the supplied antenna. The antenna uses a standard SMA connector, so if you can’t get a signal, you’re free to extend it or use a higher quality antenna. You’ll also notice a "handset" jack - and your guess is right. It’s a standard RJ-11 jack for your defacto-standard telephone. So yes, you can actually still make calls, too.
6. Now, before you plug this into your server, go to MultiTech’s website and download the drivers for your particular operating system. For you conveinence, I’ve linked to a few of them below, but they can be updated at any time so it’s a good idea to get them right from the source!
   • Windows Server 2003 & Windows XP - 32bit drivers - 64bit drivers
   • Windows Server 2008 - 32bit drivers - 64bit drivers
   • Windows VIsta - 32bit drivers - 64bit drivers⁴
7. Now plug the modem into your server. You’ll get the usual "Found new hardware" dialog. If you forgot to download the drivers, you’ll receive the "We can’t find it" message and it will show up in device manager with an exclamation point. The device identifies to Windows as a TUSB3410 Serial Port
8. When you install the driver, you’ll receive a Windows security warning that it can’t verify the publisher of this driver. Go ahead and click on "Install this driver anyway"
9. It will crunch away and then you’ll receive the "Successfull" dialog. You can also look in the device manager to see that it’s installed and now identified as a "GSM Modem"
10. Success! You did it! Now turn it on in OpsMgr and bask in the glow of your awesomene.. hrmm. Wait.

So maybe we’re not really done. Especially if you received one of these: Error 16009, DTR Call Failed. You might also receive error 16011, Baud Rate Test Failed. What are these? As it turns out, it’s nothing too serious. By default Windows talks to our GPRS modem at 115,200 baud. But OpsMgr is trying to communicate with it at 9600 baud. So we need to change the rate on the modem. No problem! While we’re there, we can test our modem manually and look at some of it’s settings. Since this SMS device is a real, actual factual modem, we can talk to it just like we’d talk to any modem, in the same way we’ve been doing for the past 30 years. In Windows XP and below, we can use the builtin Hyperterm. In Vista however, we don’t have Hyperterm any more, so we’ll need to use something else - and I’ll go ahead and recommend everyone’s favorite all in one telnet/ssh/terminal client PuTTY. It’s free and open source and works great. Go ahead and download it (Direct link to the all-in-one Windows installer version), I’ll wait. Done? Good. Now, open up PuTTY. It will default to the SSH connection type, go ahead and click on "Serial". For the serial line, change this from COM1 to whatever COM your modem installed on, for me it’s COM4. Also change the speed from it’s default of 9600 to 115200. Now click "Open". Your terminal will open up and you’ll be greeted with the following. You won’t receive any kind of welcome banner to show you’re connected. All you get is a little prompt. If you don’t get that, well then you’re not connected. This modem uses the same "AT" based Hayes Command Set that has been in use for the last 29 years. In fact, MultiTech has a huge PDF of the complete set of AT commands that this modem supports. It quite a read, and it really took me back. Anyway. Let’s start with something simple and practical. Lets see how good our signal is. Type AT+CSQ and hit enter. This returns our RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) and channel bit error rate. You can see, my signal strength is a medium one, somewhere between -109 to -53 dBm and no error rate. SPECIAL NOTE: If you received nothing but odd characters when you started typing, like below, that means you’re communicating to the modem at the wrong speed - disconnect, fix it, and connect again. This is essentially what Operations Manager is seeing when it tried to send a message: If you’d like to check the network status, enter "AT+CREG?" and hit enter. For me this returns: +CREG: 0,1 That means the modem is registered (Communicating with the cell towers properly) and that it’s on the home network (not roaming). Now, let’s see what rate we’re communicating to the modem at. We know it’s 115,200 but lets verify. Enter "AT+IPR?" and hit enter. This should return: +IPR: 115200 Excellent, now we need to change this. Enter "AT+IPR=9600" and hit enter.It will return +IPR: 9600 OK And then immediately appear to freeze. It hasn’t! We’re just not talking to it at the correct speed. So close out of PuTTY, and reconnect to the same COM port, but this time at 9600. Enter "AT+IPR?" at the prompt, and it should return: +IPR: 9600 OK Excellent! That means it’s set. We only have one more thing to do to the modem, and that’s to save this configuration. Right now it’s in volatile memory, meaning if the modem loses power that it will go back to 115200 when it starts up again. To save this configuration to the EEPROM, type in "AT&W" (W for Write) and hit enter. It will return OK And now you’re set there. Go ahead and disconnect. Or you can even play around some more if you want. If you want to send yourself a text message, enter ‘AT+CMGS="651MYPHONE" and hit enter. You’ll be given a ">", type your message and hit "CTRL+Z". When you get your message and respond to it, you can view that in the terminal too, with "AT+CMGR=<Message number>". If you haven’t sent it anything else, your message number is probably 1. Only one more thing left! Now all we need to do is configure Windows to talk to the modem at 9600 baud. You can either open up "Phone and Modem Options" in the control panel, hit "Properties" for your modem, "Change Settings" and change the maximum port speed to 9600 or you can open up the device in Device Manager and change the Bits Per Second under "Port Settings". Now, you really are done! Does it work? You bet your sweet ass!

convert this post to pdf.

1. GPRS, or General Packet Radio Service, is one of the most popular data standards in use in the US. They also make modems that talk to EDGE and CDMA systems though
2. USB Model: MTCBA-G-U-F4, RS-232 Model: MTCBA-G-F4
3. Subscriber Identity Module - See Wikipedia
4. Note: I was unable to get Vista drivers to work. They are not digitally signed, and as such Vista refuses to use them.

MultiTech GPRS MultiModems

I’ve seen a lot of questions, both in the MVP email list and on the forums/newsgroups, about how to setup OpsMgr to use SMS. The easiest way is with these, GPRS (Cellular) modems.

So I sent an email to my friends at MultiTech and the above showed up - a USB, RS-232, and Ethernet GPRS modems. I will be setting them up, documenting the process, then posting it here for you all to take in.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how simple it is to setup and, more importantly, how much more cost effective it is versus a paging solution like Telelink, Hiplink, etc. No more needing to know the carrier a number is under, no more global gateways to license. An unlimited messaging plan with no voice can be had for as little as $7/month.

So look for that coming soon!

convert this post to pdf.

I guess what I’m getting at is I’m sorry my posts have been fairly light recently. My contract at my current client ends March 31st, and as such I’ve been working on shoring up the small details and getting ready to transfer knowledge over.

And now I’m getting ready to head to the 2009 MVP Summit. I’ve seen my schedule, and while it’s jam packed with workshops (Literally until 9pm or later some nights) I’ll come back with an incredible amount of new knowledge to pass on to you.

That said, I’ve been spending a lot of time recently just looking over the SDK framework. Unlike any other version of OpsMgr, this one is quite full and robust, giving us access to many many things. This makes building custom tools a cinch (Well, if you’re a programmer, anyway).

The Operations Manager SDK Framework

One of the things I had been wracking my brains about is something that comes up every now and then in mailing lists and IRC: How do we give non-administrators some privleges that make their (And our) life easier, but not giving them access to the whole thing.

I think I’ve figured out a decent solution, and then like I’m known to do, I kept adding and adding. We can do this all via the web. And hopefully soon, I’ll be able to show you a nifty little OpsMgr Self-Service portal.

Expect some updates next week, when I can, with pictures and such all from the summit. Meet the team!

convert this post to pdf.

OpsMgr Event ID 1000 Warning from Health Service Script

The text of the alert is:

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    Health Service Script
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    1000
Date:        2/13/2009
Time:        12:18:16 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    BADDC01
Description:
AD Database and Log : The script ‘AD Database and Log’ failed to create object ‘McActiveDir.ActiveDirectory’.
The error returned was: ‘ActiveX component can’t create object’ (0×1AD)

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

and

OpsMgr Event ID 1 Warning from Health Service Script

the text of which is:

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    Health Service Script
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    1
Date:        2/13/2009
Time:        12:18:09 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    BADDC01
Description:
AD Op Master Response : The script ‘AD Op Master Response’ failed to create object ‘McActiveDir.ActiveDirectory’.  This is an unexpected error.
The error returned was: ‘ActiveX component can’t create object’ (0×1AD)

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Cause: For whatever reason, the Active Directory helper object is not being installed as part of the active directory management pack.

Solution: Install the helper object OOMADs.msi. This can be found in 1 of 2 places.
First, look in the install directory of OpsMgr on the server with the issue - typically that would be C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\HelperObjects

If it’s not there, then you can also find it on the install media under \HelperObjects\<ARCH> (Where arch is amd64, i386 or ia64).
Restart your agent, and it should clean itself up.

convert this post to pdf.

But I wanted to bring to everyone’s attention the very excellent post my friend Kevin Holman wrote - Which hotfixes should I apply?

I was actually missing one or two and once installed they actually resolved a lot of issues that I didn’t even know about - stuff started working great!

So I suggest you run on over there and get yourself fixed up!

convert this post to pdf.