Microsoft System Center Suite

Orchestrator Integration Packs for System Center 2012 RC Released!!

2012-02-08T20:46:00.000Z

Finally (I've been moaning for ages that these hadn't been released) today saw the release of the Integration Packs for the System Center 2012 products.

The IP's now available cover:

System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager
System Center 2012 Operations Manager
System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager
System Center 2012 Service Manager

Unfortunately ConfigMgr appears to be MIA at present, hopefully we'll see a refresh before RTM as I'm dying to start work designing some software deployment workflows via Service Requests.

Grab the System Center 2012 IP's from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=28725

The guide for the IP's can be found here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh830706.aspx

The IP's currently have the following activities:
DPM
Create Recovery Point
Get Data Source
Get DPM Server Capacity
Get Recovery Point
Protect Data Source
Recover SharePoint
Recover SQL
Recover VM
Run DPM PowerShell Script

SCOM
Create Alert
Get Alert
Get Monitor
Monitor Alert
Monitor State
Start Maintenance Mode
Stop Maintenance Mode
Update Alert

SCSM
Create Change with Template
Create Incident with Template
Create Object
Create Related Object
Create Relationship
Delete Relationship
Get Activity
Get Object
Get Relationship
Monitor Object
Update Activity
Update Object
Upload Attachment

SCVMM
Create Checkpoint
Create Disk from VHD
Create Network Adapter
Create New Disk
Create User Role
Create VM from Template
Create VM from VHD
Create VM from VM
Remove User Role
Get Checkpoint
Get Disk
Get Network Adapter
Get User Role
Get VM
Manage Checkpoint
Move VM
Pause VM
Remove VM
Repair VM
Resume VM
Run VMM Powershell Script
Shut Down VM
Start VM
Stop VM
Update Disk
Update Network Adapter
Update VM
Update User Role Property
Update User Role Quota

Installing SQL 2008 R2 from a remote share after .Net Framework 4.0

2012-02-06T16:42:00.000Z

I built a new fully patched VM template the other day for use in my lab and for deploying to private clouds in my System Center lab environment, but noticed some strange behaviour after deploying a new VM based on the template and trying to install SQL 2008 R2.

Every time I tried to run the setup I kept getting the following message:

Managed SQL Server Landing Page has stopped working

Doing a search online for similar issues around setup and landingpage.exe didn't yield a great deal of solutions.

Back tracking I decided to narrow down some of the changes I had made to the image, specifically around the installed updates.

After uninstalling .Net Framework 4.0 SQL setup appeared to work without a hitch, but putting .Net 4.0 back on yielded the same result.

After a bit more searching, I came across a TechNet forum post that pointed me in the direction of this blog post about using CasPol to fully trust a share: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/shawnfa/archive/2004/12/30/344554.aspx

It turns out that when trying to install SQL 2008 R2 from a file share with .Net 4.0 installed will result in this landingpage.exe error so the choices are:

Install SQL 2008 R2 from a CD/DVD/ISO
Copy the SQL 2008 R2 install files locally and install
Use CasPol to trust the share

I choose to use the CasPol method as I have all my install files stored in my DSL used by MDT & ConfigMgr so would rather use this than digging out disks or mounting ISO's.

The command I used was:

CasPol.exe -m -ag 1.2 -url file://\\<Server>/<Share>/* FullTrust

Run this from C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319

This worked on one of my servers, however, another one I tried started throwing errors then about FixSQLRegistryKey during the pre-req checks.

The same forum post also mentions a more permanent fix, so I took the plunge and added/changed the following line to the listed config files in the source files for SQL:

Files:

setup.exe.config
setup100.exe.config
fixsqlregistrykey_ia64.exe.config
fixsqlregistrykey_x64.exe.config
fixsqlregistrykey_x86.exe.config
landingpage.exe.config

This basically has the effect of ignoring the CAS policies introduced with .Net 4.0 and enabling the use of remote shares.

Not pretty, but worked for me ;)

Original Forum Post:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sqlexpress/thread/3bc7cebb-2264-4e51-878b-0cce193c2780

Thanks Min Keng!

Interestingly, this issue has been highlighted to Microsoft via Connect as far back as July 2010 and still has no official fix other than to uninstall .Net or run from the local machine.
http://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/573043/sql-server-2008-r2-cumulative-updates-wont-install-with-dotnet-framework-4-0-30319

System Center 2012 Orchestrator - Firewall Rules and Ports

2012-01-31T10:24:00.000Z

I tried deploying an Integration Pack (IP) to my Windows 7 workstation running the designer today from the deployment console on the server but kept getting the message that the RPC Server was unavailable.

It turns out that I had the firewall enabled (like a good boy) but hadn't set the exceptions for Orchestrator (SCO).

For reference I thought I'd post some of the common firewall changes and ports:

Remote Computer with Runbook Designer

Open a port to SQL (Default TCP:1433)
Allow ManagementService.exe through the firewall
64-bit: %Program Files (x86)%\Microsoft System Center 2012\Orchestrator\Management Server\ManagementService.exe
32-bit: %Program Files%\Microsoft System Center 2012\Orchestrator\Management Server\ManagementService.exe
Allow OrchestratorRemotingService.exe through the firewall for Deployment Manager to access it
64-bit: %SystemRoot%\SysWOW64\OrchestratorRemotingService.exe
32-bit: %SystemRoot%\System32\OrchestratorRemotingService.exe
Any activities that use WMI, enable the following rules:
Windows Management Instrumentation (Async-In)
Windows Management Instrumentation (DCOM-In)
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI-In)

There are also some standard ports to open where SCO components are talking across servers:

Source	Target	Default Port
Runbook Designer	Management server	125, 1024-65535
Management server runbook server Web service	Orchestration Database	1433
Client browser	Orchestrator REST-based web service	81
	Orchestration console	82

For more detailed information, refer to the TechNet documentation:
Orchestrator Security Planning
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh420367.aspx

TCP Port Requirements
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh420382.aspx

AI vs. AIS

2012-01-27T14:37:00.000Z

Before you think Artificial Intelligence, I'm not on about that....
Again, another customer question prompted me to post some information.

Asset Intelligence versus Asset Inventory Service

Asset Inventory Service (AIS)
AIS is offered as a service, inventory data is securely hosted by Microsoft, so there are no servers for you to maintain. Clients upload their data directly to Microsoft via an agent installed on the client.

AIS captures inventory information for hardware and software applications installed on each machine. The the inventory data is then reconciled against the AIS Application Knowledgebase, which contains hundreds of thousands of software titles, to create a detailed inventory of the software that is deployed on the desktops in your organization.

Using browser-based reports you can manage software assets and forecast future needs. The service also analyses how Microsoft Volume License agreements are deployed to help you more easily manage true-ups, renewals, and license reallocation.

Pros:

Simple to deploy
No Infrastructure Required

Cons:

Clients upload data directly across the WAN to Microsoft
Another agent on devices

Asset Intelligence (AI)
AI is part of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 and extends the number of WMI classes queried during Inventory and offers additional reports and manage software in use and software license management in the organisation.

With Service Pack 1 for ConfigMgr further functionality to the Asset Intelligence feature was added to allow custom editing of the Asset Intelligence catalog. In addition, customers can connect to System Center Online and the same catalogue as AIS to dynamically update the Asset Intelligence catalog with the most current information available. ConfigMgr users can also reconcile enterprise software license usage with purchased software licenses in use by importing software license information into the Configuration Manager site database.

Pros:

Re-uses ConfigMgr Client
Gain extra benefit of ConfigMgr features if not already implemented
Data contained within the organisation

Cons:

Requires ConfigMgr Infrastructure

To use either of these solutions you need to obtains some licenses:

AIS requires the MDOP licensing
AI requires ConfigMgr Licensing

So in short, if you have nothing, and either don't mind having all your clients go directly out to the internet or are possibly sub 500 devices then I'd suggest taking a look at AIS as you can be up and running very quickly and only have to worry about running the reports.

If however you're a large organisation, have constraints around devices accessing the internet (I hope so anyway) or have already implemented ConfigMgr then I would recommend turning on AI and connecting it to the online sync point.

If you're not already a ConfigMgr user, what are you waiting for? Not only do you gain a greater insight and level of control over your hardware and software inventory, but you gain software deployment, OS deployment, better software update control and many more features.

AIS Further Info: http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/enterprise/products-and-technologies/mdop/ais.aspx

AI Further Info: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc161988.aspx

System Center Advisor Released

2012-01-27T10:11:00.002Z

Yesterday (26/01/12) Microsoft announced the general availability of System Center Advisor (formerly codename 'Atlanta')

http://blogs.technet.com/b/server-cloud/archive/2012/01/26/system-center-advisor-released.aspx

System Center Advisor is a new benefit of Software Assurance for SQL Server or Windows Server.

If your organisation is already covered by Software Assurance on either SQL Server or Windows Server you can activate the full Advisor service immediately.

While Advisor is built on Operations Manager Technology (Agents, Gateways & Management Packs) it is not a real time monitoring solution. It also doesn't require Operations Manager to be installed within your infrastructure.

Instead, it uses Best Practises and experiences from Microsoft CSS to provide advice regarding the configuration of your systems, to help prevent server configuration problems before they ever impact your server’s performance or availability.

This means that System Center Advisor should be seen as a stand alone, complimentary, service used in conjunction with SCOM.

Presently SCA only provides a solution for Windows 2008 & 2008 R2 Servers and SQL (It will also advise on Active Directory and Hyper-V roles installed on those servers) but this will change over time and easily due to the management pack design of the product.

What also caught my attention is that should you need to speak with Microsoft Customer Support, you can choose to allow Microsoft Support Staff access to current and historical configuration data through Advisor to help them resolve your support calls faster.

For more information, take a look at the SCA website:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/advisor.aspx

System Center Essentials 2012 - Wherefore art thou?

2012-01-26T10:26:00.000Z

A customer came with a query the other day on the back of the System Center 2012 licensing changes.
They were asking what impact this would have on System Center Essentials since that is what they currently use, and what was the roadmap for a newer version.

Since I focus predominantly on the "Bigger" version of the System Center stack, it made me realise that maybe subconsciously I had been filtering out any Essentials information so I thought it was time to do a quick review of the changes.

However... as I started to do some digging I realised there was a distinct lack of information around System Center Essentials, almost to the point where I thought a black hole had appeared next to Redmond and sucked every snippet of info into it about Essentials.

I did manage to find this comment though on the Technet Forums from Yog Li, a Technet Forum Assistant:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/systemcenter/thread/71b4c1f3-a444-4299-ba37-2d84b4fbabbf

/Quote

We have not yet provided an update or roadmap regarding SCE.

As we move forward with the development of System Center 2012, we remain committed to providing a “right-sized” set of management tools for IT in the midmarket segment that makes it easy for these customers to set up and manage Hyper-V. We anticipate that details on our midmarket strategy will be released in the months ahead. We will be sure to communicate any updates through all regional marketing leads and channels as well as this discussion group.

In the interim, Essentials 2010 remains an important and strategic management solution as part of Microsoft’s System Center family of IT systems management products allowing us to compete head-to-head with VMware in the midmarket segment. SCE 2010 is easy to deploy and provides customers a unified single console solution that enables proactive IT management of more physical and virtual Windows Servers than ever before.

In FY12, SCE 2010 continues to play an important role for our customers and their Journey to the Cloud as part of the Managed Virtualization story for the mid-market segment.

/End Quote

The question this raises now is, just how likely is it that we will see a SCE2012 version?
It's highly unlikely at this stage of the game that one will be available at the same time as the rest of System Center 2012 launches.

To be honest, is there a place anymore for SCE? With the new licensing changes providing SC2012 as a bundle only and for those with Virtualisation it should be fairly cost effective to license for the full SC2012. Only downside is multiple consoles.

So for now it's pretty much wait and see....

System Center 2012 Licensing Changes - Knowledge Cast

2012-01-23T20:10:00.001Z

After the recent announcement last week by Microsoft on the changes being made to the license models for System Center ready for the launch of the 2012 wave, I'd like to share an invitation to a knowledge cast that I will be presenting on these changes.

http://www.trustmarquesolutions.com/news/system-center-2012-licensing-changes-webinar/

These significant changes include:

Streamlining the complexity of licensing System Center
The discontinuation of the Enterprise workload licenses
The removal of Management Server Licenses
License grants & transition paths available for existing Software Assurance customers

The Knowledge Cast will cover:

Review of the licensing changes
What these changes will mean to your business
The key timelines for pricing & product changes
The increased benefits of the System Center 2012 models

*Update- due to demand, we've added an additional session on Thursday morning*
There are four sessions that I'll be presenting on, across two days:
Tuesday January 24th 2012
11:00 – 12:00
14:00 – 15:00
Thursday January 26th
11:00 – 12:00
14:00 – 15:00

I know it's short notice, but these changes were only announced last week and some of the changes have important impact if not acted on quickly.

Places are limited, and aimed at UK based organisations, so booking soon is recommended:
http://www.trustmarquesolutions.com/news/system-center-2012-licensing-changes-webinar/

*Usual disclaimer: While I work for Trustmarque Solutions, and this knowledge cast is presented for them by myself, this blog is my personal blog and the writings and opinions contained within this blog are my personal opinions and are not reflective of the thoughts or intentions of my employer*

Microsoft Private Cloud, System Center 2012 and License Changes

2012-01-17T17:44:00.000Z

http://www.microsoft.com/business/events/en-us/PrivateCloudExec

Today Microsoft announced a change in the licensing for System Center.
The multiple SKUs and versions have been greatly simplified down to just 2 (yes that's just TWO!!) offerings.

That's a big change from currently the four different licensing schemes, Datacenter, Enterprise, Single Enterprise, and Single Standard.

The new license types are:
System Center Standard - Manage a physical server, or very lightly virtualised (2 VM's)
System Center Datacenter - Manage unlimited VM's on a physical host

Both the System Center license types contains the following products:

Configuration Manager
Service Manager
Virtual Machine Manager
Operations Manager
Data Protection Manager
Orchestrator
App Controller
Endpoint Protection

So no more individual license for each product, it's a suite license only.

Another couple of major changes....
Licences are now only needed for endpoints being managed, no management servers or SQL licensing. (Yep, you heard it right, SQL licenses for the SC Management Servers is now included in the new licenses)

Both types (Std & DataCenter) are both processor based Licenses, but covers up to two processors per license.

There is also a transition model from the old licensing model to the new.

If you have Software Assurance coverage on your current System Center licenses at the time of System Center 2012 General Availability, you will receive the following System Center 2012 Server ML grants at the ratios listed below:

That covers off licensing Server Operating Systems, however for the Configuration Manager and Service Manager parts of System Center for example, you still require Client Management Licenses for non-server OSE's

Microsoft also have a useful interactive site online that can provide some common scenario questions about System Center 2012 licensing:
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/SystemCenter2012.aspx

Just to pre-empt the most likely couple of questions likely to get asked around this:

Q) Are there separate offerings without SQL Server Technology?
A) No. All System Center 2012 products include the right to run a runtime version of SQL Server Technology to support System Center so there are no longer separate offerings.

Q) Do I need to purchase separate Management Server Licenses to run Management Server software?
A) No. With System Center 2012, the right to run Management Server software is included with the Server MLs and Client MLs.

Further information:
System Center 2012 Licensing Datasheet

System Center 2012 Licensing FAQ

Operations Manager 2007 R2 (SCOM) Version Numbers

2011-12-15T10:01:00.000Z

Just a quick post to help me remember what release numbers relate to which cumulative update version:

Version (numeric)	Version (name)
6.1.7221.0	RTM
6.1.7221.13	RTM with CU1 Applied
6.1.7221.15	RTM with CU2 Applied
6.1.7221.49	RTM with CU3 Applied
6.1.7221.61	RTM with CU4 Applied
6.1.7221.81	RTM with CU5 Applied

Configuration Manager 2012 RC now supports SQL 2008 R2

2011-12-05T15:20:00.001Z

As of 03/12/11 you'll be pleased to know that SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 is now supported for use with Configuration Manager 2012 Release Candidate 1.

In addition to Service Pack 1, you will also need to install Cumulative Update 3 (CU3) for SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1, as well as the hotfix described in KB2603910: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2603910.

However, please note that the hotfix for SQL 2008 R2 has currently been pulled again for some reason and isn't available at the link above, I'll update this post when it is, until then you would need to contact MS to obtain the hotfix.

*Updated 12/12/11* The hotfix for SQL 2008 R2 is now available. Thanks Mr Anonymous commentor.

How to move a SCVMM 2012 database to another SQL server

2011-12-02T15:59:00.001Z

I'm not exactly re-inventing the wheel here as it's the same process for Virtual Machine Manager 2012 as it was for 2008 R2, but I thought I'd post about it anyway.

This isn't a common thing to need to do, but I found myself in the position today where I wanted to move the database that was on a local SQL install on a SCVMM 2012 server up onto a new SQL Cluster I had just finished building.

So these are the steps I took to move the database:

Take a snapshot of the server (assuming it's a VM)
Take a backup of the existing VMM DB
Uninstall VMM and choose the Retain Database option
Detach the VMM DB from the local SQL instance
Copy the VMM DB files across to the new SQL Server
On the remote SQL server, attach the VMM db
Re-install SCVMM 2012 and when prompted, point it at the new SQL server, selecting to use an existing database (the one you imported)

Easy! Now you're free to uninstall SQL as and when.

Vegas here I come!! Well, next year...

2011-11-23T09:46:00.000Z

Registration for MMS 2012 (Microsoft Management Summit) opened last week, if you're planning on going then I'd suggest you head to http://www.mms-2012.com/ quick and take advantage of the early bird offer before places run out.

And this e-mail really made me smile when it landed in my mailbox:

I'm expecting this years MMS to be huge, especially with the System Center 2012 wave just around the corner :)

Service Manager 2010 - CU3 now available

2011-11-22T21:27:00.002Z

**UPDATED: See last line**

It's time to start testing a new update in your Service Manager test environments as Cumulative Update 3 for 2010 SP1 has just arrived.

The engineering blog has a post up here that has a summary, but unfortunately the link to the KB article is the wrong one.

Instead of KB2542118 it should be KB2588492

From the KB Article:
This update includes fixes for the following issues:

Management Pack Import: When a data type is a decimal sometimes the decimal becomes an integer
Corruption of the Type ManagementEntity table when importing a type extension
Updates to properties are not brought forward to DW if updates to the instances happens in the same transaction or right before deleting the instance
AD Connector not bringing in new updates
When you create a new CR by using the new CR form, clicking the Apply button sometimes creates a duplicate record
Console intermittently freezes when you update/creating incident and clicking apply
HealthService does not stop at the end of SP1 DW update if previous start action takes too long
When opening the SCSM console on client computers and server the Reporting Wunderbar does not appear
High CPU in monitoringhost.exe when you create or updating an incident that triggers a notification workflow

You can download the CU update here:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28159

This cumulative update applies to the following Service Manager components:

Service Manager Management Server (SM Server)
Data Warehouse Management Server (DW Server)
Service Manager Console

As with any update, RTFM and make sure you fully test it in a pre-production environment first.

*** UPDATE: I failed miserably... I got the links wrong too!!! Updated with correct links ***

Trustmarque wins Services Provider of the Year!!

2011-11-18T20:04:00.001Z

Got some really good news this morning upon arriving at work.

Last night we won the CRN Services Provider of the Year award!!

Well done Trustmarque and everyone involved in making it possible!

CRN Main Site & Results List

Service Manager 2012 - Limit the "Assigned to User" list picker to IT Staff

2011-11-17T15:21:00.000Z

One annoying part of Service Manager 2010 was when trying to assign a work item to a member of staff, you had to scroll through a list of all your Active Directory users.

Rob Ford developed a utility to be used as a task to help with this, but it could only be used after an incident had been created.
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Task-to-assign-an-incident-850ce363

While trawling the Technet forums for something else today, I came across this thread, asking about how to do this using multiple connectors.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/systemcenterservicemanager/thread/9be2382d-01b4-47c0-866a-1a3dc36a84af

In Service Manager 2012 (Beta) there is now the ability to scope down the list first shown to a more manageable level "out-of-the-box". Sam Erskine happened to have been talking about this with me the other week, so in addition to my forum reply, I thought I'd pop a quick post on about it too.

Navigate to the Libray wunderbar, and then to the Groups Node.
Either Double Click the "Global Operators Group" or highlight it and select "Properties" from the tasks bar on the right.
Leave the General section alone
Use the Include Members section to add any direct members you require, either AD Users, or AD Groups
and/or...
Use the the Dynamic Members section to build the list on the fly.
In the screenshot below I created my list based on users having the AD Attribute "Department" containing ICT

Now when you use the list picker for Assigned User or Primary Owner the list will be filtered to just those users that are a member of the Global Operators Group.

Unticking the "Scope users by global operators group" will once again show you all users from your Active Directory.

System Center 2012 Orchestrator Integration Packs

2011-11-16T13:14:00.000Z

I noticed on the Microsoft Download site today that there is presently a couple of integration packs available for SCORCH 2012.

System Center 2012 Orchestrator Integration Pack for Active Directory BETA
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28020

System Center Orchestrator 2012 Integration Pack for VMware vSphere RC
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27846

System Center Orchestrator 2012 Integration Pack for IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus RC
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27847

These are in addition to the ones released with the Orchestrator 2012 RC.
Configuration Manager 2007
Data Protection Manager 2010
Operations Manager 2007 R2
Service Manager 2010
Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27842

System Center 2012 Wave

2011-11-13T01:16:00.000Z

I thought I'd post a quick one on how the System Center 2012 stack is starting to line up and some bits to note for testing and in preparation for implementations.

At present we have the following table that shows the parts of the System Center stack available and their current release stage:

Configuration Manager	Release Candidate 1
Operations Manager	Release Candidate 1
Service Manager	Beta 1
Virtual Machine Manager	Release Candidate 1
Data Protection Manager	Beta 1
Orchestrator	Release Candidate 1
App Controller	Beta 1

All of the System Center solutions are undergoing a branding change.
If you haven't noticed, the branding has now changed to:
"System Center 2012 Product Name"

So this makes it:

System Center 2012 Configuration Manager
System Center 2012 Operations Manager
System Center 2012 Service Manager
etc etc etc....

A small change I'm sure you'll agree, but important in the long run as we start to see really tight integration between all the solutions, and the development and release schedules of all the parts of the System Center align up.
(Hopefully we'll also see the Start Menu program groups be consolidated together unlike the random scatterings it is at present)

SQL Collations between the solutions are also drawing together with the need for the following collations per solution:

Configuration Manager	SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
Operations Manager	SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
Service Manager	See: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh495583.aspx
Virtual Machine Manager	SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
Data Protection Manager	Unsure - Doesn't seem to specify
Orchestrator	SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
App Controller	SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS

Anyone else see the running theme here?
SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS seems now to be the de-facto SQL Collation for the System Center 2012 wave.

You can also expect SQL 2008 R2 to be the prefered SQL version, 2008 may be supported for some of them, but 2005 is definitely a no go.

Operations Manager 2012 Release Candidate Released

2011-11-10T17:53:00.000Z

Not a day after I was demoing SCOM 2012 Beta, do Microsoft go and release the RC!

You can find the download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27974

Couple of things of note from the Release Notes:

Install hotfix before installing the Operations console
Before you install the Operations console, install the hotfix from article 976898 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=194637) in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. You have to contact Microsoft Customer Support Services to request the hotfix download. This hotfix helps prevent performance problems with the Operations console. After you install the hotfix, you must restart the computer.

This hotfix might not be required for all servers. The Operations console prerequisite checker checks for this prerequisite and alerts the user if it is not there. The hotfix has to be installed if the prerequisite checker finds that the hotfix is missing.

Upgrading from System Center 2012 – Operations Manager Beta to Release Candidate is not supported for installations upgraded from System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2. You can upgrade from System Center 2012 – Operations Manager Beta to Release Candidate but only if the Beta installation was a new installation. You cannot perform the upgrade if the Beta installation was upgraded from System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2.

There is a ton of information in the release notes, so please read thoroughly before installing to know what to expect.

Configuration Manager 2012 - A day with Wally Mead event

2011-11-07T10:40:00.000Z

On Friday I had the pleasure of attending an Event at the Microsoft UK headquarters in Reading titled, A Day of System Center Configuration Manager 2012 with Wally Mead.

The event was sponsored by the WMUG and Cliff Hobbs and Rob Marshall did a fantastic job of pulling the event together.

Let the event begin!
Cliff Hobbs opened the event, explained the background to the event etc and also mentioned some swag to be had :)

First up was Dan Pilling, Marketing Manager at Microsoft with a couple of minutes about "How can Microsoft help?"

He goes on to mention two useful areas of help that MS provide.

MS Virtual Academy - Free training around "The Cloud", soon to be hands on training camps in regions around the UK.

MS TechNet roadshows - System Center 2012 Launch Events: 16th Nov, 6th Dec, 14th Dec, 18th Jan

Here's Wally!!!
Wally Mead takes to the stage for the Configuration Manager 2012 Overview and What’s new since Beta 2 session.

He tells us we're to suffer 2 sets of Death by PowerPoint this morning, with all the demos coming this afternoon, however with the speed that Wally goes at, this just simply flies by.

Wally starts off by talking about the major themes for ConfigMgr 2012 with this usual slide for those that haven't seen it:

Microsoft really are trying to help customers understand that ConfigMgr 2012 is all about putting the user first, moving to a user centric model for deploying software, along with the fact that the new 2012 version helps simplify the administration of the system, and reduce the complexity usually associated with the ConfigMgr infrastructure required.

Empower Theme
A formulae that keeps popping up when Microsoft talk about Configuration Manager 2012 and User Centric management is F(x): User(x) -> App(y)
This is based on the premise that an Administrators intent when delivering an application should be to ensure that the user can access the application they require. This is regardless of the endpoint or the access method, all the user is bothered about is that they can get to the application they want, wherever they are so that they can work.

To enable this, Microsoft have introduced a new "Application Model". Gone are the days of packages, programs and advertisements (Actually they're still there, but only for legacy and migration purposes).
This new application model helps admins to manage the application, not scripts used to install an app.

The application model brings with it some of the following features:

Detection Methods - Are applications Required or Prohibited and do they already exist on the device, if so, why bother re-installing.
Requirements - E.g. Device must have x memory, this model hardware, must be users primary device.
Dependancies - E.g. Application must have App-V client, if not, auto install first
Supersedance - E.g. Office 2010 replaces Office 2003. Update an application with supersedance links and get automatic revision management

Application model with multiple deployment types:

Dependency Viewer:

This new application model really helps support the abstraction model by allowing multiple deployment types to be assigned to an application (MSI, App-V, RDS, Citrix, Mobile) and delivered to the user dynamically depending on the type of device and access method (Corporate LAN FAT Client Vs. Home PC via Citrix/RDS)

The RDS & Citrix connectors which will provide the ability to assign those deployment types to applications are looking like they will be available shortly after RTM.

Operating System Deployment (OSD) is looking for the most part to be staying the same in terms of features etc, apart from a new ability to install apps for assigned primary users during a task sequence based on device affinity rules.

System Center Mobile Device Manager was discontinued a while ago and remains part of ConfigMgr 2012 which now provides both Depth and Light Management of devices.
Depth Management requires an agent on the phone and at the moment this is available for Window Mobile devices and Nokia Symbian devices but there are more announcements regarding more devices still to be made before/at RTM.

Light Management allows for any ActiveSync capable device to be inventoried, have some settings managed (PIN, Idle Time, failed logons etc) and enables remote wiping. This means iPhones, Androids etc can be centrally managed and controlled more easily by the teams that support them rather than having to put the burden on the Exchange team.
Light Management requires Exchange 2010, and also takes over ActiveSync management - beware manually changing settings

The good old Run Advertisements program has been replaced with a new Software Centre in 2012 (It's no longer Control Panel item, it's now found in the Start Menu)

This makes it easier for users to run software that isn't enforced and shows details such as install time/date, progress and allows for some settings to be changed (if allowed) such as working hours, remote control capabilities, power management settings.

There is also a new web site for Self Service, allowing for the finding and requesting of software.

Simplify Theme
Finally we have a new administration console, the MMC is gone!!!

The new console is in the Outlook style, consistent now with the other System Center products. ConfigMgr 2012 also has the Ribbon Bar and provides easier searching, easier scoping and automatic custom views depending on role.

ConfigMgr 2012 now has Role Based Access Control (RBAC) allowing for the system and the console to be easily secured and locked down to only show/allow access to areas that staff require.
This gives the ability for example to separate out Server and Desktop management using roles rather than sites, and giving safety for admins. No more accidentally deploying an update meant for desktops to servers and rebooting them all in the day (Because I've never ever ever done that! /cringe)

Using collections as an organisational method and writing lots of queries to scope out the devices to deploy to should now be a thing of the past. There are no more sub collections, but now we get folders for organisation and the queries should now transition to "Requirements" that are on the deployment types with the application.

Unify Theme
Distribution Points now mainly replace the need for Secondary Sites as they have scheduling and throttling. Secondary’s are only really needed if you want to control the upload of client information.

In ConfigMgr 2007 your hierarchy could get very deep and complex with multiple Primary sites being child layered below each other, in 2012 we will see a maximum depth of 3 layers:
CAS - PRI - SEC is the maximum 3 layers.

ConfigMgr 2012 now has Bi-Directional SQL Replication between the CAS and Primary with SQL replication from the Primary - Secondary being one way replication.

Data is now processed at Primary and replicated up rather than processed on each server in hierarchy as in 2007. File based replication is still only used between Secondary’s and DP's and for file contents (Software Packages, Updates, Boot Images etc)

When do you need a Primary site?

Scale
Reduce impact of Primary failure
Local Connectivity
Political issues
Regulation compliance

Primary Sites are NOT needed for:

Decentralised Admin
Logical Data Segmentation
Different Client Settings
Different Languages
Content Routing for deep hierarchies

There is one Distribution Point (DP) type only now, no more branch DP's as the same DP works on Windows 7.

DP Groups now auto distribute content to new DP's when they are added to the group.

Boundaries can now be auto discovered from Active Directory Forest information.
The auto discovery finds:

AD Sites
IP Subnets
IPv6 Prefixes

What's new?
Client Health and Activity now fully integrated into ConfigMgr 2012 along with Auto Remediation.

21 different checks are now performed daily with remediation tasks such as:

Restart service
Dependency checks
Repair WMI
etc

Client Health remediation can be turned off using a Registry Key this is important for mission critical servers etc where for example a WMI rebuild could potentially be bad news.

You can now setup Alerts and Reporting subscriptions based on thresholds for things like % of unhealthy clients, malware detection etc.

Software updates now have auto deployment rules, mainly to be used for EndPoint Protection definition updates, but could be used for any update type, bringing back one feature WSUS users missed when migrating to ConfigMgr for updates.

State based update groups, deploy updates individually or in groups. Think ConfigMgr 2007 lists & Deployment Packages combined, where you can now add new updates and deploy straight away.

OSD now has Offline Image Servicing for updates, saves time during deployment rather than waiting for 60+ updates to install during a task sequence!!!

Boot Media is now hierarchy wide, update once for the entire site.

The Task Sequence Media Wizard includes steps to add prestart command files (formerly pre-execution hooks) to prestaged media, bootable media, and stand-alone media.

Power Management has more options, users can opt out of PwrMgt if the Administrator allows it and PwrMgt settings don't auto apply to VM's.

Custom Client Settings can be applied to collections, removing multiple site needs for e.g. Servers and Desktops that needed different settings.

Desired Configuration Management (DCM) now has auto remediation along with version and auditing checking - who changed what?

Remote Control gets Ctrl+Alt+Del back!! Also option to disable the users Mouse and Keyboard to prevent them interfering with the support session.

Phew, there was a lot to take in, most of which was already known about, but Wally presented it brilliantly, answered a ton of questions throughout and personally helped me with a query during the break.

The demos in the afternoon were around doing a migration from 2007 (Must be SP2 and no 2003 migration) and the System Center 2012 EndPoint Protection integration. I'll hold off blogging about them in anymore detail yet, as they're a bit too visual to talk about.

All in all a brilliant day, and if you haven't already downloaded the release candidate to play with, what are you waiting for?!?!?!

Error when trying to access ConfigMgr 2012 Self Service Application Catalog

2011-11-07T10:07:00.000Z

After installing the Application Catalog Web Service and Web Site the other day I was presented with this error when trying to access it:

"Could not load type 'System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpModule' from assembly 'System.ServiceModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089'"

I thought this was a little strange as this is usually related to when IIS is installed after .Net Framework 4, which I had definitely not done as this was the same server that I had previously had the ConfigMgr Beta 2 installed on, with a working Self Service Portal before uninstalling ConfigMgr Beta2 and re-installing the Release Candidate.

But I thought I had best try the simple fix first, which involves just simply running the aspnet_regiis.exe -iru command.

And would you believe it, it fixed it!

So if you do run into this error, even if you're pretty sure you installed IIS & .Net Framework in the right order, give this simple fix a quick try first.

Service Manager 2012 Beta has been released!!

2011-10-28T09:27:00.000+01:00

Again, another System Center product sneaks out without a major announcement from the teams blog :S

At last, the Beta for Service Manager 2012 has been released.

This latest version brings the following additions to the product:

Service Requests
Release Management
Service Catalog
Service Level Agreement support for Incident and Service Requests
Parent – child support for incident and release management
A Dynamic, Super Duper, Share Point based Self Service Portal
Parallel Activities
Build & Environments
Connector Enhancements
Orchestrator Runbook Integration
Virtual Machine Manager Integration
Console Performance Improvements
Reporting and Data Warehouse improvements (OLAP Cubes, Excel Pivot Tables, Sharepoint Dashboards)
Service Manager 2010 can be upgraded to SCSM 2012 Beta

Installation hasn't changed that much from 2010, other than it explains the pre-requisites a bit better and Share Point Foundation or above is now required for the Self Service Portal.

You can find the download link here:
www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27844

The hardware requirements for the servers hasn't changed, but some of the software requirements have.

Consoles:

Windows XP and Server 2003 is no longer supported for the console, time to migrate if you haven't already!
Microsoft Report Viewer Redistributable
Windows PowerShell 1.0 or Windows PowerShell 2.0
ADO.NET Data Services Update for .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
Microsoft Analysis Management Objects (AMOs)
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 with SP1

Management Servers:

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
SQL Native Client
SQL Server 2008 Analysis Management Objects
SQL Server 2008 Analysis Data Objects
PowerShell 2.0

For the Self Service Portal:

SharePoint 2010 (Foundation or above)
.Net 4.0
Silverlight 4.0 (Client side)
IE 8 or 9 (Client side)
Firefox is not (presently) a supported browser for the Self Service Portal.

Reporting/Datawarehouse:

SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services

Installing/upgrading the Beta edition will provide a time limited 180 day version, even for fully licenced 2010 installs. However, the ability to upgrade to RTM, and the non-time limited select version is expected to be possible. The upgrade from Beta to RTM is NOT supported by Microsoft, other than for TAP customers so do NOT be upgrading your production systems with the 2012 beta, this is purely available for you to test in a lab environment.

One big change, is the fact that if you intend to monitor your service manager servers with Operations Manager 2012 then it's worth noting that it is only supported with agentless monitoring due to compatibility issues. Check this link for more details on how to setup agentless monitoring: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh264859.aspx

System Center Orchestrator 2012 Release Candidate Available

2011-10-28T09:19:00.000+01:00

Either I've been sleeping too much or this one didn't get an announcement.

There's been nothing on the Scorch blog or the Server and Cloud blog, but it's been released for a couple of days. Even more disappointing is there was no mailshot to the CEP participants :(

Anyway...

The download can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27842

The following features have been added/improved for the RC from Beta:

Install Experience

Improved prerequisite checks
Implementation of Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), error reporting and interface with Microsoft Update
Allow user to log on as a service and select different service accounts for each service
Design Improvements( Error handling, port # for DB, increased logging, enabling log on as a service automatically)
UI Consistency between other System Center components
Time bomb(easy conversion from EVAL to licensed SKU)

•Security improvements

Encryption of DB connection
Encryption/decryption of passwords

Globalization

Unicode capable
Convert SSH to Unicode

Web service

Versioning

Orchestration Console

Browse events
View events
UI Updates

Bug fixes across all product features

I previously wrote a script that would automate the install of the Beta, but there is no guarantee that will work with the RC, but I will update it once I've installed it in my testlab.

System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Release Candidate now available

2011-10-27T19:58:00.000+01:00

Great news, the Release Candidate for System Center Configuration Manager 2012 (SCCM) has been released.

You can download it from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=27841

A quick run down of some of the new RC features:

Improved endpoint protection functionality, with integrated setup, management and reporting for System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection.
Improved application catalog design that provides a better, more responsive experience when requesting and downloading applications.
New support for Windows Embedded devices, including Windows Embedded 7 SP1, POSReady 7, Windows 7 Think PC, and Windows Embedded Compact 7.
Improved client status checks for Configuration Manager services and features.
Improved compliance enforcement and tracking, with the ability to create dynamic collections of baseline compliance and the generation of hourly compliance summaries.
Platform support for deep mobile device management of Nokia Symbian Belle devices. Pending a platform update by Nokia later this calendar year for these devices, customers will be able to try out the management of these Nokia devices with ConfigMgr.
Additional scalability and performance improvements.

One of them points is interesting, the name change from ForeFront Endpoint Protection to System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection, showing the ever growing links between the System Center families and the fact that Endpoint Protection is now more than ever closer to the System Center stack and it's need for SCCM to manage it than a ForeFront product.

It's also worth noting that the installation of ~~ForeFront~~ sorry SC 2012 Endpoint is now integrated into the main SCCM setup.

Updated Updated Server OS Base MP

2011-10-19T09:17:00.000+01:00

I posted a couple of weeks back about an updated Server OS management pack that Microsoft released and how it contained some really good improvements, however it didn't go unnoticed that it also had some annoying bugs in it.

Well thanks to the efforts of the community and spearheaded by Marnix Wolf, Microsoft has listened and corrected them.

Kevin Holman has a post up that lists the fixes and can be sumariesed as:

Disabled BPA Rules by default.
Added appropriate SQL Stored Procedures credentials
Updated Knowledge for Logical Disks
Updated Overrides for Logical Disks
Fixed %Idle time sorting in the utilization report.

Compared to some management packs and the teams that look after them, like the Print Server MP, this is a brilliant example of Microsoft's commitment to SCOM and what can be achieved.

The new updated MP can be downloaded from here.

Updated Management Packs for SCOM

2011-10-02T07:23:00.000+01:00

Well, it looks like my scepticism was uncalled for, as Microsoft have just released an updated Operations Manager MP for Configuration Manager.

The release announcement can be found here:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2011/09/30/release-announcement-system-center-monitoring-pack-for-configuration-manager-2007-sp2-converted.aspx

Changes in this release:

Consolidation Event Rules have been disabled to prevent the generation of false alerts.
Operating system architecture detection logic was updated to determine 64-bit operating systems.
You no longer have to run the SQL Server query to clean up the localizedtext tables as part of the post-installation cleanup
Scripts that target site database servers now retrieve time values directly from servers running instances of SQL Server instead of site servers to avoid time-zone discrepancies.
Site hierarchy discovery now succeeds even if a site or component server does not have a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) configured.
The AlertLevel property can now be overridden, giving you control over the severity level.
All monitors and rules are now public.
The "ConfigMgr 2007 Collection Evaluations Tasks" script has been updated to let you monitor a collection that has a NULL StartTime value.The "ConfigMgr 2007 Collection Evaluations Tasks" script now uses CollectionID instead of Collection Name to track collection tasks.

Biggest change is the Consolidation Event Rules change as this should mean a much less noisy MP out of the box, also removing the need for Kevin Holman's SCCM noise reduction MP

It's also great that all monitors and rules are now public, allowing for greater control with overrides.

Although its not exactly a brand new revolutionary MP, its a start.
It does show two things however:

Someone at Microsoft is taking note of feedback
Some changes to MP standards may be on their way

MS have renamed the MP “System Center Monitoring Pack for Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 (Converted)”. Maybe by adding the (Converted) tag to the end of the name we'll start to see a cleared definition between original reworked MOM 2005 MP's and native 2007 MP's. This could hopefully give MS more of a push to replace these MP's rather than having "converted" labels scattered around.

Microsoft have also release an updated Base OS MP to version 6.0.6957.0.

Kevin Holman as always was on hand to write up an excellent post about it so I'm not going to re-invent the wheel, check out his post here:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2011/09/30/opsmgr-new-base-os-mp-6-0-6956-0-adds-cluster-shared-volume-monitoring-bpa-and-many-changes.aspx

Biggest changes to the base MP include:

Adds Cluster Shared Volume discovery and monitoring for free space and availability. This is critical for those Hyper-V clusters on Server 2008 R2.
Adds a new monitor to execute the Windows Best Practices Analyzer for different discovered installed Roles, and then generate alerts until these are resolved.
Changes to many built in rules/monitors, to reduce noise, database space and I/O, and increase a positive “out of the box” experience. Also added a few new monitors and rules.
Changes to the MP Views – removing some old stuff and adding some new
Addition of some new reports – way cool

The new reports look very cool:

Configuration Manager Management Pack for Operations Manager

2011-09-27T15:30:00.000+01:00

Interesting.....
I've just had an e-mail from the connect site about a bug I raised for the SCCM MP for SCOM and the noise it generates in SCOM.

I posted about opening up connect to report about MP's here:
http://systemscentre.blogspot.com/2010/12/want-to-provide-direct-feedback-on.html

and the SCCM MP guide I posted here:
http://systemscentre.blogspot.com/2010/11/configuration-manager-2007-sp2.html

What was interesting was that my submission has been marked with "Fixed in new build".

Does this mean we're about to see a new release??? Fingers crossed!
Or is it the usual stock answer like, wait for the next version... coming, erm... sometime (~~never~~)

Agent Health Tips and Fixes for System Center Operations Manager 2007

2011-09-15T22:01:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Marnix Wolf for this one as he's just pointed out a very important and useful article Microsoft have released regarding the health of SCOM agents and their operating systems in general, along with hotfixes to squeeze the best performance/stability out of them.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2616936/

Build Keynote 2011 - Windows 8

2011-09-14T00:58:00.001+01:00

I've just finished watching the keynote and now I challenge you to watch the entire keynote and not think that the game is about to change.....

http://www.buildwindows.com/

Lots of VERY cool new features, for example:

Anti-Virus out the box
Hyper-V on the desktop
Finally a multi-montior taskbar

and some (from a security and manageability stand point) that scare me for example:

LiveID & Syncing
Remote file access through firewall e.g. access work PC from home

I'll be installing the Dev Build ASAP (Files still aren't ready for download yet) and I'll take a dig into the underlying OS and post some findings.

However, I'm under no illusion that this is still Pre-Beta so subject to change and bugs.

*Update 14/09/11 * - Helps if I read the last slide of the keynote, the downloads were available as of 3am GMT. I've downloaded them now and installation is under way.
Another feature I forgot to mention that has been a long time coming, built in ISO & VHD mounting.

Operations Manager (SCOM) 2012 Upgrade Planning

2011-09-13T14:01:00.000+01:00

Since many organisations with SCOM 2007 will already be thinking about the upgrade to 2012 when it's released, now is a good enough time as any to start planning the migration.

To help with the migration, Microsoft have recently released some process flow diagrams to help with the migration.

These can be found here and do a really good job with laying out the processes that need to be thought about and should hopefully help with a smooth migration as they're very comprehensive.

Private Cloud, make sure you choose right!

2011-09-09T17:34:00.000+01:00

This is brilliant Microsoft advertising.
It's good to see that Microsoft have got a sense of humour, but the points it mentions are valid.

One thing in particular did catch my attention when the IT guy asks Tad if his solution would allow him to see deep inside his apps (1:30 min though).

Rather than Tads blank expression reply...

This is where System Center comes into its own and the upcoming 2012 wave will just blow the competition out of the water.

Imagine having your data centre built as a private cloud infrastructure using System Center as the pivotal part of the solution. When the IT guy then asks if the solution would allow him to find out performance problems, bottle necks and root causes the reply would be a resounding YES!

Virtual Machine Manager handles the virtualisation management piece of the solution, providing management of the "cloud" and dynamically assigning resources where and when required to ensure optimum performance. However, with Operations Manager sat within the environment gathering events and metrics constantly it would alert IT staff to potential problems, automatically raising Incidents directly within Service Manager. The necessary and relevant information is immediately at hand for the engineer to work on resolving the incident, coupled with Operation Managers ability to deeply dive into .Net applications to such a level as to even show which line of code is at fault
Once the root cause is identified using the information surfaced through Operation Manager (Events & Performance) and Service Manager (Configuration & Changes), then, if for example an update was required, the necessary Change Control would be raised in Service Manager to apply the update and once approved Orchestrator could pick up the change. Orchestrator could proceed to automate the remediation by talking across the infrastructure management products to take a backup of the system using Data Protection Manager, put the system into maintenance mode to suppress alerts in Operation Manager then create the necessary tasks with Configuration Manager to deploy the update to the system and finally check the success and report this information back into Service Manager for later review and analysis.

Once service is restored and operating normally, it may be deemed that either during a known busy period or to support an advertising campaign for example, that the corporate web site will need extra resources to cope with demand. A Change Request is raised within Service Manager and once approved Orchestrator can take on the responsibility of setting the wheels in motion for adding those resources for example by instructing Virtual Machine Manager to provision a new Virtual Server, Configuration Manager to deploy a new Operating System and any required software along with updates, settings and configuration. Orchestrator would enable the bringing online of a new web server and adding it into a web farm as extra resources with little to no interaction of highly skilled technical resources.

This is all so easily possible due to the tight integration that is now present within the System Center product suite and is only going to continue to grow stronger with this next 2012 wave and beyond.
The tight integration allows for data about the infrastructure to flow across products, negating the need for duplication of effort or manual input.
The end net result is a very dynamic, private cloud infrastructure and much more efficient service delivery model.

This has several other benefits such as:

End users of the service gain improvements around time taken to respond to requests
Total Cost of Ownership is lower to support and maintain the environment
IT staff have more time to be proactive rather than constantly being reactive
High control of the environment can be achieved, helping with compliance (PCI, CoCo, Sarbanes Oxley)
Conversion of processes to automation helps with both workload reduction and better auditing of changes to the environment
Paves the way for Platform as a Service (PaaS)

One key thing to note, while I’ve mentioned various Microsoft products such as Data Protection Manager as the backup tool and Hyper-V as the virtual hypervisor, this doesn’t have to be the case

Microsoft have done a real good job of “growing up” these last couple of years and have finally embraced the fact that data centres are heterogeneous environments. So while I’ve mentioned the best products (sorry, couldn’t resist) you can still use the System Center tools like Virtual Machine manager to manage your VMWare or Citrix hypervisors and Operations Manager to monitor your Solaris and Unix servers while Orchestrator can use integration packs to work with other vendor systems such as BMC Remedey and HP Openview etc

Why is this worth mentioning? Because it means that to implement a private cloud and reap the benefits doesn’t require a complete rip and replace of your current infrastructure and the costs associated. You can introduce the tools, methodologies and principals behind the cloud now as you plan towards full implementation (Based on Hyper-V et al of course!)

Finally, as we start to move towards the release of the System Center 2012 wave of products, the dedication Microsoft has towards enabling businesses to implement private clouds and also link them with public clouds is very evident with new product features such as Virtual Machine Manager 2012's ability to provision storage and networking elements, Operation Manager 2012's increased Networking & Application Monitoring along with more Azure integration, Configuration Manager 2012's more user centric approach and it's support of "IT Consumerisation" and Service Manager 2012's expansion of ITIL/MOF process support with Service Requests and the further integration with Orchestrator to help with automation of processes all show Microsoft is serious about making this all a reality, and achievable for all, not just the biggest companies around with the most cash as these solutions scale both up and down.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/private-cloud/default.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/system-center/default.aspx

Footnote:
This is only scratching the surface of what the System Center products can do, areas like reporting, SLA management, patching, baselines, tuning etc etc would make this post just too long to read.

Service Manager 2010 (SCSM) Version Numbers

2011-09-07T20:17:00.000+01:00

Just a quick post to help me remember what release numbers relate to which release level:

Version (numeric)	Version (name)
7.0.5826.0	RTM
7.0.5826.859	RTM with CU1 applied
7.0.5826.881	RTM with CU2 applied
7.0.5826.886	RTM with CU3 applied
7.0.6555.0	SP1
7.0.6555.101	SP1 with CU1 applied
7.0.6555.115	SP1 with CU2 applied

Service Manager 2010 Unleashed

2011-09-05T18:58:00.000+01:00

Finally, after a bit of messing around with the order, Amazon has finally delivered my copy of System Center Service Manager 2010.

Since I'm away with work for a couple of days, this should make some good hotel reading :)

I've had a quick scan through and so far it seems up to the same standard as the other System Center Unleashed books. I'll try and write a review post once I've got a lot deeper into it, but I'll still recommend people check it out even at this early stage due to the people involved in writing it and their combined staggering amount of knowledge of the product.

Network Devices Supported in SCOM 2012

2011-08-30T16:04:00.000+01:00

Jonathan Almquist has posted on his blog about the network devices supported in SCOM 2012.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/jonathanalmquist/archive/2011/08/11/list-of-supported-network-devices-in-operations-manager-2012.aspx

I'm not going to replicate the really long device list table, but it's looking very comprehensive and should only grow by RTM.

A spreadsheet of the devices with more details can be found at the link below and details things like the OID of the device and if memory and processor monitoring is available.
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=26831

Service Manager - Backup Unsealed MP's

2011-08-18T15:21:00.000+01:00

I've had a solution for backing up SCSM unsealed management packs on the TechNet Gallery for a while now, but I thought I'd mention quickly that I've just updated it.

No new functionality, but Sam Erskine (Service Manager Guru) has very kindly given me his documentation for the installation of the management pack so I've updated the zip file with it.

Sam's blog can be found here and the download here

Duplicate Records when you use Unknown Computer Support along with AD Delta Discovery

2011-08-18T08:30:00.000+01:00

I've run into this scenario a couple of times after enabling Delta Discovery and have got into the habit of doing a manual sweep for duplicate records, or extending the Delta Discovery period, but that kind of defeats much of the reason for it.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/configmgrteam/archive/2011/08/17/known-issue-and-workaround-duplicate-records-when-you-use-unknown-computer-support-with-active-directory-delta-discovery.aspx

Basically, if you have Delta Discovery enabled and then image a new device using unknown computer support SCCM creates a record for the new device, but then if Delta Discovery runs before the Task Sequence installs the Client Agent and after the OS has been joined to the domain, 2 records will be created within SCCM. The problems start though when SCCM can't link/merge the two together and won't age either of the out of the database either.

Two choices are then left for you.

Manually sweep for duplicate records and delete the one that shows no client installed.
Setup a status filter rule that will run a script to automatically delete the record.

Thanks to the TechNet article posted by Minfang Lv, this is now relatively simple to do, with the scripts and instructions supplied.

As always, test before putting straight into production.

Anti-Virus exclusion list for Microsoft Products

2011-08-17T16:06:00.000+01:00

While trawling the blogs today I noticed this useful page mentioned by quite a few:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/953.aspx

It's a Technet Wiki article that aims to condense all the AV exclusions you might want to configure for Windows Server when different products are installed (SQL, AD, IIS, etc).

There's also some references to general Windows exclusions also.

Service Manager 2010 hasn't made it onto the list yet, so I'll point you to the NN4 Consultants blog for that one:
http://www.nn4consultants.com/2011/06/scsm-framework-to-real-work-part-iv-av-exclusions/

Microsoft Exec's... They're just normal people....

2011-08-09T22:17:00.001+01:00

**Update 11/08/2011** - Looks like someone didn't like this video being up, as it's now been removed. Sorry!

Had to share this...

MGXFY12 Kurt D Comedy Video from Buttercuts Editorial on Vimeo.

Sad thing is, for those that know me, they could probably see me right at home in the car with them /shame

Microsoft BitLocker Administration and Monitoring (MBAM)

2011-08-04T11:15:00.000+01:00

On the 1st of August, Microsoft officially released the MDOP 2011 R2 suite.

As well as the usual App-V, Med-V DaRT etc updates this R2 release also sees MBAM join the suite.

For those of you unfamiliar with MBAM, it builds on BitLocker Drive Encryption by offering an enterprise solution for provisioning, monitoring, and supporting BitLocker.

By using MBAM, you can centrally provision BitLocker and enforce BitLocker policies across the organization.
Provisioning BitLocker by using MBAM is a two-step process:

Deploy the MBAM client to each computer (SCCM would be the preferred option here)
Configure policy settings that MBAM enforces.

The client enforces MBAM policy settings, stores recovery key data in an encrypted MBAM database, and reports its compliance status to MBAM.

In addition to walking the user through the encryption process, it can also prompt the user for a PIN, if required, addressing an aspect of BitLocker deployment that has challenged IT.

The most obvious way MBAM can simplify BitLocker support is by streamlining drive recovery for the Service Desk. The picture below shows the Drive Recovery webpage in MBAM. If a user calls the Service Desk because they are in BitLocker recovery mode, the Service Desk doesn’t look up the drive’s recovery key in AD DS. Instead, the Service Desk uses MBAM to quickly look up the recovery key based on its ID.

MBAM also introduces single-use recovery keys. When the Service Desk retrieves and uses a recovery key, the MBAM client automatically generates a new recovery key for the computer. The original recovery key can’t be used again to recover the computer’s hard drive.

This is vitally important as users are known for jotting down things like the recovery key and keepin it near their device in-case they ever need it again. The hard drive might as well be unencrypted.

Single-use recovery keys help prevent unauthorized users from gaining access to the hard drive even if they get access to a previously used recovery key.

While MBAM does a great job of helping you provision BitLocker, one of the areas it shines the most in is compliance reporting. The reports it includes can help you quickly determine the status of the entire organization or a single computer. They can also help you monitor access to the MBAM databases.

Imagine that a user loses their laptop computer, and it contains confidential data. With MBAM, you can quickly look up the computer to determine whether it was compliant with BitLocker policy. You will know immediately whether the loss represents any risk.

MBAM provides the following reports in the MBAM management console:

Enterprise Compliance Report. This report can tell you at a glance the BitLocker compliance status of your entire organization.
Computer Compliance Report. This report indicates whether a specific computer or a specific user’s computers are compliant with BitLocker policy.
Recovery Audit Report. This report indicates who has accessed recovery key information, successfully or not.
Hardware Audit Report. This report indicates who has changed the hardware compatibility list and when the MBAM client discovers new hardware. When you enable hardware compatibility checking, the MBAM client uses the hardware compatibility list to determine whether each computer model supports BitLocker.

Two useful videos to watch on MBAM:

MBAM Deployment and Architecture

Deploying the MBAM Agent with System Center Configuration Manager

SCOM 2007 R2 Cumulative Update 5 (CU5)

2011-08-04T08:33:00.000+01:00

Now that the KB Article for CU5 is live we can now see exactly what's included in CU5:

Cumulative Update 5 for Operations Manager 2007 R2 resolves the following issues:

Restart of non-Operations Manager services when the agent is updated.
Updated ACS reports.
TCP Port Probe incorrectly reports negative ping latency.
MissingEvent Manual Reset Monitor does not work as expected.
Drillthrough fails because of rsParameterTypeMismatch in the EnterpriseManagementChartControl.
ACS - Event log message is truncated or corrupted in SCDW.
UI hang caused by SDK locking.
ACS Filter fails for certain wildcard queries.
Edit Schedule button is disabled with SQL 2008 R2.
Web console times out when you open the left navigation tree.
Scheduled Reports view for Windows Server 2003 and for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services SP3 CU9 returns "System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Index was outside the bounds of the array."
Signed MPs cannot be imported when new attributes are added to existing classes.

Cross Platform Cumulative Update 5 for Operations Manager 2007 R2 resolves the following issues:

Performance data for LVM managed partitions is not available.
Process monitor does not keep name if run by using symbolic link.
AIX with large number of processes crashes with bad alloc.

Cross Platform Cumulative Update 5 for Operations Manager 2007 R2 adds the following feature:

Support for Red Hat 6

Note The new agent for Red Hat 6 is included in Cumulative Update 5. You can download the management pack for Red Hat 6 by visiting the following Microsoft website:

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Monitoring Management Packs

I'm a strong believer in not re-inventing the wheel, so rather than do a step by step guide on the install myself, I'll just recommend you check out Kevin Holman's post:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2011/08/03/opsmgr-2007-r2-cu5-rollup-hotfix-ships-and-my-experience-installing-it.aspx

Ramp up the Test Lab - SCOM 2007 R2 CU5 is here!

2011-08-03T15:17:00.001+01:00

Cumulative Update 5 (CU#5) for SCOM R2 is now available for download from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26938

The Knowledge base article for the update (KB2495674) isn't presently live, but the download page does note that there are a number of manual steps are required to install, so this will definately need the guide reading in full.

With that being said, get it downloaded and the test lab ramped up ready, but wait for the full details before attempting an install!

**Edit 04/08/2011 - KB Article is now live **

Orchestrator Runbook Design, Planning and Validation

2011-07-28T10:16:00.000+01:00

Anders Bengtsson has done it again and written another stunning blog post about validating your runbook designs.

This ties in nicely with a discussion that I was having with a customer yesterday where I was stealing a comment made at the Best of MMS 2011 UK event where Adam Hall (I'm sure it was Adam, if not I apologise to whoever it was) coined a phrase about a day of design roughly equates to an hour in the runbook designer.

The point I was trying to get across to the customer is that while setting up SCORCH (or to some extent Opalis) is relatively simple and you can dive into the console and knock up runbooks very quickly too, it's very important to take that step back, map out your process first fully, exploring all angles, then create the runbook from this plan, and then like Anders says, build it out with resilience, checking and logging.

Back to the initial point...

Anders now has a trilogy of posts that I would really recommend reading, even if you feel really confident creating runbooks, I'd bet you don't use half the methods fully like Anders recommends.

Post 1: Fault Tolerance in Runbooks
Post 2: Building a log for Runbooks
Post 3: Validate your Runbook Design (He also includes a runbook which automates some checking!)

Simple Orchestrator Runbook to move software to a Definitive Media Library (DML)

2011-07-21T15:46:00.000+01:00

While trying to think of an example that I could use to create a runbook in SCORCH using only the standard activities I remembered a situation in my previous role where the Service Desk were responsible for gathering the software and documentation required for calls from users to upgrade systems/install new software.

Because we used the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 and specifically the Applications part of the deployment share as our Definitive Media Library (DML) it was a multi stepped approach to gathering the software from the users, assessing it and then moving it into a structured area via the MDT console.

So I started to knock together an example runbook to help with this process.

Originally I wanted to utilise the PowerShell functionality in MDT, but ran into an issue as Orchestrator uses the 32-bit powershell but being a 64-bit only OS (2008 R2) meant I couldn't install the MDT PowerShell snap-ins to work with the 32-bit PS.

So I went for a more basic runbook that monitors for a definition file (text file with a specific name and specific content) which would then kick off the process of moving and structuring the files in a DML.

Watch the video for the runbook in action:

While this is a very simplistic runbook, it shows the processes of reusing the data on the databus.

I'm limited in my testlab with what I can do for demonstration purposes, but as an example of how this could be enhanced, you could add a SQL query rather than monitoring for a file to query a service desk application for a new Service Request or Change Control being raised of a certain category and take the information from that call using the SQL query and use that in the runbook instead of a text file.

Exported runbook:

Operations Manager (SCOM) 2012 Beta now available

2011-07-20T20:01:00.000+01:00

Microsoft released the first public beta of Operations Manager 2012 yesterday.

Main Beta page is here: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/en/us/om-vnext-beta.aspx

Downloads are here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26804

It's a bit strange that a public beta has just been released, especially since the CEP hasn't yet started, but I won't complain too much as that now completes my System Center 2012 test lab :)

Main new areas in the 2012 beta (taken from the TechNet Beta docs):

Setup

Operations Manager 2012 has a new Setup wizard. For important instructions about how to install Operations Manager 2012, see Install Operations Manager 2012 Beta.

Upgrading to Operations Manager 2012

Operations Manager 2012 provides an upgrade wizard to help you upgrade your System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 environment to Operations Manager 2012. For more information, see Upgrading to Operations Manager 2012.

Removal of root management server

In Operations Manager 2012, all management servers are peers; there is no root management server. The workload is split among all management servers in a management group, which provides high availability without requiring a cluster.

Resource pools

A resource pool provides the ability to distribute workloads across multiple management servers, such as availability, network device monitoring, distributed monitor health rollup, and group calculation.

Agent Configuration

Operations Manager 2012 provides an easy method for configuring agents to report to multiple management servers by adding an Operations Manager Agent application to Control Panel on each agent-managed Windows-based computer.

Operations Console

You will notice some subtle changes to the Operations console. The Actions pane is now the Tasks pane, and includes a new section called Navigation Tasks that makes it easy for you to open views for a selected object. The Tasks pane offers two tabs: one for actions and one for resources and Help links. The Navigation and Tasks panes can be minimized or expanded instantly by clicking the arrow in the title bar of the pane.

Web console

Operations Manager 2012 introduces a new web console. In Operations Manager 2012, all Operations Manager views are available in the web console.

Network monitoring

Operations Manager 2012 provides the ability to discover and monitor network routers and switches, including the network interfaces and ports on those devices and the virtual LAN (VLAN) that they participate in. You can also delete discovered network devices and prevent the deleted network devices from being rediscovered the next time discovery runs. For more information, see Monitor Network Devices.

Application monitoring

In Operations Manager 2012, you can monitor ASP.NET applications and web services from server- and client-side perspectives to get details about application availability and performance that can help you pinpoint solutions. Allowing you to specify settings, the types of events to collect, the performance goals to measure, and which servers to monitor, Operations Manager 2012 application monitoring provides insight into how web-based applications are running. You can see how frequently a problem is occurring, how a server was performing when a problem occurred, and the chain of events related to the slow request or method that is unreliable. This is the information needed to partner with software developers and database administrators to help ensure that application availability and performance are at optimal levels. For more information, see Monitor an ASP.NET Application.

Dashboard views

Operations Manager 2012 includes new comprehensive dashboard views that combine multiple panels of information into a single view. In Operations Manager 2012, you can add the new dashboard views to My Workspace and the Monitoring workspace.

Display dashboard views using SharePoint

The Operations Manager web part displays specified dashboard views and can be added to Microsoft SharePoint 2010 sites. For more information, see Add a Dashboard View to a SharePoint Site.

Creating dashboard views

Dashboard views have been significantly upgraded in Operations Manager 2012 from their capabilities in Operations Manager 2007 R2, including custom layouts and nested dashboard views. For more information, see Create a Dashboard View.

Operations Manager Module for Windows PowerShell

Operations Manager 2012 provides a Windows PowerShell 2.0 module containing a full set of new cmdlets. The cmdlets in this module are only compatible with Operations Manager 2012. You can recognize the Operations Manager 2012 cmdlets by the "SC" preceding the noun. For additional information about the Operations Manager 2012 cmdlets, open the Operations Manager command shell and type Get-Help about_OpsMgr_WhatsNew. For information about how the Operations Manager 2007 cmdlets map to the Operations Manager 2012 cmdlets, type Get-Help about_OpsMgr_Cmdlet_Names.

To use the Operations Manager 2012 cmdlets, you must establish a connection to an Operations Manager management group. You can establish either a persistent connection in which you can run multiple cmdlets, or a temporary connection when running a single cmdlet. For more information about connections, open the Operations Manager Shell and type Get-Help about_OpsMgr_Connections.

UNIX- and Linux-based computers

In Operations Manager 2012, you can perform privileged operations on UNIX-based and Linux-based computers using unprivileged Run As accounts by combining with “sudo” elevation on the target UNIX-based and Linux-based computers. This capability avoids the need for UNIX or Linux root passwords to be known on the management server, and keeps the privilege control entirely within the domain of the UNIX or Linux administrator. Operations Manager 2012 also includes new Windows PowerShell cmdlets for performing agent maintenance functions on UNIX-based and Linux-based computers, allowing for scripting and background operations. In addition, the resource pool feature supports computers running UNIX and Linux. If a management server fails, another management server in the resource pool can take over the monitoring, providing high availability.

SCOM 2012: Setup and Config Part 2

2011-07-13T14:39:00.003+01:00

Just found another video around the setup and config of Operations Manager 2012.

It's presented by Rob Kuehfus, a Microsoft Program Manager and the well known MVP Maarten Goet.

Since the video doesn't embbed very well, you can also find it here:
http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2011/SIM356

SCOM 2012: Overview, Setup and Configuration

2011-07-08T08:36:00.000+01:00

Just found this video of Operations Manager 2012 that sneaked under my radar:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/Video/hh314543

It doesn't show much more than I saw at the Best of MMS UK on OpsMgr 2012, but I still can't find the videos from that session.

Using the Microsoft Solutions Accelerator Dashboards with SCOM

2011-07-07T13:46:00.000+01:00

I've done a few of posts on using the SCCM dashboards to display SCOM information, but Kevin Greene has taken it to a whole new level......

http://kevingreeneitblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/scom-dashboards-conclusion-and.html

His series of posts not only cover in great detail how to install and configure both the ConfigMgr Dashboard and the OpsMgr Service Level Dashboard but also shows how to customise the look and feel as well as integrate the SLA Dash into the main SCCM Dash to provide a much more seamless approach.

My hat is well and truly tipped to you Kevin :)

How to find activities in your runbooks that have changed in the new Orchestrator

2011-07-07T07:13:00.000+01:00

Adam Hall has just posted a really useful SQL query that can be run against your existing Opalis database to help you understand what objects you currently use that are no longer available in Orchestrator.

This is a brilliant piece of information as it could save you a boat load of time before you upgrade by identifying which run books you need to tweak in advance rather than having to import each one with fingers crossed hoping it doesn't break.

The original post is here, but I've replicated the SQL code below for my own benefit so I know where it is without having to search ;)

Please bear in mind that Orchestrator is still in Beta, so by RTM there could be more objects to add to this SQL query.

Select
policies.[Name] as [Policy Name],
objects.[Name] as [Object Name]
From
[Objects] objects join
[Policies] policies
on objects.[ParentID]=policies.[UniqueID]
Where
objects.objecttype = '2081B459-88D2-464A-9F3D-27D2B7A64C5E' or
objects.objecttype = '6F0FA888-1969-4010-95BC-C0468FA6E8A0' or
objects.objecttype = '8740DB49-5EE2-4398-9AD1-21315B8D2536' or
objects.objecttype = '19253CC6-2A14-432A-B4D8-5C3F778B69B0' or
objects.objecttype = '9AB62470-8541-44BD-BC2A-5C3409C56CAA' or
objects.objecttype = '292941F8-6BA7-4EC2-9BC0-3B5F96AB9790' or
objects.objecttype = '98AF4CBD-E30E-4890-9D26-404FE24727D7' or
objects.objecttype = '2409285A-9F7E-4E04-BFB9-A617C2E5FA61' or
objects.objecttype = 'B40FDFBD-6E5F-44F0-9AA6-6469B0A35710' or
objects.objecttype = '9DAF8E78-25EB-425F-A5EF-338C2940B409' or
objects.objecttype = 'B5381CDD-8498-4603-884D-1800699462AC' or
objects.objecttype = 'FCA29108-14F3-429A-ADD4-BE24EA5E4A3E' or
objects.objecttype = '7FB85E1D-D3C5-41DA-ACF4-E1A8396A9DA7' or
objects.objecttype = '3CCE9C71-51F0-4595-927F-61D84F2F1B5D' or
objects.objecttype = '96769C11-11F5-4645-B213-9EC7A3F244DB' or
objects.objecttype = '6FED5A55-A652-455B-88E2-9992E7C97E9A' or
objects.objecttype = '9C1DF967-5A50-4C4E-9906-C331208A3801' or
objects.objecttype = 'B40FDFBD-6E5F-44F0-9AA6-6469B0A35710' or
objects.objecttype = '829A951B-AAE9-4FBF-A6FD-92FA697EEA91' or
objects.objecttype = '1728D617-ACA9-4C96-ADD1-0E0B61104A9E' or
objects.objecttype = 'F3D1E70B-D389-49AD-A002-D332604BE87A' or
objects.objecttype = '2D907D60-9C25-4A1C-B950-A31EB9C9DB5F' or
objects.objecttype = '6A083024-C7B3-474F-A53F-075CD2F2AC0F' or
objects.objecttype = '4E6481A1-6233-4C82-879F-D0A0EDCF2802' or
objects.objecttype = 'BC49578F-171B-4776-86E2-664A5377B178'

Scripted Install of System Center Orchestrator Beta and all pre-reqs

2011-07-01T08:00:00.000+01:00

There's been a few posts floating around now showing how to do a standard setup of the new System Center Orchestrator Beta (SCORCH) so I thought rather than doing yet another that it was time to do something different.

So I thought it might be a good idea to try automating the installation of SCORCH, which is rather fitting for an automation product.

So I wrote a quick powershell script that not only silently installs SCORCH, but will also setup a fresh built server with all required pre-reqs, SQL, create a service account and setup necessary rights for it.

I also thought I'd get it all on video as well!

Basically the script will go through and install/setup in this order:

.Net Framework 3.5

.Net Framework 4.0

Silverlight

Required IIS Role & Features

(Web-Common-Http,Web-Static-Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Stat-Compression)

SQL 2008 R2

Create a Local Service account called SCORCH_SA

Add it to the local admin group

Assign it logon as a service rights (using ntrights.exe from the 2003 resource kit)

The script then silently installs Orchestrator, with all components.

This is achieved using the following command:

setup.exe /Silent /ServiceUserName:$UserName /ServicePassword:$Password /Components:All /DbServer:$ComputerName /DbNameNew:Orchestrator /ScoAdmin:$ComputerName\Administrators /WebServicePort:81 /WebConsolePort:82

where you see a $ prefix that's where a variable is passed from the script to the command line, normally these would be manually typed as username, server, password etc

During the CEP kickoff meeting it was mentioned that an install of SCORCH and an import of a policy on a server with the pre-reqs installed had been done in 5 minutes, and a mini challenge laid down to see if it could be done quicker.... once the pre-reqs were installed, my script let me install and import in about 3 minutes!!

You can find the link to the powershell script here:

If you want to try this yourself then you'll need to add NTRights.exe from the 2003 reskit, .Net4.0 full framework, silverlight and the PS script to the SCORCH extracted folder and have the SQL disk in Drive D (or modify the script)

So there you have it, an easy, repeatable, automated method of setting up a quick Orchestrator test server.

Updated Hotfix list post

2011-06-18T14:18:00.002+01:00

Just a quick post that I've updated the list of hotfixes etc for the diffrent System Center Products:

http://systemscentre.blogspot.com/2010/10/system-center-hotfixes.html

Removing the time value from the date/time column in a view

2011-06-17T10:08:00.000+01:00

I've finally found time to get back onto the TechNet forums and just happened to land on this post with a brilliant answer from Aaron Croasmun:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/systemcenterservicemanager/thread/62ce2f7e-12ca-44c9-b813-0a571c8fee36

I had been meaning to find this out for myself for a while now as it's annoying seeing dd/mm/yy 00:00:00 in my views in the asset management solution I did.

<mux:Column Name="$TimeAdded$" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=$TimeAdded$}" Width="100" DisplayName="TimeAdded.View.DisplayName" Property="$TimeAdded$" DataType="s:DateTime" />

Is changed to:

<mux:Column Name="$TimeAdded$" DisplayMemberBinding="{Binding Path=$TimeAdded$, StringFormat=d}" Width="100" DisplayName="TimeAdded.View.DisplayName" Property="$TimeAdded$" DataType="s:DateTime" />

Notice the "DisplayMemberBinding" has the StringFormat=d appended

So before it looked like this:

And then ends up like this after the MP edit:

Configuration Manager 2012 - Let's start!

2011-06-17T09:50:00.000+01:00

Since I'm busy building a test lab, I thought I'd take the opportunity to blog some of the setup and findings as I go along.

I'm starting with ConfigMgr 2012 in the lab and will be building it out with SCSM, SCOM, SCVMM etc as I go along.

For an idea of what's new in SCCM 2012, take a look here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg699359.aspx

I'm not going to go into building the DC, except to say that I've created some standard service accounts for use with SCCM.

These are:
SCCMAdmin - SCCM Setup & Admin Account
SCCMNA - Network Access Account
SCCMPush - Push Install Account

Before installing in the lab environment, I used an internet connected machine to download the files that setup tries to download at run time.

In ConfigMgr 2007, these were downloaded using setup.exe /download <pathtostorefiles>

In ConfigMgr 2012, this is now a separate file called SetupDL.exe. Running this will prompt for where to store the files.

Last time I ran it (07/06/2011) it gave me a total of 192Mb in 14 files.

While you've got internet access, now would be a good time to also grab these pre-reqs:

Now that I've got these, it's time to setup the server and install SQL.

Setting up a 2008 R2 server with pre-reqs

SCCM 2012 requires the following components:

Remote Differential Compression
Internet Information Services (IIS) - 7.5 & 6 Compatability
BITS
WebDAV
Configure requestFiltering on distribution points
.NET 3.5 & 4

Use PowerShell to setup .Net 3.5:
import-module servermanager
add-windowsfeature NET-Framework

Install .Net 4.0
<Path to file>\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe /passive /norestart

The server features/roles can be easily installed via PowerShell:

add-windowsfeature FS-FileServer,Web-Static-Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Http-Redirect,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Net-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Log-Libraries,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Http-Tracing,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Filtering,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Metabase,Web-WMI,BITS-Compact-Server,BITS-IIS-Ext,RDC,RSAT-Web-Server,RSAT-Bits-Server

Reboot Server – a reboot is required before installing SQL

SQL 2008 SP1 CU10 Setup

To make things easier, I've written a quick batch file to automate the setup of SQL 2008, including SP1 and Cumulative Update 10 AND all the required SQL components (Reporting, Integration Services etc)

To make this work, extract the SP1 files to a folder called SQL_Server_2008_SP1 at the same root level as the SQL install files.

Also, extract the CU10 files to a folder called SP1_CU10 at the same level.

Store the batch file at the same root folder level, this should give you a file layout like this:

The batch file basically does the following:

Add two reg entries to stop the OS moaning that SQL 2008 isn't compatible without SP1:

reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags" /v {45da5a8b-67b5-4896-86b7-a2e838aee035} /t REG_DWORD /d 4 /f

reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags" /v {f2d3ae3a-bfcc-45e2-bf63-178d1db34294} /t REG_DWORD /d 4 /f

Run the SP1 SQL Support files:

start /wait %~dp0SP1_CU10\x64\setup\1033\sqlsupport.msi /QB

Then install SQL 2008, slipstreamed with SP1 & CU10 and all required roles:

%~dp0setup.exe /q /ACTION=Install /ERRORREPORTING=0 /FEATURES=SQL,RS,AS,IS,SSMS,ADV_SSMS,Conn /INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER /SQLSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS="BUILTIN\ADMINISTRATORS" /SQLSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /AGTSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /AGTSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /RSSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /RSSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Automatic /ASSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /ASSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Disabled /ASSYSADMINACCOUNTS="BUILTIN\ADMINISTRATORS" /ISSVCACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\System" /ISSVCSTARTUPTYPE=Disabled /PCUSource=%~dp0SQL_Server_2008_SP1 /CUSource=%~dp0SP1_CU10

N.B. I've used the %dp0 variable in the batch file so it doesn't matter where the source files or batch file is run from, as long as the batch file is run from the folder with the SQL files.

The batch file can be found here (I've renamed to txt so please rename back to .bat or .cmd)
http://cid-d130da82a6555249.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/ConfigMgr%20SQL%202008%20Setup.txt

To save the posts getting too long, I'll pop the SCCM 2012 install into a part 2 post.

System Center Orchestrator - CEP Kickoff

2011-06-16T16:34:00.003+01:00

I've just finished the CEP Kickoff meeting for System Center Orchestrator (formally Opalis) and I can't wait for the downloads of the Beta to become available tomorrow on the connect site.

Couple of useful bits of information already, the first being the requirement for SQL 2008 R2, time to get upgrading/installing as my test labs currently only use 2008 due to the requirements for ConfigMgr 2012.

The other bit of useful information is the IP's that are currently being worked on ready for release so that they're ready to go.

Nice to see more work being done on the AD 2008/R2 IP, not to sure on the FTP one though, I can't remember the last time I FTP'd something ;)

Windows 8 - First UI look

2011-06-06T18:40:00.000+01:00

Microsoft have released a small taste of Windows 8 today.

For the MS Press announcement, take a look here:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2011/jun11/06-01corporatenews.aspx

I must say the tile approach looks interesting, but I am a WP7 fan. However, this could be interesting when it comes to deploying and customising the OS.....

It would be nice for a change to get some information very early on about the manageability side of Windows 8 rather than just all UX/UI news, fingers crossed.

Scheduling SCOM Maintenance Mode - Centrally, not via a scheduled task!

2011-06-04T18:44:00.000+01:00

I've just noticed over on the Operations Manager blog that they've released the OpsMgr 2007 R2 Admin Resource Kit.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2011/06/03/system-center-operations-manager-2007-r2-admin-reskit-released.aspx

The tool that caught my eye was the Scheduled Maintenance Mode Tool, giving the ability to schedule and manage maintenance mode in the management group.

From the blog post:

The tool provides the following features:

Ability to schedule any type of object to be placed into maintenance mode in the form of a Job
Group support including nested groups
Automatically places Health Service Watcher in maintenance with computer
Blocks RMS from being placed in maintenance
Support for Run Once, daily, weekly, and monthly schedules (including complex scenarios like "second Tuesday of the month")
Ability to cancel a maintenance Job where everything will be removed from maintenance automatically
History Report

I can't wait to get this tested, the biggest points for me are:

Being able to pop servers into and out of maint mode without scripting or setting up individual tasks, i.e. Being able to control Maint Mode from a central point
Having all the data in the SCOM DB, allowing for reporting and backup/DR

Download can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=e37ab90b-ec7b-4130-8e3f-9691a76530db&displaylang=en

After taking a quick look at the included guide, it's got some errors in it :(

After you've installed the ResKit, you'll find the files in the default location of:

C:\Program Files (x86)\System Center\SystemCenter Operations Manager 2007 R2 Admin Reskit

In the "Getting Started" part of the guide, it says:

2. Import the Management Pack (ScheduleMaintenanceMode.Library.xml)

This should be...

2. Import the Management Pack (ScheduleMaintenanceMode.Library.mp)

In the "Setting up the Management Pack" part of the guide, it says:

On the RMS, copy the following files to the install path (in most cases C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007)
o EnableMmodeWriteActionModule.dll
o Interop.MOMSCRIPTAPILib.dll

This should be...

On the RMS, copy the following files to the install path (in most cases C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007)
o EnableMmodeWriteActionModule.dll
o MOMSCRIPTAPILib.dll

In the "Setting up the Console" part of the guide, it says:

From the correct platform (x64 or x86) file, unzip and copy SchedulingAlertSuppression.exe to a directory on the computer you wish to run the console on.

Double-click SchedulingAlertSuppression.exe

This should be...

Nothing to unzip, copy ScheduleMaintenanceMode.exe to a directory on the computer you wish to run the console on.

I haven't been any further in the documentation yet as I've not presently got access to an RMS, however these are minor errors in the document, just be aware that names etc may have changed between writing the guide and release.

I am however looking forward to seeing the console views and reports etc.

SCOM 2012 Beta Community Evaluation Program (CEP) now open

2011-06-02T12:50:00.000+01:00

At TechEd 2011 the Operations Manager 2012 CEP was announced.

Starting around the time of the public beta the CEP will start, providing an organized way of bringing subject matter experts (SMEs) from the product teams, the community (like MVPs and experienced users) and those interested in taking a deep look at the v.Next software for evaluation and preparation for deployment purposes.

At a guess, we can expect to see a beta around Mid-July due to the response I got when applying to the CEP:

------------------------------

Operations Manager 2012 Community Evaluation Program Application

Thank you for your interest in the Operations Manager 2012 CEP! After review of your application, Microsoft will inform you of your acceptance to the program by sending an invitation email to your Windows Live ID email account from Microsoft Connect. You will be informed by mid-July regarding status of your application.
------------------------------

Click here to Apply

For an overview of the Operations Manager 2012 CEP, take a look at the OM12 CEP overview datasheet.
http://connect.microsoft.com/site1211/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=36056

More information can be found here:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2011/06/02/now-enrolling-for-the-operations-manager-2012-cep.aspx

Hotfix for Service Manager 2010 SP1 CU1 Available

2011-06-02T08:38:00.000+01:00

A hotfix for Cumulative Update 1 for System Center Service Manager 2010 SP1 has been released.

If after installing SP1 CU1 you notice the following errors then this hotfix should resolve it.

Event ID 33333 is logged in the "Operations Manager" event log on the management server:

Log Name: Operations Manager
Source: DataAccessLayer
Event ID: 33333
Task Category: None
Level: Warning
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Description:
Data Access Layer rejected retry on SqlError:
Request: EntityChangeLogSnapshot -- (ManagedTypeId=a604b942-4c7b-2fb2-28dc-61dc6f465c68), (BeginTransactionId=68184), (EndTransactionId=68226), (RETURN_VALUE=1)
Class: 15
Number: 156
Message: Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'INNER'.

Log Name: Operations Manager
Source: DataAccessLayer
Event ID: 33333
Task Category: None
Level: Warning
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Description:
Data Access Layer rejected retry on SqlError:
Request: EntityChangeLogSnapshot -- (ManagedTypeId=a604b942-4c7b-2fb2-28dc-61dc6f465c68), (BeginTransactionId=68184), (EndTransactionId=68226), (RETURN_VALUE=1)
Class: 15
Number: 102
Message: Incorrect syntax near ','.

Note: The GUIDs and transaction IDs vary, depending on the environment. However, the text in the description is the same

You may also notice that you receive duplicated notifications or workflows that are triggered two times for the same object.

For more information, check the KB article here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2538810

Windows Phone 7 - Mango Update

2011-05-28T22:53:00.000+01:00

Yet again, going off on a tangent, but I couldn't help posting this since I'm looking at getting a new phone.

I had a WP7 phone in my previous role, but an iPhone for my new role.

Since I miss my WP7 so much I started looking around for a good deal, but the recent WP7.1 (Mango) update news snippets coming out of MIX2011 and live press conference they had on the 24th have me wondering whether to hold off buying now or wait and see if any new handset models are released this autumn along with the mango update.

Until then, these videos caught my eye.

System Center Updates Publisher 2011 Released

2011-05-27T09:36:00.000+01:00

Tuesday the 24th saw System Center Updates Publisher 2011 sneak out the stable door.

You can find the download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=083f45ca-1ede-4f7a-be74-77854c3a9b01&displaylang=en

The TechCenter is here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/bb741049.aspx

From the TechCenter:
New in System Center Updates Publisher 2011

An improved user interface that allows better control of managing software updates.
A new automatic publication type with which Updates Publisher 2011 can query Configuration Manager to determine whether the selected software update or software update bundle is published with full content or only metadata.
A new Software Update Cleanup Wizard that you can use to expire software updates that exist on the update server, but are not in the Updates Publisher 2011 repository.
The ability to create Software Update bundles
The ability to define prerequisite updates and superseded updates as part of a software update definition

ConfigMgr Hotfix - KB2509007 - Many updates causing task sequences to stop

2011-05-27T09:22:00.000+01:00

I've had this problem before, but only occasionally, so always thought it was just a hiccup at that moment in time during an OSD.

However, MS released a couple of weeks ago a hotfix to resolve this issue:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2509007

This is a client patch that you install on the site server and then edit your task sequences that have the client install step to add the following to the Installation Properties section:
PATCH="C:\_SMSTaskSequence\OSD\<Package_ID>\i386\hotfix\KB2509007\sccm2007ac-sp2-kb2509007-x86-enu.msp"

Where <Package_ID> should be replaced with the ID of your SCCM client install package.

One thing to note is the client version is increased to 4.00.6487.2188, so any reports/queries/health scripts you have that reference the client version should be updated to reflect this hotfix.

User State Virtualisation (a.k.a. Folder Redirection & Roaming Profiles)

2011-05-25T11:28:00.000+01:00

While researching into User State Virtualisation to gain a better understanding into how Folder Redirection & Roaming Profiles, specifically under Windows 7, can help deliver a much more dynamic desktop I came across the following resources:

Best Practice Guide for USV:
http://www.grouppolicy.biz/2010/08/best-practice-roaming-profiles-and-folder-redirection-a-k-a-user-virtualization/

This brilliant blog post picks apart all the different terminology and processes, as well as giving some implementation examples, video overviews and the recomendations towards best practice.

Reduce logon times by removing bloat:
http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/virtualisation/reduce-logon-times-by-excluding-the-bloat/

This post points you in the right direction for excluding data from roaming profiles that otherwise would be needlessly sync'd to the servers, causing profile bloat.

Make Office 2010 User Customisations Roam:
http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/applications/roaming-local-settings-in-office-2010/

Again, another useful blog post from Aaron Parker that reminds admins that the Office 2010 GPO setting for "Allow roaming of all user customizations" needs enabling to ensure the customisations are stored in the roaming profile rather than the Local AppData folder.

Script to make desktop gadgets "roam":
https://windowsmasher.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/windows-sidebar-gadgets-and-roaming-profiles/

Files and Settings Guide for Outlook:
http://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/filesandsettings.htm

Ever wondered where a file or setting for Outlook is stored and whether it can be made to roam or migrated? Chances are it's listed here.

Video Series on User State Virtualistion

Part 1 Gives an overview about how Roaming Profiles and Folder Redirection gives you User State Virtualisation.

Part 2 Shows an example of how Roaming Profiles can be used to give your users a better experience.

Part 3 Goes though an example that explains how Folder Redirection can help your roaming user access their files from various desktops and laptops.

SCCM Clients failing to install windows updates

2011-05-24T22:46:00.000+01:00

Quick nod in Wayne's direction for this one:
http://ixrv.blogspot.com/2011/05/sccm-failing-to-install-windows-updates.html

Problem:
Windows updates not deploying to SCCM Clients

Cause:
Proxy value set in registry here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Connections\WinHttpSettings
Resolution:
Deleted the value WinHttpSettings

More information on the WinHttpSettings registry setting and how the Windows Update client determines which proxy server to use to connect to the Windows Update Web site:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/900935

Updated RSAT tools for Windows 7 SP1

2011-05-23T20:01:00.002+01:00

Not exactly System Center related, but worth knowing as undoubtedly anyone administering System Center products will also have the Remote Server Administration Tools installed
Also I hadn't noticed they had been updated to reflect the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 release.

Download Here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=7d2f6ad7-656b-4313-a005-4e344e43997d

Description of Available Tools:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958830/en-gb

From the download site:

**Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 with SP1 can be installed ONLY on computers that are running the Enterprise, Professional, or Ultimate editions of Windows 7 or Windows 7 with SP1.**
Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 with SP1 enables IT administrators to manage roles and features that are installed on remote computers that are running Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 (and, for some roles and features, Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2003) from a remote computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows 7 with SP1. It includes support for remote management of computers that are running either the Server Core or full installation options of Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2, and for some roles and features, Windows Server 2008. Some roles and features on Windows Server 2003 can be managed remotely by using Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows 7 with SP1, although the Server Core installation option is not available with the Windows Server 2003 operating system.

This feature is comparable in functionality to the Windows Server 2003 Administrative Tools Pack and Remote Server Administration Tools for Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1).

Service Manager 2010 SP1 - Cumulative Update 2 (CU2)

2011-05-23T10:47:00.000+01:00

I've been away for a few days and I've just come back to find that CU2 has been released!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2542118

You must already have Service Pack 1 installed, but you can upgrade either direct from SP1 or from CU1 if you already have that installed.

Main points of update/improvement are:

Included in this update are fixes for the following issues:

Exception when you move between views in the UI
Console stability fix while you switch between views
Knowledge search performance improvements
Console performance improvements
Improvements to grooming
A fix to the notifications infrastructure
Added ability to see affected incidents in portal
Active Directory Connector improvements

SCCM 2007 Asset Intelligence - Certificate Update

2011-05-18T00:09:00.000+01:00

If you've noticed in the last few days that your Asset Intelligence in ConfigMgr has stopped working, with the error "Connection failed -bad certificate" in the console, it's in all likeliness because the certificate has expired.

You could also check Aiupdatesvc.log for the following messages:
Asset Intelligence Catalog Sync Service Warning: 0 :<Log Date>:WebException trying to enroll: Status = ProtocolError
Asset Intelligence Catalog Sync Service Error: 0 :<Log Date>:Exception attempting sync - The request failed with HTTP status 403: Forbidden.

The default certificate in SP1 and SP2 had an expiration date of 25th April 2011.

It's now the 18th May and MS just released yesterday a hotfix to replace the certificate and get you back up and running.

If you're on SP2 then visit this link to grab the hotfix:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2483225/en-us

If you're on SP1, either follow the instructions here or get on with upgrading to SP2 ;)

SCOM Distributed App Health Dashboard

2011-05-11T15:49:00.001+01:00

Since I've been doing a bit of work recently on System Center Dashboards I thought I'd quickly post this snippet that I've just done.

SELECT distinct BaseManagedEntity.DisplayName, case State.HealthState when 1 then 'Healthy' when 2 then 'Warning' when 3 then 'Critical' when 4 then 'Not Monitored' else 'Unknown' end as Status
FROM State INNER JOIN
BaseManagedEntity ON State.BaseManagedEntityId = BaseManagedEntity.BaseManagedEntityId
where (BaseManagedEntity.FullName like 'Service_%'
or BaseManagedEntity.DisplayName = 'Active Directory Topology Root'
or BaseManagedEntity.DisplayName = 'Certificate Services'
or BaseManagedEntity.DisplayName = 'ConfigMgr 2007 Site Hierarchy'
or BaseManagedEntity.DisplayName = 'Operations Manager Management Group')
and BaseManagedEntity.Name is NULL
or (BaseManagedEntity.DisplayName = 'Exchange Service' and State.HealthState <> '0')

This gives a result that looks like this:

If you take out the case statement so it returns 1,2 & 3's instead of Healthy, Warning & Critical then this SQL snippet can be used to create a RAG scorecard in the System Center Dashboard that produces a result like this:

Also (for my reference) Kevin Holman has a ton of useful SCOM SQL queries:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2007/10/18/useful-operations-manager-2007-sql-queries.aspx

Reporting runbook sucess/failure in Opalis using Service Manager 2010

2011-05-11T13:03:00.001+01:00

I attended the Best of MMS 2011 UK event the other week along with Rob and after the sessions got chatting to Sean Christensen about Opalis, Orchestrator (SCO) and reporting.

While SCO will be offering data feeds from the web service, from what I can tell (it's early days yet) there's no plans for a specific customised reporting module.

Chatting to Sean about this, his fresh pair of eyes suggested maybe taking the data out to another system for reporting, which led onto talking about extending Service Manager to hold the information and using the SCSM dashboards to display this back in "Management" format.

I'll not go into depth here on how we did this, I'll leave that for Rob to post about as he did the design work while I sat back and watched ;)

But briefly:

We created a new MP in SCSM to hold a new class with a couple of properties.
Created a new runbook in Opalis and used the SCSM IP to query & write to the new class, this can then be triggered by a policy to record it's success or failure
Created a SQL query to read the new class from the DW and added it along with a graph as a sharepoint webpart
Added a new dashboard view to the SCSM Dashboard MP to display the dashboard

Like I mentioned, Rob should post a more detailed post about how it's all hung together, but this is the end result:

(This is from our test environment, hence not much data)

Importing data into Service Manager 2010 using CSV imports

2011-05-09T10:58:00.000+01:00

A question was asked by Peter the other day on the TechNet Gallery regarding importing data into the Asset Management Solution that I uploaded.
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Asset-Management-d06aff1f/view/Discussions

It’s very easy to do, and hopefully this post will explain how for those that don’t know.

Imports can be performed using the “Import from CSV file…” task found in the console under Administration>Connectors.

To be able to import you need two files.

a) An XML file that defines the columns in the CSV and the related class & properties

b) A CSV file containing the data you want to import

For this example I’ll use the Network Infrastructure class as that was the one Peter asked about, but same procedure applies to any Service Manager class.

Let’s start with the CSV.

The Network Infrastructure class is built from inheriting the Asset Management Base class with the Network Infrastructure properties added on top:

Asset Management Base Class

Property ID	Type	Key	List Used
EquipmentType	enum	True	AssetManagementEquipmentTypes.Enum
Manufacturer	enum	False	AssetManagementManufacturerAndModel.Enum
Model	enum	False	AssetManagementManufacturerAndModel.Enum
SerialNumber	String	False
EquipmentCost	Decimal	False
OrderNumber	String	False
Supplier	enum	False	AssetManagementSuppliers.Enum
SupplierReferenceNumber	String	False
GoodsReceivedDate	datetime	False
WarrantyExpirationDate	datetime	False
InstallDeliveryDate	datetime	False
Department	enum	False	AssetManagementOrganisationalList.Enum
Directorate	enum	False	AssetManagementOrganisationalList.Enum
Section	String	False
Location	enum	False	AssetManagementLocations.Enum
ServiceDeskRef	string	False

Network Infrastructure Class

Property ID	Type	Key	List Used
AssetTag	Int	True
MaintenanceContractReferenceNumber	String	False
MaintenanceExpiryDate	Datetime	False

In this example I’m going to import some data for:

Equipment Type (This is a Key so MUST have data in the CSV)
Asset Tag (This is a Key so MUST have data in the CSV)
Manufacturer
Model
Serial Number
Supplier
Maintenance Contract Reference Number
Maintenance Expiry Date

You could build the CSV file using the friendly display names of the equipment, but I prefer to use the enum values as this cuts down on the amount of false errors shown during import.

To get the enums, either open the xml of the management pack and search for them, or use the brilliant little tool ListGuids.exe by Rob Ford.http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Tool-to-list-Guids-of-e33ca89b

N.B. If you’re adding your own equipment types, manufactures, models etc, these must all be added, BEFORE you attempt to import.

For Equipment Type I’ll be using AssetManagementEquipmentTypes.NetworkInfrastructure.Switch.Enum as the six items are all switches.
For Manufacturer I’ll be using AssetManagementManufacturerAndModel.Cisco.Enum as the six items are made by Cisco.

For Model I’ll be using AssetManagementManufacturerAndModel.Cisco.Switch.WSC355048PSS.Enum and AssetManagementManufacturerAndModel.Cisco.Switch.WSC356024PSS.Enum as the six items are a mixture.

Serial Numbers are unique.

Supplier is using AssetManagementSuppliers.ComputaCentre.Enum

Maintenance Contract Reference Number and Maintenance Expiry Date are unique/random for the devices.

So, for this example the CSV would look something like this:

Next the XML file needs creating to define the columns used and the classes/properties being referenced.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<CSVImportFormat>
      <Class Type="NetworkInfrastructureAsset">
                <Property ID="EquipmentType" />
                <Property ID="AssetTag"/>
                <Property ID="Manufacturer" />
                <Property ID="Model" />
                <Property ID="SerialNumber"/>
                <Property ID="Supplier" />
                <Property ID="MaintenanceContractReferenceNumber" />
                <Property ID="MaintenanceExpiryDate" />
      </Class>
</CSVImportFormat>

The Class Type defines the class within Service Manager to target the import at, in this example the “Network Infrastructure Asset” class.
The Property ID’s then define what each of the columns in the CSV represent.

And it’s as simple as that!

Finally to import the data, click the “Import from CSV file…” task from connectors, and use the browse buttons to select the XML file and Data (CSV) file.

Hopefully, it should import them all just fine.

As I’ve already said, this can be used for any class/property, both OOB and extended.

You can also import things like asset custodians and other relationships by modifying the XML to include SEED properties, but I’ll save that for another post.

I've uploaded the CSV and XML to my skydrive for you to download and play with.

http://cid-d130da82a6555249.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/NetworkInfrastructureAssetImport.zip

A list of classes and properties for the Asset Management solution can be found in the documentation included in the Asset Management zip file.

Adding a custom image to a folder or view in Service Manager 2010

2011-04-14T18:45:00.000+01:00

JR52MAR posted a comment earlier on my post about my Asset Management MP asking how I added the custom graphics for the views and folders.

I'll show you here how to add them for the folders and use the Mobile Assets as an example, but the views are the same principal.

Grab an image you want to use and get it sized appropriately, I used a 16 x 16 pixel image, called it mobilephone16x16.png and saved it in the same dir as the MP I was creating.
Add this XML at the bottom of your MP to reference the file:
<Resources>
<Image ID="Image.MobilePhoneFolder.16x16" Accessibility="Public" FileName="mobilephone16x16.png" HasNullStream="false"/>
</Resources>
Add this XML to the Categories section (after TypeDefinitions and before Presentation):
<Categories>
<Category ID="Category.MobilePhoneFolderImage16x16" Target="Image.MobilePhoneFolder.16x16" Value="System!System.Internal.ManagementPack.Images.u16x16Icon"/>
</Categories>
Add this XML to the ImageReferences section (before StringResources):
<ImageReferences>
<ImageReference ElementID="Folder.Mobiles" ImageID="Image.MobilePhoneFolder.16x16"/>
</ImageReferences>
Use the new-mpbfile.ps1 powershell script to bundle the MP and images together into a MPB file.

So...
Step 1 is find and save you picture in the right size/format
Step 2 is add the section that tells the MP where to find the graphic
Step 3 tells the MP what size and usage etc the image is
Step 4 tells the MP to link the image to the folder (this is where you could point the image at a view instead)
Step 5 bundles the images and MP together into a MPB for importing

Asset Management Solution/Extensions for Service Manager 2010 SP1

2011-04-14T14:33:00.000+01:00

I've updated the Asset Management solution that I've previously blogged about (including some work arounds for the previous problem mentioned about decimal values).

I've uploaded it this time to the Technet Gallery Beta so the files can be found here:
http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Asset-Management-d06aff1f

Asset Items Covered:

Peripherals (Scanners, Digital Cameras, Camcorders, Monitors, Fax Machines etc)
Remote Access Tokens (RAS SecurID etc)
Cisco IPT Phone Hardware
Mobile Phones (Made up of 2 Assets: Handset & Phone Number)
Network Infrastructure (Switches, ASA's etc)
Server Infrastructure (Fibre Switches, UPS, SAN DAE's, Tape Drives etc)
Printers
Computers (Extended views from OOB and additional class extensions)
Users & Groups (Extended views from OOB

I've included both the sealed MP's in a "Ready to Import" folder than can be imported straight away into Service Manager for testing and the unsealed xml so that you can see how it's all strung together.

Please read the documentation included in the zip file, before blindly importing.

It's been designed around UK Local Government, so won't fit every environment out-of-the-box but should be very easy to adapt.

If you are adapting it, please remember that if the original MP is sealed, then your customised version will need re-sealing. If you do this, you'll also need to re-alter all the public keys used in the references in the other MPs. Short and sweet... reseal ALL the MP's using your own key if you modify it.

If anyone does have any comments, suggestions, etc etc then please please please feed them back to me. The more people that look at it the more likely someone is to spot something I missed/did wrong.

Also, if you do extend it further, please let me know as it could be useful within my environment too.

There's a known issues section at the end of the documentation file in the package, please read that section and see if there's anything you can help with. I'll be enternally greatfull if there is!

** Disclaimers **
This is a slightly modified first release, first seen on my blog, and may very likely still have some issues.
Please test this in a non-live environment first, and don't shout at me if it breaks anything.
This comes with no warranty, expressed or implied.

Renaming files using PowerShell and a CSV

2011-04-14T09:31:00.000+01:00

During a migration of users from an outside organisation into ours, we had to bring across all their exchange data using exmerge.

The problem was, all their exported PST's were named incorrectly.

So, a quick CSV was knocked up with two columns.
Column 1 = Path and current file name
Column 2 = New file name

Add a header at the top of the CSV to give something like this:

Path,NewAlias
F:\Export\fredb.pst,fred.bloggs.pst
F:\Export\DSaster.pst,derdrie.saster.pst

Then use the following PowerShell line:
import-csv c:\PSTImport.csv | foreach {rename-item -path $_.path -newname $_.newalias}
Job done, one nicely renamed folder of PST files ready to exmerge (shame we're still on Exchange 2003!)