Latest Blogs

Windows 2012 (Windows 8) agent installation and monitoring with Opsmgr 2012

Pete Zerger — Wed, 30 May 2012 12:12:39 GMT

There have been a few articles on how to install the Windows 2012 (Windows 8) agent for Operations Manager 2012 (Cameron HERE and Kevin HERE), though without a management pack, the agent is not going to do much. It's important to consider how to install the OpsMgr agent without disabling settings that make the OS secure (an area Kevin revisited a time or two it seems).

Some time ago, it was announced (and blogged by several) that Windows 8 Management Packs were available for download on Connect. I downloaded the package, and found that it contained much more than just base OS monitoring. This package contains Beta MPs for the following Windows 8 Server services and roles:

Active Directory Certificate Services (ADCS)
Active Directory Directory Services (ADDS)
Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS)
Active Directory Rights Management Services (ADRMS)
DHCP (Core Networking)
Remote Access
DNS (Core Networking)
Cluster Management
File Services
Windows Deployment Services
IIS
MSMQ
Network Access Protection
Network Load Balancing (NLB)
Networking QoS
Power Management
Print Services
Remote Desktop Services (RDS)
Windows Backup
Windows Server Update Services
Windows Operating System

Download
This does assume you're logged into Connect.
Download at https://connect.microsoft.com/SC/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=42581

Chargeback Reporting for MS Private Cloud with Operations Manager 2012

Pete Zerger — Wed, 30 May 2012 14:36:58 GMT

This is a largely ignored topic that is fundamental to MS private cloud operation and management I think deserves some attention.

Since the Cloud Services Process Pack is not a solution that fits the bill for all (or even most) MS private cloud deployments, the need arises for an alternate method of calculating resource consumption for business units across one or more clouds as defined in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 (VMM). As part of the ‘private cloud in the real world’ series, I am going to show you a few reports I leverage to answer the difficult questions around resource consumption and workload distribution in a private cloud deployment.

The most easily accessible reports actually come in System Center 2012 Operations Manager (OpsMgr) by way of the System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) Management Pack for OpsMgr, which contains a number of reports for tracking the logical and physical consumption of resources in your private cloud fabric (the storage, network and compute). When leveraged appropriately, a good source of showback information for the business units subscribing to resources in your private cloud infrastructure. And with native SharePoint integration and flexible delivery options, they can become an easily accessible source of information for stakeholders in your cloud environment who need information, but are less familiar with the System Center tools.

The reports available in the VMM 2012 Management Pack for OpsMgr are pictured in figure 1. In this installment, we’ll take a look at the Chargeback report.

figure 1. Available reports in the VMM 2012 Management Pack

Report Parameters

The parameter header in the Chargeback report provides a number of fields that must be completed to provide meaningful results, including:

Date Range:The date picker is straightforward…I like ‘First day of previous month’ to ‘ last day of previous month’ as a nice rolling dataset of resource usage in the cloud.

Objects: This is where you can add your virtual machines that are (or were in the past) deployed to the cloud.

Billing Units: You can assign a cost to Memory, CPU, Base Cost for VM. It's easy to making things too complicated with this setting. I suggest that, at least in the first iteration, you pick one of these units is your billing mechanism for chargeback in order to keep the results meaningful. You can add multiple billing units as your organization progresses in their use the chargeback.

figure 2. Smart parameter header in the Chargeback report

Tip: I'd suggest creating a linked report (which will require some XML) in order to make this a dynamically populated report.

The result of a sample reporter shown below, which logically groups are infrastructure based on 1) Cloud and 2) Host Group, both of which are logical constructs defined in VMM 2012.

figure 2. Report content in the Chargeback report

Even if you don’t make this a dynamically populated report,You can say this report your favorites, making it a one click report with the occasional tweak for new infrastructure edit your cloud.

Additional Resources

Hopefully this info provides some food for thought when choosing your naming conventions for your template-based deployments in VMM 2012. Here are a few additional articles in the ‘private cloud in the real world’ series and related System Center articles you may find interesting.

ResearchThis! KB - Some Client Access test cmdlets failed to run

Pete Zerger — Wed, 30 May 2012 14:20:00 GMT

Here's an alert is raised for basically every exchange 2010 organization monitored in Operations Manager 2012.

Alert: Some Client Access test cmdlets failed to run

Management Pack Name: Exchange 2012 Monitoring

Management Pack Version: All Versions (as of May 2012)

Issue: The PowerShell cmdlet to configure Exchange 2010 synthetic monitoring tests has not been run. This is one configuration step that was unintentionally left out of the original MP guide.

Resolution:

Run the PowerShell cmdlet to configure the synthetic monitoring tests present in the Exchange 2010 Management Pack. There is actually an alert raised that tells you to run the new-testcasconnectivityuser.ps1 script from Exchange Command Shell. Do a search for this file, as it's well down into the directory structure. Configuring synthetic transaction monitoring requires running the New-TestCASConnectivityUser.ps1 PowerShell script from the Exchange 2010 Command Shell. You will be prompted for a one time password. From that point on, the Exchange 2010 MP will handle the process for you. It is located in the c:\program files\microsoft\exchange servers\v14\scripts folder on the Exchange 2010 Server.

Tuning the System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager management pack

Cameron Fuller — Sat, 26 May 2012 20:54:21 GMT

Based upon my experiences with the SCVMM management pack, I added several ReSearch This! KB’s on this topic which are linked below:

Tuning for the System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager management pack: (alert name, URL for the ReSearch This KB)

VGS Not installed: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/indexId/93620/Default.aspx

Host has exceeded the supported maximum number of running VMs: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/indexId/93621/Default.aspx

Host Memory Utilization is high: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/indexId/93622/Default.aspx

OM Agent Proxy not enabled: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/indexId/93623/Default.aspx

ReSearch This! KB - OM Agent Proxy not enabled

Cameron Fuller — Sat, 26 May 2012 20:52:57 GMT

Alert: OM Agent Proxy not enabled

Management Pack Name: System Center Virtual Machine Manager Monitoring

Management Pack Version: 3.0.5007.0 and earlier

Issue: Bug in the management pack. OM Agent Proxy is already enabled on the system.

Resolution: Disabled as this is appears to be a bug in the management pack as OM agent proxy is enabled for the server generating the alert.

ReSearch This! KB - Host Memory Utilization is high

Cameron Fuller — Sat, 26 May 2012 16:09:37 GMT

Alert: Host Memory Utilization is high

Management Pack Name: System Center Virtual Machine Manager Monitoring

Management Pack Version: 3.0.6005.0 and earlier

Issue: Memory is more than 80% utilized on the Hyper-V host for a warning level, and critical at more than 90% utilized.

Resolution: We run the memory utilization on our Hyper-V servers at much higher levels, configured the warning level at 97% and the critical level at 98%. Configured this as an override for all objects of type Hyper-V host.

ReSearch This! KB - Host has exceeded the supported maximum number of running VMs

Cameron Fuller — Sat, 26 May 2012 20:37:28 GMT

Alert: Host has exceeded the supported maximum number of running VMs

Management Pack Name: System Center Virtual Machine Manager Monitoring

Management Pack Version: 3.0.6005.0 and earlier

Issue: This server is running 5 virtuals, but the alert should not trigger unless there are over 384 virtuals per the explanation of this monitor. It looks like this monitor may be only comparing the value of the first digit (3) versus the number of the virtual machines running (5 or 9 in my example) “The number of running virtual machines on the host has exceeded 384.” - Causes in the Product knowledge.

Resolution: Bug in the management pack. Disabled the monitor for the system it was occurring on as 5 < 384 or even 9 < 384. Leave this disable in place until either a CU or a newer version of the management pack fixes this issue, storing the override in the appropriate override management pack (Virtual Machine Manager Overrides as an example). After disabling this monitor, the alerts should close themselves automatically.

ReSearch This! KB - VGS Not installed

Cameron Fuller — Sat, 26 May 2012 20:35:57 GMT

Alert: VGS Not installed

Management Pack Name: System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager Monitoring

Management Pack Version: 3.0.6005.0 and earlier

Issue: This alert occurs on every virtual machine in the VMM environment including VM’s which are offline. It looks like the Error condition detection will always be ‘true’ because this property (VGS) is an IC version and will never be ‘Detected’.

Resolution: Bug in the management pack. Disable this monitor until either a CU or a newer version of the management pack fixes this issue, storing the override in the appropriate override management pack (Virtual Machine Manager Overrides as an example). After disabling this monitor, the alerts should close themselves automatically.

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

Cameron Fuller — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:05:36 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? A blog post was recently added on this topic which is available at:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2012/05/24/clarification-on-sql-server-collation-requirements-for-system-center-2012.aspx

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…

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.

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!

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!

SCOMTypeView for MP Developer

Haitao Chen — Fri, 11 May 2012 06:35:37 GMT

SCOMTypeView is a tool help MPAuthor visualize ManagementPackClass, ManagementPackRelationship, showing them in treeview. The most important, you can see how the specific MonitoringObject is connected with other MonitoringObject.
This tool connect to your local ManagementGroup, showing real data in time.
There is another tool MPBExtractor, helps you unpack .mp and .mpb file.

Hope you like them, click here to download.

Q&A: OpsMgr 2012 eval version, product keys, and powershell (#SYSCTR, #SCOM)-UPDATED

Cameron Fuller — Fri, 11 May 2012 03:43:41 GMT

The following are a set of some of the FAQ’s I’ve been asked recently about how licenses are handled in System Center 2012.

Question: In OpsMgr how can I tell if I am running the evaluation version or a licensed version?

Answer: Open the OpsMgr console open help, about and check the screen to see if it’s listed as (Eval).

Or to double-check expiration date for the license use PowerShell: Get-SCOMManagementGroup | ft skuforlicense, version, timeofexpiration –a

Question: I installed OpsMgr 2012 and it never asked for a product key. How do I add a product key?

Answer: To set a license (to remove the timebombed version) for OpsMgr use: Set-SCOMLicense –productid

(DESCRIPTION: The Set-SCOMLicense cmdlet sets the product license level and removes the evaluation expiration timeout)

Question: Wait, why are the product keys the same for all of the pieces of System Center?

Answer: It’s one product now, one key works on all of the System Center components!

Question: Where can I get more information on all of this?

Answer:

The official Microsoft KB is available at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2699998

Graham Davies put together an article on this: http://www.systemcentersolutions.co.uk/index.php/scom/entry/upgrading-to-scom-2012-and-applying-a-license

The folks at CoreTech did a writeup on this at: http://blog.coretech.dk/kra/adding-the-product-id-to-your-operations-manager-2012-scom-2012/

UPDATE:

Question: Does Operations Manager 2012 prompt for an installation key during installation?

Answer: No

Question: Is there an account requirement to add the license key and any other gotcha’s to be aware of?

Answer: Yes, from an account perspective it looks like this may require the action account or the SDK account. Our results are below:

In one environment we had to use the action account.

In another environment we had to use the SDK, even though my admin account has SA for the database.

We had one situation where the it showed up as licensed one day, and unlicensed the next and the license had to be re-added.

In one environment some consoles didn’t show the license update until after multiple reconnects to the MG. This was occurring during the time where we showed licensed and then unlicensed. After a successful addition of the license it looked like this: