Veeam is launching the World’s Premiere Data Protection Conference with the chance to dive deep into valuable data protection techniques and solutions. There’s no better place and time to connect with the Veeam community, meet friends, establish new relationships and build buzz!
It will be hosted at the The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas October 6th – 9th.
More info at http://go.veeam.com/veeamon
A few people have asked me if it is possible to install the SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler on a server other then a Management Server. The answer is yes. The reason in the documentation I specify to install it on a Management Server is to make the install super simple.
So lets get started. I am using a vanilla server running Server 2008 R2 SP1.
1.) I download and install .Net 4.5.1 from here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40779
2.) I install the SCOM Operations Console.
3.) Next I Install and configure IIS using the same process as the SCOM Web Console. I recommend using powershell
Here is a link to make the process easy
https://www.scom2k7.com/installing-the-scom-2012-web-console-prerequisites-the-easy-way/
4.) Make the SCOMSDK account a member of the local administrators group and restart the server.
5.) Download and run the SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler https://www.scom2k7.com/downloads/SCOM2012MMSchedulerV8.zip
6.) Double click on Maintenance Mode 2012 Config on the desktop 
7.) You will get an error. “Cannot access registry. Please run-as administrator“
8.) You can safely ignore this error. Click OK (Because this is not a Management Server it will not have some of the registry keys to auto populate the configuration tool.)
9.) You will be presented with a screen with a bunch of blank fields. You will have to fill out all the fields manually.
NOTICE THAT THE MANAGEMENT SERVER WILL BE WRONG. Make sure you delete this and fill in the name of a real Management Server
If you are using an instance under Operations Manager DB Server put in the serverName\Instance
Before
After
Click OK. Then Click Start
If you get an Error: ***Error**** Requested registry access is not allowed.
This is because you need to make the scomsdk account a local admin on this server or you need to restart the server. Add the user to the local administrators group and restart the server.
SCOM 2012 Maintenance mode scheduler by default is installed as a website with anonymous access. You can easily secure and control access to the website by following these steps.
1.) Launch Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager from the Start Menu
2.) In IIS Manager Expand your ServerName, Sites, Default Website and select MMWeb.3.
3.) Click on the MMweb Site and double click Authentication
4.) Right click on Anonymous Authentication and change it to Disabled.
5.) Right click on Windows Authentication and change it to Enabled.
6.) Under ASP.Net, Click .Net Authorization Rules
7.) Under the Actions Pane click Add Allow Rule
8.) Add the groups you want to have access. Make sure you grant yourself access as well.
9.) Add additional Allow rules for groups or Users.
10.) Lastly add a deny rule for all users. I should look like this.
6.) Performs a restart of IIS. Click on the ServerName and in the Actions Pane select Restart
17.) Test access to the MM Scheduler Website for a user in the group and one not in the group.
The user not in the group should get a prompt like this.
SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler is an all new web based maintenance mode scheduler built from the ground up for SCOM 2012, SP1, and R2.
You can read more about it in my original post here. Link
Download free trial Buy now
Any problems, bugs, issues or to request an additional 30 day trial please e-mail: timothymcfadden@scom2k7.com.com
Veeam has released a nice set of set of Free Visio Stencils for drawing diagrams of Virtual Environments.
You can download the stencils here.
http://www.veeam.com/vmware-esx-stencils.html
3D Stencils
2D Stencils
Mike Resseler, has put together an excellent white paper on how to do Virtualization capacity management with the Veeam MP and SCOM 2012.
Download Here: Link
Veeam 6.5 MP: Link
Here are some of the highlights
With Veeam MP, you will be able to solve some key challenges, including:
Version 6 of Veeam Management Pack adds a huge amount of capacity
planning for VMware out-of-the box. These capabilities are built around
three concepts:
Capacity reporting is what most people know and do when they talk about
capacity reporting; namely, the current capacity on your hosts, how many
resources you are using today and the prediction for the near future.
Many new and enhanced reports are built into Veeam MP and will provide
you with the detailed information needed to do capacity planning. These
reports use the “what-if” modeling concept so you can safely manage the
growth of your infrastructure.
I needed to setup monitoring of a CentOS Linux server in SCOM 2012 R2.
Kevin Holman has a full write up on how to install Unix/Linux Agents on SCOM 2012 here: Link
I am going to focus specifically on my experience with CentOS using the New Universal Linux Agents and Management Packs.
First I did a discovery using the IP address.
It fails telling me that my Linux server is not in DNS.
I ping the server to verify it exists in DNS.
I do a reverse lookup on the IP Address using NSLookup and it’s not found.
To fix this I go to Active Directory DNS and add the Pointer to the Reverse Lookup Zone.
I do another NSLookup and its now working.
Now I try to discover the Linux Server in SCOM and get an error of Unsupported OS.
I look in the catalog and these are specifically for SCOM 2007 R2 and will not work with SCOM 2012.
I need the new Universal Unix / Linux Management Packs as CentOS doesn’t have its own MPs.
For SCOM 2012 RTM and SP1 I browse out to the web. http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29696
For SCOM 2012 R2 I go to the Installation media d:\Management Packs.
With the new Universal MPs installed the discovery process works.
But I click manage and the Agent Fails 
The details say
Agent deployment operation was not successful
Failed to copy kit. Exit code: -1073479144
Standard Output:
Standard Error:
Exception Message: An exception (-1073479144) caused the SSH command to fail –
I check the Wiki for this error http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4966.troubleshooting-unixlinux-agent-discovery-in-system-center-2012-operations-manager.aspx
I couldn’t find a solution so I browse out to C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Operations Manager\Server\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\DownloadedKits on the Management Server and use WinSCP to copy the file over to the /tmp directory on the CentOS server and install it manually using this command
rpm -ihv scx-1.5.0-128.universalr.1.x64.rpm
The manual install works ok but throws a security warning. This is just a test server so I am going to ignore it. I go back to SCOM and try to discover it. I get a new message that it needs to Sign certificate and manage computer instance. Sounds good to me.
I click Ok and the Wizard completes.
I open the SCOM Console Linux Server State view and the server shows up Healthy.
Random
VISIO
Kevin Holman Key Blog Articles
Backup and Recovery
Powershell
Powershell script examples;
http://blogs.technet.com/brianwren/archive/2008/03/11/mms-command-shell-presentation.aspx
Adding Powershell Snap-in
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/scshell/archive/2007/01/03/have-your-powershell-and-our-cmdlets-too.aspx
Windows PowerShell in System Center Operations Manager
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.08.scom.aspx
System Center Operations Manager 2007: Powershell Scripts
http://wiki.slothx.net/index.php?title=System_Center_Operations_Manager_2007:_Powershell_Scripts
Powershell basics:
http://blogs.msdn.com/scshell/
http://blogs.msdn.com/scshell/archive/2006/09/28/getting-started.aspx
Powershell script examples;
http://blogs.technet.com/brianwren/archive/2008/03/11/mms-command-shell-presentation.aspx
Proxy Settings (Agent)
Each Management Pack guide states if the agent proxying setting is a requirement, so it is best practice to check for this, prior to importing a management pack.
The following management packs (and additional ones not listed here) require the respective servers to have the agent proxying setting enabled:
– Physical nodes of clusters
– Domain Controllers
– Exchange Servers
– SQL Servers
– BizTalk Servers
– DNS Servers
The agent proxying tool can be extremely useful for enabling the proxying setting on multiple agents:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/boris_yanushpolsky/archive/2007/08/02/enabling-proxying-for-agents.aspx
Queue Size
The default size of the Queue on agents is 15360kb (15MB) and the default size of the Q on an MS is 102400KB (100MB)
The size of the queue (in kb) can be configured at this registry key on both agents and management servers:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HealthService\Parameters\Management Groups\[MGname]\MaximumQueueSizeKb
Renaming Default Management Pack to ‘DO NOT USE – Default Management Pack’
A golden rule of Operations Manager is not to store anything in the Default Management Pack. When creating overrides or new rules and monitors, the default management pack appears as the first option.
Therefore it is a recommended good practice to change the display name of ‘Default Management Pack’ to ‘DO NOT USE – Default Management Pack’ which adds an extra safeguard, making it less likely for users to store elements in the default management pack.
Reporting Overview
Steps for running reports can be found in the 101 document I created – http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2010/09/02/operations-manager-101-download.aspx
Run as accounts and Run as profiles
A Run as Account is a set of credentials (username and password) that is stored in Operations Manager and distributed to agents for use.
A Run as Profile is a collection of Monitoring – for instance AD Replication Monitoring.
A Run as profile can be associated with a run as profile, so that all the monitoring that is part of that profile, runs under the associated run as account.
By default, local system (default agent action account) is used for all local monitoring on an agent, unless any of that monitoring is part of a run as profile that has a run as account specified.
If monitoring that is part of a run as profile is actively running on an agent, and no run as account has been specified, the default action account (local system by default) is reverted to for use.
The steps for managing Run as accounts and profiles are as follows:
1) Create a run as Account by specifying the credentials.
2) Distribute the run as accounts to agents that will be using it. (In the Runs As account, use the ‘Distribution’ tab)
3) Associate the appropriate run As Profile with the newly specified run as account.
SCCM Dashboard for Operations Manager:
SCOM Tricks
http://www.bictt.com/blogs/bictt.php
Security Auditing Events
The following links list Security Event Details for Events that occur when a given Security Scenario occurs. This is useful for creating Security auditing style event-collection or alert-generating rules (or both):
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc737542(WS.10).aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd772663(WS.10).aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd772693(WS.10).aspx
Server Overview Report
http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2009/09/25/some-sample-reports.aspx
This is a report that I see many customer’s getting a lot of use out of. Just download the samplereportslibrary.xml and import it like a normal management pack. Once the Sample Reports folder comes up and you see Server overview report, run it against the Agent Managed Computer Group, and change the ‘From’ parameter from ‘Today’ to ‘Yesterday’.
Subscriptions
It is important to note the difference between ‘Alerts’ and ‘Notifications’. Alerts are seen in the console. Notifications are items such as emails that users receive outside of the Operations console. Notifications are created based upon the configured subscriptions that map alerts to notifications. Very granular subscriptions can be created using the ‘Created by Specific Rules or Monitors’ options. These subscriptions can be created or added to, using the ‘Create’ and ‘Modify’ Subscription tasks that are available on the Actions Pane in the right-hand side of the console, when clicking on any alert in the monitoring space.
There is also an advantage of creating a ‘catch-all’ subscription (criteria = all alerts) and having those notifications go to a mailbox for that specific purpose (service account mailbox for example) . And then the mailbox can be reviewed for identifying alerts that are good candidates to add to the more important granular subscriptions with wider audiences.
Subscription Channel Format
The subject format can be modified by moving $Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionStateName$ to the front of the subject line and getting rid of the words ‘Resolution State’ like so:
With this change, notification emails will appear as New Alert: Alert Name or Closed Alert: Alert Name.
A great list of available variables is available here:
Support for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 that runs on a SQL Server 2008 R2 database
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2425714
Synthetic Transactions
A Synthetic Transaction is monitoring from the client perspective. For example, web sites are monitored using the IIS Management Pack and although a website shows as healthy from the IIS perspective, a client may not be able to get to it, due to a network issue. This is where synthetic transactions can be used. As part of creating Synthetic transaction monitors, it is possible to specify one or more watcher nodes, which is where the synthetic transaction is ran from.
Wizards are provided (Authoring>Management Pack templates) for creating Synthetic transaction monitors for
Targeting Best Practices
In Operations Manager, we should not use groups for the purposes of targeting. Instead, we should always target rules and monitors at a singular object. For instance ‘All Windows Computers’ (which is a group) is not a valid target to use when creating a rule or monitor that you wish to become active on all Windows Computers. However the singular object ‘Windows Computer’ is an appropriate object that could be used in this scenario. The best-practice poster for targeting can be found here:
Troubleshooting gray agent states in System Center Operations Manager 2007 and System Center Essentials
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2288515
Troubleshooting ‘Script or Executable Failed’ Alerts or ‘WMI Probe Execution Failed’ Alerts
These alerts occur as a result of a script or executable in a different workflow (rule, monitor or object discovery) failing.
It can be difficult to ascertain from this alert which rule, monitor or discovery’s script or executable caused the alert.
In order to find this out, take the workflow name from the alert details. For instance:
Workflow name: Microsoft.SQLServer.2005.ReportingServicesDiscoveryRule.Server
Then Open SQL Management Studio and click the connect button.
Hit the “New Query” button at the top left then just underneath that, change the dropdown where it says “master” to “OperationsManager”.
Then in the query window on the right hand side (where you should see a flashing cursor) type:
select * from localizedtext where elementname like ‘%workflowname%’
In the example provided, use:
select * from localizedtext where elementname like ‘%2005.reportingservicesdiscoveryrule.server%’
(note the % is a wildcard for any characters before or after the string. Also note the localized text table is just a place where we store display names that you see in the console.)
Then click the !Execute button or press F5 to execute the query.
In most cases, this returns 2 results.
One is the workflow name and one is the workflow’s description.
Scroll across to view the LTValue which will contain the ‘friendly name’ of the discovery name and description.
Once we have the LTValue for the discovery / rule / monitor name, we need to search for it in the console.
In the ops manager console, go to authoring>Management Pack Objects>Object Discoveries. (note – it can be a trial and error process to discover whether the workflow is a monitor, rule or an object discovery – in this case it is an object discovery. If it is a monitor or rule, you will need to click monitors or rules and search in those nodes)
Make sure the view is not scoped and in the look for box, type the friendly name of the rule, monitor or discovery and hit search.
The monitoring object will be returned and can be overridden to increase the timeout.
After overriding it, resolve the alert and then see if it reoccurs.
If there is still a problem after increasing the timeout, it may be necessary to investigate other reasons why that particular workflow may be failing, but knowing which monitor, rule or discovery is the root cause helps in this troubleshooting process.
Unix / Linux Agent Deployment
High-Level Steps for Deployment:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd788943.aspx
Manual Installation required on Unix Server
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd789016.aspx
Manually Sign and deploy Certificate, then Discover Server in Operations Manager
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd788989.aspx
If you don’t have SSH enabled, you will need to manually sign the certificates (used for communication) and also manually install the agents as per the steps in the links above.
Unix Privileged Account vs. Unix Action Account and root-level access context
User Roles
User roles can be used to control security for operators, authors and administrators.
There are three levels of operator:
Consider creating additional User Roles to further open up the specific areas of the console, to those who need it.
Which hotfixes should I apply
http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2009/01/27/which-hotfixes-should-i-apply.aspx
Technet homepage:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/om/default.aspx
Product documentation
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/om/bb498235.aspx
Security Guide (includes how to change account passwords)
Supported Configurations
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb309428.aspx
Hotfixes – Which hotfixes should I apply
http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2009/01/27/which-hotfixes-should-i-apply.aspx
Admin Resource Kit
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=e37ab90b-ec7b-4130-8e3f-9691a76530db
Authoring Resource Kit
CU4 Service Restart issue:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;2526113
SCCM Dashboard – Using for Operations Manager:
Powershell Cheat sheet
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powershell/archive/2007/01/24/powershell-cheat-sheet.aspx
Regular Expressions
http://www.zytrax.com/tech/web/regex.htm#experiment
Unseal a Management Pack:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/boris_yanushpolsky/archive/2007/08/16/unsealing-a-management-pack.aspx
Introducing the Next Version of Operations Manager (GREAT VIDEO TO WATCH TO SEE WHAT’S COMING J)
http://www.msteched.com/2010/Europe/MGT205
Visio Stencils for Operations Manager 2007 R2
http://myitforum.com/cs2/files/folders/utilities/entry112734.aspx
R2 sizing guide
DW Retention and grooming:
DW retention tool
Useful Queries
Boris Yanushpolsy’s blog (wrote effective config viewer, Mp viewer and Override Explorer, and the Proxy UI tool)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/boris_yanushpolsky/
System Center Marketplace (New MP Catalog):
http://systemcenter.pinpoint.microsoft.com/en-US/Default.aspx
Publishing Reports to SharePoint
http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2008/02/29/publish-reports-to-sharepoint.aspx
MOF Reliability Workbook for System Center Operations Manager:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=181535
Webcasts
Microsoft Download Notifications (New MPs / Updates):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/DownloadNotifications.aspx
Webcasts and Virtual Labs:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/om/bb499676.aspx
Override Explorer (was used in more prominently in the previous SP1 version, which did not have the ‘overrides’ node available in the authoring Space):
http://blogs.msdn.com/boris_yanushpolsky/archive/2007/08/09/override-explorer-v3-3.aspx
Logfile Monitoring
Adding Custom Information to alerts and Notifications:
Some great resources on R2 and the new features available on the right hand side of this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/operationsmanager/en/us/default.aspx
(There is also a great video there that walks through the new features of R2.)
ACS for Cross Platform Agents
Estimating Database Sizes
http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!171.entry
Grooming settings
http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!176.entry?sa=875476383
Operations Manager Product Team Blog:
http://blogs.technet.com/momteam
Recovery Task to Restart a service:
http://bradstechblog.com/scom/how-to-create-a-recovery-task-in-scom-on-a-windows-service
System Center Operations Manager Blog Search:
http://search.live.com/macros/microsoft_user_assistance/sc_operations_manager_blogs
Group membership:
http://www.systemcenterforum.org/list-ops-mgr-group-membership-using-powershell
Management Group Configuration tool:
How Microsoft Does IT (includes MOM 2005 and Ops Mgr documents):
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb687791(TechNet.10).aspx
(from http://www.microsoft.com/itshowcase)
Certificates for Windows 2008 and Ops Mgr:
http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2008/06/02/obtaining-certificates-for-ops-mgr.aspx
Last contact time Style reports:
What Thresholds Monitors Have
DB IOPS Performance
DW Backup and Grooming:
http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid68_gci1316214,00.html
Creating tasks:
http://www.systemcenterforum.org/wp-content/uploads/PowershellTasks_v1.0.pdf
Planning and designing the infrastructure:
Operations Manager Training Videos:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/opsmgr/bb498237.aspx
Operations Manager Reporting Guide:
Cross Platform Extensions
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/opsmgr/cc677004.aspx
Clustering Support
Troubleshooting gray agent states in System Center Operations Manager 2007 and System Center Essentials
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2288515
Useful Queries
ESX Monitoring (SNMP Network Devices)
https://www.scom2k7.com/downloads/Monitoring%20ESX%20on%20SCOM%202007%20v2.2.pdf
ESX MP (from VEEAM)
http://www.veeam.com/vmware-microsoft-esx-monitoring.html
Manually Installing Agents from the Command Line:
Download: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30169
Feature Summary
The RTM Management Packs to support Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM have been released.
Download: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9296&WT.mc_id=rss_alldownloads_all
The October 2013 update (version 6.0.7061.0) of the Windows Server Operating System Management Pack included the following changes:
Changes in Version 6.0.7043.0
The June 2013 update (version 6.0.7043.0) of the Windows Server Operating System Beta Management Pack included the following changes: