My Microsoft Operations Management Experience

How is the SQL Management Pack?

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:28:00 +0000

I truly enjoy being part of the Operations Manager community and one of the reasons being that the Product Team actually cares. I just got word that they are extending surveys that was traditionally reserved for their TAP customers out to the public through the connect site.

The new connect site for Operations Manager is http://connect.microsoft.com/OpsMgr

And one of the first things that can be done there is feedback on experience with the SQL MP. So if you've experienced any pains or have any suggestions on how to improve it..? Well this is your chance to shout it out... https://connect.microsoft.com/OpsMgr/Survey/Survey.aspx?SurveyID=9559

Announcement: System Center Configuation Manager R3

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:41:00 +0000

This is surprising... but i can't say that it wasn't expected. The product team announced today the coming of System Center Configuration Manager R3. It will come with the additions of a Power Management feature, scalibility and performance improvements etc. Target release is Q1 2010.

I've applied to be part of the TAP program to get a first hand look at the BETA and hope to report on the findings.

For more info, check out the team blog entry

Tech Insights 2009, Penang 17 - 18 September

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:32:00 +0000

Probably the only event of its kind to be held in Malaysia, Tech Insights is a 2-day event containing deep dive sessions conducted by MVPs and Field Experts. No marketing talk, no BS.. pure unadulterated technical knowledge.

Split to 2 tracks, Dev and ITPro and supported by the User Groups of Malaysia (SPUG, SCUG, Elite, MyVSTS, MIND), this event held in Penang is a must attend if you want to get deeper knowledge into chosen Microsoft technologies as well as interact and tap on the experience of field experts.

There is a limit in terms of the numbers of registrations allowed. So if you're keen and in Penang or willing to make the trip there... sign up at http://www.techinsights.my/

WIN @ System Center Central!

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:38:00 +0000

If you haven't already done so.. or perhaps haven't even heard of it... There is a contest running at System Center Central (www.systemcentercentral.com). For anyone of you who have not registered on the site.. well you will want to hear about this.

System Center Central is a huge database of resources about everything System Center and its members range from field experts, MVPs and Microsoft product team members themselves. If you are unsure of something related to System Center, just post your queries in the forums and you can expect an answer from one of these 'gurus'.

If that is not good motivation enough.. then go on over to www.systemcentercentral.com now and register yourself as a user cause there's going to be a drawing every 2 weeks to win a prize!!

It starts today!! and they will be drawing for winners on the following dates (August 31, September 14 and 28, October 12 and 26, November 9 and 13) based on new registrations from the previous two weeks!!

Check out Rory's blog entry on it...

What you waiting for? stop reading this blog entry and click on the link :)

Operations Manager R2 Connectors Released

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 01:07:00 +0000

Just got news that the Connectors for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 has been released today.

Connectors are needed for situations where u need to forward alerts to another Management system or Service Desk system. The connectors available for download are to connect to:

IBM Tivoli Enterprise console
HP Openview
BMC Remedy ARS

There is also a Universal Connector available. All of which can be downloaded here

Now I need to test this... how do i get my hands on some of these management systems??.. hmmm..

MP Update: Hyper-V MP Update with WinSvr 2008 R2 monitoring

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:58:00 +0000

The Windows Server 2008 /R2 Hyper-V Management Pack was released today. This management pack provides health and performance monitoring capabilities at the host and virtual machine levels for Hyper-V systems on Win6 and Win7 workloads (pending release of WS 2008 R2 and Server OS MP for WS 2008 R2).

Features include monitoring of critical host services and disk performance thresholds, monitoring of virtual machines and virtual hardware health from host perspectives, and visualization and complete application roll-up from host level to virtual machine component level to guest operating system level in a virtualized environment.

Download it here

This Management Pack is supported on both the OpsMgr 2007 SP1 and R2 platforms.

MP Update: Exchange 2007 Native MP for OpsMgr R2

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 01:11:00 +0000

Its been a long time coming.. but its finally here. Straight out of the oven.. the smoking hot Exchange 2007 native MP!! This MP has has gone through a great development process because it wasn't just the Product team that was doing the work and making decisions... but they got the OpsMgr MVPs, CSS experts like Kevin Holman and Adrian Doyle, the Exchange Center of Excellence, MCS Operations IT team and 512 Beta customers all involved!!

I for one was truly honored to be able to be part of the development of this MP, that even when down to scrutinizing areas like Wizard flows.

So here are some of the highlights of this MP:

Discovery is turned off by default so that users can control the deployment of the MP
Very extensive 95 page MP Guide
Rollups reflect state of synthetic transactions. This means that the Availability metrics will reflect on user experience rather than server state
The Availability metrics described above can be published to the OpsMgr R2 SLA Dashboard
New Mailflow and Client Access Server synthetic transaction template and interactive wizards
Support for monitoring multiple Exchange organizations from a single Management Group
Cross-forest mail flow transaction great for monitoring an Exchange migration scenario which also works with the Cross Platform monitor for SMTP gateways
Operators can see the links between Exchange Servers with visualized synthetic transactions using perspectives
15 Capacity planning reports like database size and message volumes, 30+ reports in total
Matching 15 Service Level Objectives to view the state of Mail Operations such as whether mails are delivered based on the agreed SLA
A nicely tuned set of Rules and Monitors making it a less noisy MP
Threshold monitors go through consecutive samples to reduce noise
Synthetic transactions are aware of maintenance mode
Event log collection turned off by default
Heavy workflows like report data collection scripts and synthetic transactions are spread out using Sync Time to reduce load on the agent
The Exchange Best Practice Analyzer is run by the MP checking over 800 configuration aspects of an Exchange server compared to best practices.
Clustering and log shipping scenarios are fully supported

A big shout out to my man Ake Pettersson and his team for this MP.

BIG NOTE: This MP only works for Ops Mgr R2. Also a watch out mentioned by Ake that if you are importing this MP through the new R2 console, the unsealed SLM reporting MP will not be downloaded. So go to the catalog for this.

Download it from the catalog here

Operations Manager R2 is RTMed

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Sat, 23 May 2009 01:19:00 +0000

Its finally here!.. the official announcement that Operations Manager R2 is RTM was done late yesterday.

Some of the key enhancements are:

Monitoring of Unix and Linux natively
Service Level Tracking through detailed reports
New Process Monitoring Template, OLEDB Template, Windows servive template
Import MPs direct from the console
Overrides Summary view
View Health explorer via the Web Console
One-click maintenance mode that turns all neccessary objects appropriately
Console performance is fantastic!!

Read the full post of available datasheets, whitepapers, videos on Sacha's post http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2009/05/22/om2007r2-rtm.aspx

TechNet Operations Manager Forums new home

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:14:00 +0000

Its moved!

The Forum site for Operations Manager on Technet has moved to http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/systemcenteroperationsmanager

As usual, MSFT folks and the MVPs are frequent flyers on the posts. My man Anders Bengston is probably going to light this one up too :)

OpsMgr R2 Upcoming Solutions: Novell Suse Management Pack

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Sun, 03 May 2009 23:04:00 +0000

At MMS this year, i had a chat with Alex at the Novell booth and he also showed me a demo on what's coming in the Novell System Center Management Pack for Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES).

The Management Pack contains ready monitors for BIND/DNS, DHCP, Samba, OpenLDAP, SUSE Firewall and CUPS.

Plucking the following info from the Novell Beta MP program, here is what Novell says that the MP will include:

Discovery of SLES servers based on MS Cross platform discovery wizard
Automatic deployment of plug-ins for the management agent
For all services to report the state of the service running vs not-running
For all services to stop/start/restart the service
View alerts for most services
Keep track of allocated IP addresses by DHCP service
Statistical information for BIND/DNS service
Able to monitor Samba shares, connections, sessions
Provides connection information for OpenLDAP

I hope to find time to test this soon and report on it

SystemCenterCentral.com

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Sun, 03 May 2009 02:04:00 +0000

Founded by my buddies and fellow OpsMgr MVPs Pete Zerger, Rory McCaw and Maarten Goet, System Center Central is all about.. well.. you guessed it.. Microsoft System Center. Supported by Microsoft themselves and several other sponsors such as Quest Software, the objective of this portal is to bring everyone together globally to one single location to learn, understand and share all knowledge aobut System Center.

On top of this, there have been several User Groups that have now re-located to System Center Central including our System Center User Group of Malaysia (SCUG.MY).

If you are passionate about System Center or even getting started with it, I urge you to login to www.systemcentral.com today and be part of the new wave.

MMS2009 Reporting: Managing drivers with MS Technologies

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:28:00 +0000

I attended the session by Michael Nieuhaus on how to manage drivers with WDS, MDT2010 and Config Manager 2007. Unfortunately i missed the first part on WDS but here's what i heard about MDT2010 and ConfigMgr 2007...

With Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010, it supports the following:

Inject drivers 'just in time' for WinXP and above except for mass storage
Now you can specify auto apply or apply all drivers to a specific group
Drag and drop is available
Integration with WSUS is available
Potentially can be used with inventory tools like MAP and ACT (App Compat) to assist in assessment

The Demo that was showed was importing the drivers with MDT2010. Here's what i noticed about the demo:

When he imported the driver it detected that the driver exists, it won't copy it again but rather populate the group with the same drivers.
MDT didn't detect automatically the platform of the driver for the machine so you'll have to de-select if the appropriate drivers
MDT can read CAB files directly. It will automatically extract it and read the INFs

Michael then proceeded to talk about driver management with Config Mgr 2007.When import a driver into SCCM, it doesn't import into the DB. It creates a DB entry to point to the driver stored in the specified location.

'Driver packages' in Config Mgr are then created for distribution to Distribution Points or "Forced" driver installation

Here are some of the supported features for drivers in Config Mgr:

Just in time driver injections are supported
Auto Apply drivers
Drivers matched by PnP ID and can be filtered by categories
Apply diver package
All drivers are injected
Categories can't be used
Only choice for XP/2003 mass storage drivers
Can be used with Task Sequence

Some Complications can arise with Config Mgr though..

It will not import duplicates. To do this, you would either need to modify the folder contents everytime you need to import, or create a customized import process using the SDK
Chipset drivers requires extra handling because the INFs include some redirection to other in-box INFs which makes them really challenging to inject. For this, you may want to consider including them into the image

System Center Central

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:59:00 +0000

Announcing today the launch of System Center Central, the site which focuses on providing all the knowledge and community breadth on everything Microsoft System Center. This site will serve as a central location for alot of system center related sites out there today. The System Center User Group of Malaysia is proud to be now associated with System Center Central.

Check it out at www.systemcentercentral.com

Scenarios I faced between Hyper-V R2 Beta and Hyper-V v1

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:03:00 +0000

While testing out Windows Server 2008 R2 Beta with Hyper-V in our environment, we noticed a few scenarios that had some incompatibilities.

We had 3 VMs in a Saved State on a server with Hyper-V v1 and proceeded to upgrade the OS. After the upgrade was sucessfully complete, the VMs could not be recovered from its Saved State. The Saved State had to be deleted. Once that was done, the VMs started out fine
We Exported a VM from a Hyper-V v1 server. The VM contained snapshots and proceeded to Import it into the Hyper-V R2 Beta server. The VM would not import and contain errors. We proceeded to remove the snapshot and imported it again
We Exported a VM from a Hyper-V v1 server. The VM did not contain any snapshots and was in an Off state. When we imported it to the Hyper-V R2 Beta server, the VM could start but when Connecting to the VM, the screen was simply black. We proceeded to create a new VM with the exisiting Hard Disk and it worked fine
After Importing a VM into Hyper-V R2 server from a Hyper-V v1 server, the Network connection was Disabled. Enabling it would not work. We proceeded to Re-install the Integration Services and the Network connection was working again. I suspect it was because of a different version of Integration Services.

I will be adding to this list as I go along. I hope these issues will be fixed at RTM.

MP Update: SQL Server MP 6.0.6549.0 is released

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 07:40:00 +0000

There is a new update to the SQL Server MP.

The following is what is updated:

Fixed performance issues caused by excessive CPU utilization and script timeouts from Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) queries in the following management pack discoveries: Discover SQL Server 2005 Database Engines (Windows Server), Discover SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services (Windows Server), Discover SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services (Windows Server), Discover SQL Server 2008 Database Engines (Windows Server), Discover SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (Windows Server), Discover SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services (Windows Server).
Fixed an issue where SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services and Reporting Services discoveries were not reliably discovering these objects on instances of SQL Server that did not have the Database Engine installed.
Removed the hard-coded exception in rules and monitors that prevented the monitoring of the System, Temp, and Master databases.
Improved the means by which database discoveries recognize auto growth enabled settings. Database discoveries now recognize both “KB” and “%” growth settings; previously the database discoveries recognized only the “KB” growth setting.
Corrected typographical errors in product knowledge and improved the quality of the text

The above was described by the MP creator, Cory Delamarter and can be found on this blog post http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2009/04/01/sql-server-mp-version-6-0-6569-0-is-now-released.aspx

To download the updated MP, go to the MP Catalog: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/opsmgr/cc539535.aspx

update to Cluster Management Pack

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 06:34:00 +0000

An update was just released for the Cluster MP which is crucial since it included the support for Windows Server 2008 clusters. So for this, ensure that your Cluster MP version is at 6.0.6505.0

This is a required MP if you want to monitor cluster based environment like Exchange or SQL.

The features of the MP include:

Monitoring of the Cluster service and reporting on any configuration or hardware issues
Reporting on issues that affect the cluster communications such as connectivity problems, active directory services permissions
Connectivity problems that affect communication between cluster nodes or between a node and a domain controller, dns communication
Issues with the availability of a cluster resource, such as a clustered file share and cluster storage

Download link to the MP: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AC7F42F5-33E9-453D-A923-171C8E1E8E55&displaylang=en&displaylang=en

SCUG and System Center Solutions Summit 2008 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:44:00 +0000

For many many moons we have had to travel halfway across the world to attend a great event called the Microsoft Management Summit. For those of us in this part of the world (Asia) having to travel 23 hours isn't exactly something that i look forward to. But it was always worth it when i finally arrive and bask in the vast amount of knowledge shared at such an event.

So... why am i ranting about this?

Well...

SCUG.my is proud to be organizing the first ever System Center Solutions Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! (do you hear the drums??)

Together with Microsoft Malaysia, we are bringing you 2 days of hardcore speaking action! Of what you ask?... well all about System Center of course!

Sessions will be conducted by Microsoft Technology Specialists, Regional Experts and Microsoft MVPs.

We are on the verge of finalizing our speakers and sessions so the final agenda will be out very very soon!

Book your calendars now! December 22nd and 23rd 2008 @ the Microsoft Auditorium (29th floor, Petronas Towers)

This is a must attend event if you care for your System Center career!! :)

And to cater for all of you who are far away and tried you ultimate best to make it but simply can't, the whole event will also be available through Live Meeting!!

.. of course.. those that attend the actual event will have the benefit of gorging themselves on the food, snacks and prizes that will be up on offer!

If you would like to be invited to this event, please send a mail to ask@scug.my

High CPU Utilization issues when importing the DHCP Management Pack

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:38:00 +0000

Some of us experienced a very high CPU Utilization issue after importing the DHCP Management Pack (6.0.6383.0). It was due to some heavy usage of discovery scripts.

I'm glad that its now all fixed with the release of the new 6.0.6452.0 version that is now in the MP Catalog

Here are some of the changes that was made by the product team. (Thanks guys!! sending you the some beer vouchers soon)

Changed the discovery script so that it discovers same instances every time and does not cause changes in their properties (it causes changes in OpsMgr configuration each time).
Rewrote script-based module in the following way – now it returns all data for all components (scopes, superscopes, etc.) instead of returning data only for requested one. It allowed SCOM to cook it down and now instead of 1000 scripts only one instance is run.
Rewrote script-based module in the following way – instead of returning many property bags (4000 for 1000 objects) it returns only one big property bag. It allowed to lower significantly transferred data.
Added performance mapper for unit monitors based on huge property bags. It allowed to significantly improve performance since now only small package of data is transferred between MonitoringHost and HealthService.
Removed On-Demand-Detection for monitors based on huge property bags since SCOM SP1 does not support cook down for such scenarios and it leads to very high CPU consumption upon any changes in configurations/restarting HealthService.
Optimized script populating all data from DHCP server (it analyzed with regex expression big output upon iterating through all objects every time, now it does it only once). It allowed to significantly improve performance for this module (it consumed 100% of one CPU for minutes).

New Active Directory MP 6.0.6452.0 released

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:54:00 +0000

Not sure about you... but I've been waiting for this for awhile. I had some issues with the previous AD MP and was told that it would be addressed in this one.

The new Active Directory Management pack (ver. 6.0.6452.0) has been released to the MP Catalog

It boasts a couple of improvements:

Discovery of Windows Server 2008 DC and Read Only DC (RODC). Including also the discovery of FSMO roles
Windows Server 2008 replication monitoring. Including a cool Multiple SLA workflow that can be configured
Forests that have 2-way transitive trusts can now be discovered and reflected in the improved topology views (Forest, Domain, Site, Site-Link, Replication Connection)
New essential services roll-up to accurately reflect services such as Sysvol, DFS, NetLogon, DCLocator
of course.. support for Windows Server 2008 32-bit and also 64-bit

I've just imported the MP and will be updating this post after a some drives down the fast lane.

Operations Manager R2 announced at Tech ED Barcelona!

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 06:26:00 +0000

I wish i was there... sigh.. Barcelona.. the sun... spanish girls in bikini... OH and of course.. Tech Ed.

Thanks to those that posted in comments about what they wanted to see in R2 in an earlier post. I'm happy to inform that some of those comments were taken very seriously and it was announced in Barcelona that R2 would include some very nice additions and improvements.

Some of which are the Cross Platform inclusion that allows monitoring of Unix & Linux, Service Level Dashbard improvement and some new features. The announcement was made by Barry Shilmover.

You can view the video here... http://edge.technet.com/Media/Operations-Manager-with-Barry-Shilmover/

And the official announcement... http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/opsmgr/dd239186.aspx

Timeline?... within H1 of 2009. Watch this blog for updates once we've got more info :)

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 has RTMed

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:47:00 +0000

The ship has landed. System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is RTM.

Download from http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/virtualmachinemanager/en/us/default.aspx

Some of the new areas that are available with the product are:

Hyper-V management
VMWare management through Virtual Center
Cluster support
Delegated Administration
Physical resource optimization with PRO Tips

Installing Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 (Updated)

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:20:00 +0000

Having been working with Softricity and Softgrid 4.1 & 4.2, my initial guess was that installing App-V 4.5 would have been a piece of lemon pie. Well I was certainly dealt with a piece of that on my face when i finallyl got down doing it. After 2 and a half days of wracking my brains and the feeding frenzy that entailed, i finally got it working. phew.. So if anyone out there is still at it.. here's a guide of how i did it in hope that it would help save some of your brain cells :)

If you don't already know, App-V 4.5 comes in an install base of 3 different scenarios. The traditional Softgrid approach (with management server), the new Streaming Server scenario (where AD is not required) and Standalone.

This steps is for the first approach... installing the Application Virtualization Management Server scenario.

Environment Pre-requisites:

App V Management Server
- Windows Server 2003 SP1 [In my test environment, I used Windows Server 21003 R2 SP2]
- IIS 5.0 with ASP.NET [I used IIS 6.0]
- .NET Framework 2.0
- MMC3.0 [I didn't need to install this seperately as it had been included in my SP2]
- Download/Prepare SQL Server 2005 Express Edt. SP2

Client
- Windows XP Pro [I had a Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista Business SP1]
- IE 6

Preparation before App-V

Prep in AD:

Create a AD group. This group will be used to grant administrative priviliges to managing App V. (E.g. AppV Admin). Then grant this group Local Admin privileges on the App V Server
Create another AD Group. This group will be used to to be assigned to the App V Provider Policy that grants users access to the virtual apps. (E.g. AppV Users)
Create a user account that will be used to manage App-V. (E.g. sgadmin)
Make the above created user account a member of the AppV Admin group
For the purpose of testing, I created a domain user account and made it a member of the AppV Users group (sguser)

Prep on App V Management Server:

Install all pre-requisites (.NET Framework 2.0, MMC 3.0, IIS, ASP.NET)
Launch installation of SQL Server 2005 Express (In 4.5, MSDE is no longer 'supported')
Accept the licensing terms and conditions check box, then click Next
In the Installing Prerequisites window, Click Install
Click Next when complete. Configuration check will be performed
At the installation Welcome screen, click Next
Click Next after the pre-requisite check is performed
In the Registration Information page, enter a name and Company, then de-select the Hide advanced configuration options. Click Next
Ensure Database Services is selected as Installed on Local Drive, then click Next
In the Instance Name page, select Default Instance, then click Next (u can use a named instance as well)
In the Service Account page, accept all defaults and click Next
In the Authentication Mode page, accept all defaults and click Next
In the Collation Settings page, accept all defaults and click Next
In the Configuration Options page, enable the Add user to SQL Administrators role check box, then click Next
In the Error Usage and Reporting page, accept all defaults and click Next
Click Install
When setup is complete, click Next
Click Finish. Then RESTART THE SERVER. This is needed or else the App V setup will not detect the database.
Once rebooted, launch the SQL Server Surface Area Configuration Tool from the Start All Programs Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Configuration Tools
In the SQL Server Surface Area Configuration Tool Welcome screen, click on the Surface Area Configuration for Features link
Click on the CLR Integration node on the left tree pane. Then on the details pane on the right, enable the Enable CLR Integration check box
Then click on the OLE Automation node on the left tree pane. Then on the details pane on the right, enable the Enable OLE Automation check box
Next, launch the SQL Server 2005 Configuration Manager.
Expand SQL Server Network Configuration then Click on the Protocols node on the left pane, then on the right, enable the TCPIP protocol
Restart the SQL Server service

NOTE! Point 20 to 24 was what caused me the 2 and a half day installation delay. I'm not a SQL Express guru and these steps is not mentioned in the MS Trial Guides. If point 20 and 21 is not done, you'll notice that you'll get DB connection errors. Typically when you try to launch your App V console (Error 0000C800)

Installing Application Virtualization Management Server:

Launch the App V Management Server installer
Accept the licensing terms and conditions check box, then click Next (you have no choice :))
In the Microsoft Update page, select the I don’t want to use Microsoft Update option, then click Next (This is only because my test enviornment did not have an Internet connection)
In the Registration Information page, enter a name and Organization, then click Next
In the Setup Type page, accept the Typical option and click Next
In the Configuration Database page, ensure (local) is selected from the dropdown list of servers, then click Next (or the name of your db server/instance)
Select the Create New Database option, and accept the default name of APPVIRT (if you resent this name, feel free to change it )
Click Next
On the Secure Communication Mode page, click Next.
On the Port Settings page, click Next
On the Administrator Group page, type the name of the Microsoft Application Virtualization Administrators group (AppV Admin for me), and then click Next.
You can also type the first few letters of the group name, and then click Next, to display a list of groups. Click the relevant group, and then click Next.
On the Default Provider Group page, type the name of the Microsoft Application Virtualization Users group (App V Users for me), and then click Next. This is the group to which all users must belong for access to Microsoft Application Virtualization-enabled applications.
On the Content Path page, accept the default location of the Microsoft System Center Application Virtualization Management Server content folder, and then click Next.
Click Install
The wizard will copy the necessary files, install services, and create a database as specified in the preceding steps. When the wizard finishes, the Microsoft System Center Application Virtualization Management Console shortcut is displayed in the Administrative Tools group
Click Finish when done
In Windows Explorer, go to %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft System Center App Virt Management Server\App Virt Managment Server and share the content folder. Ensure that Read access to this folder is given to Everyone.
Launch the Services (services.msc) mmc console and ensure that the Application Virtualization Management Server service is started. If not, Start it.
You can now launch the console.
The first time the console is launched, a window will pop up to ask what the Web Service to connect to.
Enter the name of your App V Management Server or localhost if its on the same machine. Uncheck Secure Connections and ensure it is operating on port 80. If the logged on user is a member of the AppV Admin group then leave the Current Credentials option selected. Then click OK to connect.

Installing the Client:

Launch the Client Installer
In the Installation Prerequisites Window, click Install
On the Application Virtualization Desktop Client window Welcome Screen, click Next
Accept the licensing terms and conditions check box, then click Next
In the Microsoft Update page, select the I don’t want to use Microsoft Update option, then click Next
In the Registration Information page, enter a name and Organization, then click Next
In the Setup Type page, select the Custom option and click Next
In the Destination Folder page, accept the default location and click Next
In the Application Virtualization Data Location, accept defaults and click Next
In the Cache Size Settings page, accept defaults and click Next
In the Runtime Package Policy Configuration, accept defaults and click Next
In the Publishing Server page, select the Set up Publishing Server now checkbox
a. Display Name: Name of your AppV Server (APPVSVR for me)
b. Type: Application Virtualization Server
c. Hostname: Name of your AppV Server (APPVSVR for me)
d. Port: 554
Click Next
Click Install
Click Finish when complete

This should get it going. Next step... publish some sequenced apps and get down to funky town!!

Multi Host Ping Monitoring

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:31:00 +0000

In a recent deployment, our customer had asked how they would be able to perform some constant connectivity testing. So, we installed the Multi Host Ping Monitoring MP that can be downloaded from SystemCenter Forum. We've been using this MP since 1.0 and works pretty well.

This cool and simple MP can be used to test connectivity to a URL as well and provides alerts when the threshold for time out seconds are breached.

Intervals for the testing can be configured and these return as collection data to run performance analysis on.

It also comes with pre-defined views! What more can you ask for! :)

You can get it here... http://www.systemcenterforum.org/multi-host-ping-mp-20-beta-now-available/

SCUG launched!!

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 01:17:00 +0000

We had a great launch of the System Center User Group, Malaysian Edition. About 84 people attended the launch and from that we gathered about 65 members on Day 1. I was superly excited about this.

Andrew McMurray, a Technology Specialist from Australia spent about 45 minutes talking to us about the System Center Roadmap and showcased the Config Manager R2 and its integration with SoftGrid

Jeff Low from Redmond then gave us a surprise visit to showcase to us some new stuff coming in MDOP. New DART tools as well as the all new Kidaro solution. Which was super cool.

The crowd got some chances to win prizes sponsored by Microsoft, Easy Safe and Redynamics Asia.

After the awe of technology, we came back down to earth to have a scrumptous dinner.

It was also a great that our local media decided that our event was worth covering :). Thanks Jo... http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2008/8/14/technology/20080814104157&sec=technology

Overall, I had a great time at the launch and I hope this community will remain useful for many years to come.

Photos of the launch can be viewed on my SkyDrive http://cid-528396cd62a32ef8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/SCUG

We have continuous request for membership and hope that we can reach our 100 member mark by end of this year. Awesome!!

Our next event will be on September 30th at the Microsoft Auditorium, KLCC, Malaysia and I'll be speaking on the topic "ACS Masterclass - Installing, Configuring, Optimizing"

Jalsoft Xian Network Manager Io SP2 BETA released

noreply@blogger.com (Raymond Chou) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 01:09:00 +0000

Its good to be back to blogging after a long lay off due to work schedules.

About a week or so ago, Jalasoft announced that a Service Pack 2 for their popular Xian Network Manager Io will be released somewhere in the November timeframe. I just got news today that the BETA is already released.

In case this is new to you, Xian Network Manager is an excellent add-on to Operations Manager 2007 that allows you to proactively monitor network devices. It does a pretty good job and has a well built Management Pack.

Pete Zerger of System Center Forum wrote a great article on it and can be found at http://systemcenterforum.org/wp-content/uploads/Jalasoft_Series_rollup.pdf

From what i understand, Service Pack 2 will introduce a couple of architecture changes. The first and most important change is that they are no longer using the SDK on the Root Management Server (RMS) to send alerts and counters to OpsMgr2007. Instead the load can now be taken by any Management Server and so preventing any overload of the RMS. Now you can send without any problem thousands of counters per minute to OpsMgr2007. It is expected that this enhancement can increase the performance by more than 400%! Cool...

This would also mean that to scale, all you would need to do is just to add additional Management Servers.

Other changes in SP2 are improved management packs which are faster to load and require less instance space on OpsMgr2007. More robust SNMP module is also added to increase performance

I've downloaded the BETA today and will be testing it out. Will post any findings here.