David Allen - OpsMgr MVP

MVP Re-Award

David Allen MVP — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:53:28 GMT

Today I got the email I was hoping for advising me that I have been re-awarded as an OpsMgr MVP :-)

Dear David Allen,
Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in System Center Operations Manager technical communities during the past year.

Thanks to everyone !

WMUG Virtual event - 21st September 2009 - 7PM BST

David Allen MVP — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:47:00 GMT

WMUG proudly announces ours very first virtual meeting!

Live Webcast - Deploying Windows 7 using MDT 2010 and SCCM 2007 SP2
21st of September 2009 - Arrivals 6:45PM to 7PM - Event starts 7PM BST onwards

Here is the agenda:

7pm - 8pm BST - Deploying Windows 7 using MDT 2010 and SCCM 2007 SP2
Join Johan Arwidmark, Microsoft MVP in Setup and Deployment, in this live webcast on Deploying Windows 7 using MDT 2010 and SCCM 2007 SP2. He will cover the new features in MDT 2010 and Windows 7 Deployment, show you how to create and deploy reference images of Windows 7 using MDT 2010 Lite touch, as well as with MDT 2010 Zero Touch and SCCM 2007 SP2. The new deployment tools in WAIK 2.0 as well as driver management strategies are also demonstrated.
8pm - 8:30pm BST - Open Q&A session

Find out more here

http://wmug.co.uk/groups/wmug_event_content/pages/wmug-event-21st-of-september-2009-livemeeting.aspx

Backup to tape failed – Error 30003 & Firestreamer

SCDPM Online Articles - Podcasts powered by Odiogo — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:54:26 GMT

The error in the picture below seems to be popping up more and more with people that are using an evaluation copy of Firestreamer. The evaluation copy of this software is only valid for 30 days and after this time it will go into a read-only mode...(read more)

Automating DPM Recovery

SCDPM Online Articles - Podcasts powered by Odiogo — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:25:55 GMT

Check out this great post by Rick Estrada on how to automate the backup and restore of a SQL database. http://the-network-guy.blogspot.com/2009/01/automating-dpm-recovery.html And, if you have OpsMgr R2 in your environment you could use this to automate...(read more)

More OpsMgr X-Plat Notes

David Allen MVP — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:09:32 GMT

I’ve been once again deploying OpsMgr R2 agents onto Red Hat 5.1 servers and have found a prerequisite issue that some of you may experience. Within Appendix A of the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Operations Administrator’s Guide there is a listing of all package dependencies for supported UNIX and Linux platforms, however, this listing is not everything you need just what is most commonly needed. An example of this I discovered today.

The package dependencies for Red Hat 5.1 are listed in the admin guide as:

Required Package	Description	Minimum Version
glibc	C Standard Libraries	2.5-12
Openssl	OpenSSL Libraries; Secure Network Communications Protocol	0.9.8b-8.3.el5
PAM	Pluggable Authentication Modules	0.99.6.2-3.14.el5

So after checking that all these packages were installed I started an agent deployment expecting it all to be successful but to my surprise it failed. Unfortunately the agent install failure returned an error stating that the account had insufficient privileges to initiate agent, but as I was using the Root account I knew this wasn’t the case. I also expected there to be a different underlying issue as I had seen errors like this before as in a previous post http://wmug.co.uk/blogs/aquilaweb/archive/2009/07/21/opsmgr-r2-xplat-agent-deployment-field-notes.aspx.

I now had to take steps to find the problem so I tried installing the agent manually as per my own suggestion in the blog post above. But even doing this I didn’t get a direct reason for the agent failing to install, I just received the error /lsb/install_initd: No such file or directory. Unfortunately this did not mean a great deal to me but after some investigation I found that lsb is Linux Standard Base and is a requirement for agent deployment. Now I knew what the problem was, I installed the Linux Standard Base package with the command yum install redhat-lsb (Other tools and package names will be required for other operating systems). Once installed I attempted the agent deployment once more and presto, it all worked wonderfully.

I don’t believe that this issue will be overly common as the Linux Standard Base package is usually installed on most of the Linux distro’s but if you are working on a customized build as I was, this may well crop up.

For more information on Linux Standard Base, check out this link http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/lsb.

SQL Recovery Point Script for DPM 2007

Script Repository - Podcasts powered by Odiogo — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 16:31:22 GMT

# ============================================================================================== # # Microsoft PowerShell Source File -- Created with SAPIEN Technologies PrimalScript 2009 # # NAME: Data Protection Manager 2007 - SQL Recovery Point Script...(read more)

Export SCDPM 2007 Exchange Recovery Points on a Schedule

Script Repository - Podcasts powered by Odiogo — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:19:40 GMT

# ============================================================================================== # # Microsoft PowerShell Source File -- Created with SAPIEN Technologies PrimalScript 2009 # # NAME: Export SCDPM 2007 Exchange Recovery Points on a Schedule...(read more)

Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 RTM !

David Allen MVP — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:32:58 GMT

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 has released to manufacturing (RTM’d) and will be generally available (GA) via volume licensing is October 1.

A 180-day evaluation version is now available on the Microsoft Download site. You can access it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=292de23c-845c-4d08-8d65-b4b8cbc8397b&displaylang=en. I encourage everyone to continue to explore the new System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 and its new features such as quick storage migration, live migration, and many others. Support is even offered for vSphere 4.

Happy virtual machine managing…

Disable On the Wire Compression

Script Repository - Podcasts powered by Odiogo — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:35:00 GMT

This script will disable on the wire compression for a given protection group. This script will check if the DPM PowerShell SnapIn is loaded and load if not which means this script can be run in PowerShell as well as the DPM Command Shell.

To run the script: ./DisableCompression.ps1 -DPMServerName <DPMServerName> -ProtectionGroup <ProtectionGroup>

For usage instructions: ./DisableCompression.ps1 -help

Here is the PowerShell script for you to copy or you can download the full PS1 file at the bottom of this page.

----------Script Start----------

#'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

#

# Author: David Allen

# Date: 24/08/09

#

# http://www.scdpmonline.org

#

# Comment: This script will disable on the wire

# compression for a given DPM protection group.

#

# Instructions for use: ./DisableCompression.ps1 -help

#

#'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

param ([string] $DPMServerName, [string] $ProtectionGroup)

function Usage()

{

write-host

write-host "Usage::"

write-host "DisableCompression.ps1 -DPMServerName [DPMServername] -ProtectionGroup [ProtectionGroupName]"

write-host

write-host "Run 'DisableCompression.ps1 -detailed' for detailed help"

write-host

}

if(("-?","-help") -contains $args[0])

{

Usage

exit 0

}

if(("-detailed") -contains $args[0])

{

write-host

write-host "Detailed Help : Use this script to disable on-the-wire compression on a given protection group."

write-host

exit 0

}

#Check status of DPM SnapIn and load as necessary

$SnapIn = "Microsoft.DataProtectionManager.PowerShell"

if (get-PSSnapIn $SnapIn -ea "silentlycontinue")

{

write-host "PSSnapIn $snapin is loaded"

}

elseif (get-PSSnapIn $SnapIn -registered -ea "silentlycontinue")

{

write-host "PSSnapIn $SnapIn is registered but not loaded"

Write-host "Loading PSSnapIn $SnapIn"

Add-PSSnapIn $SnapIn

}

else

{

write-host "PSSnapIn $SnapIn not found" -foregroundcolor Red

}

#Prompt if the name of the DPM server has not been passed

if(!$DPMServerName)

{

$DPMServerName = read-host "DPMServerName:"

}

#Connect to DPM server

$DpmServer = Connect-DPMServer $DPMServerName

if (!$DpmServer)

{

write-Error "Unable to connect to DPM server::$DPMServerName"

exit 1

}

#Prompt if the name of the protection group has not been passed

if(!$ProtectionGroup)

{

$ProtectionGroup = read-host "ProtectionGroup:"

}

write-host "Disabling compression on protection group $ProtectionGroup"

#Returns a list of all the protection groups on the DPM server and confirms there is at least one

$pgl = @(Get-ProtectionGroup -DPMServerName $DPMServerName)

if($pgl.count -lt 1)

{

write-Error "No protection groups found on DPM server"

exit 1

}

#Get protection group

$pg = $pgl | where {$_.FriendlyName -eq $ProtectionGroup}

if(!$pg)

{

Write-Error "Failed to get protection group"

exit 1

}

#Get modifiable protection group

$mpg = Get-ModifiableProtectionGroup -ProtectionGroup $pg

if(!$mpg)

{

Write-Error "Failed to get modifiable protection group"

exit 1

}

#Enable Compression

set-performanceoptimization -protectiongroup $mpg -disablecompression

#Set the protection group to apply the change

Set-ProtectionGroup -ProtectionGroup $mpg

Write-Host "Compression disabled for portection group $ProtectionGroup"

#Disconnect from the DPM Server

Disconnect-Dpmserver

---------- Script End ----------

Attachment: DisableCompression.ps1

David ...
Click here to play

Enable On the Wire Compression

Script Repository - Podcasts powered by Odiogo — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:20:00 GMT

This script will enable on the wire compression for a given protection group. This script will check if the DPM PowerShell SnapIn is loaded and load if not which means this script can be run in PowerShell as well as the DPM Command Shell.

To run the script: ./EnableCompression.ps1 -DPMServerName <DPMServerName> -ProtectionGroup <ProtectionGroup>

For usage instructions: ./EnableCompression.ps1 -help

Here is the PowerShell script for you to copy or you can download the full PS1 file at the bottom of this page.

----------Script Start----------

#'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

## Author: David Allen

# Date: 24/08/09

#

# http://www.scdpmonline.org

#

# Comment: This script will enable on the wire

# compression for a given DPM protection group.

#

# Instructions for use: ./EnableCompression.ps1 -help

#

#'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

param ([string] $DPMServerName, [string] $ProtectionGroup)

function Usage()

{

write-host

write-host "Usage::"

write-host "EnableCompression.ps1 -DPMServerName [DPMServername] -ProtectionGroup [ProtectionGroupName]"

write-host

write-host "Run 'EnableCompression.ps1 -detailed' for detailed help"

write-host

}

if(("-?","-help") -contains $args[0])

{

Usage

exit 0

}

if(("-detailed") -contains $args[0])

{

write-host

write-host "Detailed Help : Use this script to enable on-the-wire compression on a given protection group."

write-host

exit 0

}

#Check status of DPM SnapIn and load as necessary

$SnapIn = "Microsoft.DataProtectionManager.PowerShell"

if (get-PSSnapIn $SnapIn -ea "silentlycontinue")

{

write-host "PSSnapIn $snapin is loaded"

}

elseif (get-PSSnapIn $SnapIn -registered -ea "silentlycontinue")

{

write-host "PSSnapIn $SnapIn is registered but not loaded"

Write-host "Loading PSSnapIn $SnapIn"

Add-PSSnapIn $SnapIn

}

else

{

write-host "PSSnapIn $SnapIn not found" -foregroundcolor Red

}

#Prompt if the name of the DPM server has not been passed

if(!$DPMServerName)

{

$DPMServerName = read-host "DPMServerName:"

}

#Connect to DPM server

$DpmServer = Connect-DPMServer $DPMServerName

if (!$DpmServer)

{

write-Error "Unable to connect to DPM server::$DPMServerName"

exit 1

}

#Prompt if the name of the protection group has not been passed

if(!$ProtectionGroup)

{

$ProtectionGroup = read-host "ProtectionGroup:"

}

write-host "Enabling compression on protection group $ProtectionGroup"

#Returns a list of all the protection groups on the DPM server and confirms there is at least one

$pgl = @(Get-ProtectionGroup -DPMServerName $DPMServerName)

if($pgl.count -lt 1)

{

write-Error "No protection groups found on DPM server"

exit 1

}

#Get protection group

$pg = $pgl | where {$_.FriendlyName -eq $ProtectionGroup}

if(!$pg)

{

Write-Error "Failed to get protection group"

exit 1

}

#Get modifiable protection group

$mpg = Get-ModifiableProtectionGroup -ProtectionGroup $pg

if(!$mpg)

{

Write-Error "Failed to get modifiable protection group"

exit 1

}

#Enable Compression

set-performanceoptimization -protectiongroup $mpg -enablecompression

#Set the protection group to apply the change

Set-ProtectionGroup -ProtectionGroup $mpg

Write-Host "Compression enabled for portection group $ProtectionGroup"

#Disconnect from the DPM Server

Disconnect-Dpmserver

---------- Script End ----------

Attachment: EnableCompression.ps1

David ...
Click here to play

Unable to connect to ID: 948

SCDPM Online Articles - Podcasts powered by Odiogo — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:32:59 GMT

When running PowerShell scripts against Data Protection Manager you could receive this error which seems to be quite simple to resolve, that being to follow the instructions and start the DPM service. However, what does this error mean if the DPM service...(read more)

Heavy Weight Consistency Check using PowerShell

SCDPM Online Articles - Podcasts powered by Odiogo — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:44:09 GMT

A Consistency check is a process performed by Data Protection Manager to check and correct any inconsistencies between the protected data and its replica. Consistency checks can be scheduled to occur automatically or be performed manually within the DPM...(read more)

New SQL MP – Issues on MP Web Service Catalogue

David Allen MVP — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:44:55 GMT

I blogged a few days ago about the new SQL MP which is great, however, it seems that there is an MP file missing when trying to download/import from the web service catalogue available in OpsMgr R2.

As you can see the SQL Server Core Library and SQL Server 2005 (Monitoring) management pack files are available but the SQL Server 2005 (Discovery) is missing. This prevents the SQL Server 2005 (Monitoring) MP from being imported.

I believe this issue is being resolved, but in the mean time you can download the MP MSI which does include all the files and imports fine.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=8C0F970E-C653-4C15-9E51-6A6CADFCA363&displaylang=en&displaylang=en

David

Updated ISA 2006 Management Pack (v6.0.6648.0) on MP catalogue!

David Allen MVP — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:11:24 GMT

The updated SQL Management Pack, which resolves discovery/topology issues monitoring ISA 2006 SP1 servers and other bug issues, has posted to the management pack catalogue. Available on the link below or if you're on R2, import directly from the web service catalogue.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C576FCDF-42F0-4EB5-990D-E8E7C7E9C07E&displaylang=en&displaylang=en

Solaris 9 Agent Deployment Issue

David Allen MVP — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:19:32 GMT

Recently when trying to deploy a number of OpsMgr R2 agents to Solaris 9 servers I discovered that the message received if the agent fails to deploy isn’t always reflective of the true reason for the failure.

In my example, I was receiving a message stating that the agent could not be deployed due to the pre-requisite of OpenSSL not being installed on the target server. On investigation I found that not only was it installed but it was also the very latest version so the failure message was confusing me somewhat. After checking the install of OpenSSL was good I tried the agent deployment again, but again it failed with the same message. At this point I thought I’d put that server to one side and try a different one but once again I received a message telling me that OpenSSL was missing even though OpenSSL was definitely installed.

After further checks on Solaris 9 servers that everything was installed correctly I tried the agent deployment again but still it failed. So, taking tips from my previous Field Notes post I tried to install the agent manually as I know this gives better messages back on failure and true enough it did. The install failed but it was not due to OpenSSL being missing, it was due to patch 112960-67 not being installed. Installed patch, all works fine :-).

So, as in my previous post, if an agent push install is failing and the message back doesn’t help as much as you’d like, try a manual install !

David