SCOM Maintenance Mode Scheduler

SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler User Guide

Computer Maintenance Mode

In this scenario a SQL Admin will be performing maintenance on a SQL server at 2:00am on Sunday. During maintenance, services might be stopped or the server might be rebooted. The admin opens Maintenance Mode Scheduler and schedules a maintenance window for this time frame so that alerts for the SQL server don’t get sent to himself or other IT support staff.

1.) Open the Maintenance Mode Scheduler Website in Internet Explorer. http://yourMSserver/MMWeb

2.) Pick the Computer to Schedule for Maintenance Mode.

3.) Under Start Time; Pick the time and date for Maintenance Mode on the computer to Start.

4.) Under End Time; Pick the time and date for Maintenance Mode on the computer to finish.

5.) Under Frequency choose how often Maintenance Mode should run.

a. Once – Run just once.

b. Daily – Run every day at the Start Time selected.

c. Weekly – Run every week on the day/time selected for Start Time.

6.) Under Category choose the category (Planned or Unplanned) to specify the maintenance mode.

7.) Under Comment: Type in an Optional Comment.

8.) Verify the job has been created on the SCOM server by going to Task Scheduler

9.) Test by right clicking on the job and selecting Run.

10.) Look in the console and verify that the server has went into maintenance mode

11.) Right click on the server click Maintenance Mode and Select Stop Maintenance mode.

12.) Scheduled Maintenance Mode will now run at the specified time on the correct server.

Group Maintenance Mode

In this example, a Network Admin needs to perform maintenance on a network segment of Exchange Servers. The Maintenance will be performed on Sunday at 2:00am and the network will be down. To do this, open the Maintenance Mode Scheduler and schedule a maintenance window for the Exchange Servers Group. With the maintenance window scheduled, alerts won’t be sent to the Exchange Admin or other IT support staff.

1.) Open the Maintenance Mode Scheduler Website in Internet Explorer. http://yourMSserver/MMWeb/Group.aspx

2.) Pick the Group to Schedule for Maintenance Mode.

3.) Under Start Time; Pick the time and date for Maintenance Mode on the group to Start.

4.) Under End Time; Pick the time and date for Maintenance Mode on the group to finish.

5.) Under Frequency choose how often Maintenance Mode should run.

a. Once – Run just once.

b. Daily – Run every day at the Start Time selected.

c. Weekly – Run every week on the day/time selected for Start Time.

6.) Under Category choose the category (Planned or Unplanned) to specify the maintenance mode.

7.) Under Comment: Type in an Optional Comment.

One Click Maintenance Mode

This situation makes it easy for IT staff to put a server into maintenance mode without having to go to the SCOM console. On any server the server administrator can visit the SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler One Click website at http://yourMSserver/MMWeb/OneClick.aspx

Creating a shortcut on the desktop of the servers to make it even easier.

Options for this are:

Manually create the shortcut.

Use System Center Configuration Manager, AD Group Policy or some other software deployment tool to deploy the shortcut out to all servers.

1.) Open the One Click Maintenance Mode Scheduler Website from the server to put into maintenance mode in Internet Explorer. http://yourserver/MMWeb/OneClick.aspx

2.) The server is automatically put into maintenance mode for 60 minutes.

Class Maintenance Mode

In this setting a Unix/Linux Admin is performing maintenance on a Linux server on Saturday at 4:00AM. During the outage the server will be rebooted and the admin does not want to alert the NOC or the on-call engineer.

1.) Open the Maintenance Mode Scheduler Website in Internet Explorer. http://yourMSserver/MMWeb/Class.aspx

2.) Pick the Class for the type of object. Pick Microsoft.Linux.Computer

3.) Under Object: Pick the Linux Computer to Schedule for Maintenance Mode.

4.) Under Start Time; Pick the time and date for Maintenance Mode on the Linux computer to Start.

5.) Under End Time; Pick the time and date for Maintenance Mode on the Linux computer to finish.

6.) Under Frequency choose how often Maintenance Mode should run.

a. Once – Run just once.

b. Daily – Run every day at the Start Time selected.

c. Weekly – Run every week on the day/time selected for Start Time.

7.) Under Category choose the category (Planned or Unplanned) to specify the maintenance mode.

8.) Under Comment: Type in an Optional Comment.

Subscription Maintenance Mode

In this scenario full backups are performed every night that create a flood of alerts for the Windows Team Pager. The team would like to not get alerted during this time. They have a complex subscription with individual monitors and rules for their alerts. Creating and maintaining individual groups for maintenance mode is too complex. They would like to just put the subscription into Maintenance Mode so they don’t get alerted in the middle of the night.

**Note: The individual objects will still change state and create alerts that will not be sent to the subscription during the maintenance window. You can choose to send the alerts after the maintenance window or to discard the alerts using the Queue Alerts option.

1.) Open the Maintenance Mode Scheduler Website in Internet Explorer. http://xom01/MMweb/Subscription.aspx

2.) Pick the Subscription to Schedule for Maintenance Mode.

3.) Under Start Time; Pick the time and date for Maintenance Mode on the subscription to Start.

4.) Under End Time; Pick the time and date for Maintenance Mode on the subscription to finish.

5.) Under Frequency choose how often Maintenance Mode should run.

a. Once – Run just once.

b. Daily – Run every day at the Start Time selected.

c. Weekly – Run every week on the day/time selected for Start Time.

6.) Under Queue Alerts choose whether or not to send the alerts queued up during the maintenance window

a. No – Do not send alerts that happened during the maintenance window

b. Yes – Save alerts that happened during the maintenance window and send them when the window is over with

7.) Under Comment: Type in an Optional Comment.

8.) You may notice that when creating a subscription maintenance window it creates two jobs. This is normal as it creates a job to start the subscription maintenance windowsand one to stop the subscription maintenance window.

Manage Maintenance Mode Jobs

In this example an Admin has created a maintenance mode job that they no longer want to run. The job they want to delete is a re-occurring Sunday 3AM Maintenance Mode on all of their servers.

1.) Open the Maintenance Mode Scheduler Website in Internet Explorer.

http://yourMSserver/ MMWeb/Manage.aspx

2.) Pick the Manage to Manage Maintenance Mode Jobs

3.) Under Jobs; Pick the job “All Windows Computers – 60 minutes Maintenance Mode – Sunday 3AM Updates”

4.) Click the Delete Button

5.) For Subscriptions delete both the Begin and End jobs.

SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler Installation Guide

Requirements:
The Maintenance Mode Scheduler must be installed on a SCOM 2012 RTM, SP1, or R2, Management Server that has the Operations Console and Web Console installed.

1.) Copy the SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler.msi file over to the Management Server.

2.) Right click and choose Run as Administrator

Note: In some environments Run as Administrator may not show up. In this case just click Install

3.) Click Next

4.) Read and Accept the License Agreement, then click Next

5.) On the Ready to Install screen click Install

6.) Click Finish

7.) On the Desktop you will see a wrench Icon called Maintenance Mode 2012 Config.

8.) Right click on the icon and choose Run as Administrator.

9.) The configuration screen will automatically populate the Management Server, Operations Manager DB Server, Database Name, and Domain.

10.) Type in the username and password of the System Center Data Access Account (SDK)

Note: You can also create a new AD user that is a member of the local administrators, SCOM Admins, and have read access to the Operations Manager Database.

11.) Click OK

12.) On the complete screen click Start to Launch the Maintenance Mode App

Import the SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler Management Packs (Optional)

These Management pack were created with the help of SCOM Expert Tao Yang. http://blog.tyang.org/

More info on the Monitoring MP can be found here. http://bit.ly/1m9bE6m

1.) Make sure you are running SCOM 2012 R2 UR2. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2929891

2.) Open the SCOM Console and Select the Administration Pane.

3.) Under Management Packs. Right click and select Import Management Packs

4.) Select Add From disk

5.) Select No on the Online Catalog Connection dialog

6.) Browse out the MM Scheduler install directory. C:\Program Files\SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler\Management Packs

7.) Select both the Dashboard and Monitoring Management Packs.

8.) Click the install button.

SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler V3

I believe that core to any monitoring system is the ability to send out accurate alerts. SCOM sends out many valuable alerts but will flood e-mail boxes and paging systems during maintenance windows.

Here are the new features in V3 that will help address this problem:

Schedule Subscriptions for maintenance mode. Most organizations only use the alerts from SCOM. Now you can schedule your complex subscriptions into maintenance mode. You can choose to send the alerts that were queued up or discard them.
International Date format of DD/MM/YYYY now supported
New Integrated Dashboard with the help of Tao Yang
Removed resource pools from the list of groups
Changed default start time to only 2 minutes ahead instead of 5
Check to verify start time hasn’t already passed
Minor bug fixes

Read about all the features of the SCOM 2012 Maintenance mode scheduler here: Link

Download Free Trial

Schedule Subscriptions for Maintenance Mode

International Date Format

New Integrated Dashboard

SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler

We believe that core to any monitoring system is the ability to send out accurate alerts. SCOM sends out many valuable alerts but will flood e-mail boxes and paging systems during maintenance windows. We set out to build a maintenance mode scheduler that anyone can quickly and easily use to prevent these floods of useless information.

Features:

Easily access the new web based maintenance mode scheduler from any browser.
End users will thank you at how easy it is to pick a computer, group, object, and even a subscription with a start time and end time. The app calculates the minutes for them and schedules a future maintenance window.
The manage tab will make it easy to see and manage any upcoming maintenance windows and identify any gaps.
The new integrated dashboards make it feel like the scheduling maintenance mode was always there.

Download

Running SCOM 2016? Click here for our new 2016 version

Groups

Schedule a group of Computers, Databases, or any objects in the group into maintenance Mode.

One Click Maintenance Mode

Another great feature is the ability to do one click maintenance mode from any server. This means is you can place the same shortcut on the desktop of your all your servers. With one click, the IT administrator can put the server into maintenance mode.

After the shortcut is clicked, the web page automatically detects what server you are on and puts the server into Maintenance Mode with no interaction.

Dashboards Integrated Into The SCOM Console

Subscriptions

Most organizations only use the alerts from SCOM. Now you can schedule your complex subscriptions into maintenance mode. You can choose to send the alerts that where queued up or discard them.

Manage any upcoming maintenance windows and identify any gaps

Windows 8 App

The Windows 8 app can be download from the Windows App Store. It uses the existing the same infrastructure and web service as the Web based version.

Download Now from the App Store

Any problems, bugs, or issues please e-mail: support@scom2k7.com.com

SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler Installation Guide – https://www.scom2k7.com//scom-2012-maintenance-mode-scheduler-installation-guide/

SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler User Guide – https://www.scom2k7.com//scom-2012-maintenance-mode-scheduler-user-guide/

Securing SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler – https://www.scom2k7.com//securing-scom-2012-maintenance-mode-scheduler/

Management Pack for the SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler

With the release of V2 I began building a management pack to collect the event logs created by the Maintenance Mode Scheduler and display them in the console. Recently SCOM guru Tao Yang e-mailed me about his MP that provided similar functionality with more features then I had imagined.

I am making this my official management pack for the SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler.

Full Blog post with download can be found on his site. http://blog.tyang.org/2014/05/22/management-pack-scom-2012-maintenance-mode-scheduler/

Features Include:

Auto Cleanup of past maintenance mode jobs that were set to run once.
State View to see state of SCOM Maintenance Mode Scheduler. It also validates the account has local admin permissions and a valid password.

Event View for New Jobs and Jobs that were Auto cleaned up
Task to Launch the Web Console.

Dashboard View using the new PowerShell widgets
Report on New Jobs

If you are using the SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler. I highly recommend you checking this out.

All credit goes to Tao Yang. Thank you for creating such an awesome MP.

The New System Center Advisor Console Looks Awesome

SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler 2

SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler 2 is an all new web based maintenance mode scheduler built from the ground up for SCOM 2012, SP1, and R2.

The new web based scheduler simplifies the process of scheduling maintenance mode for SCOM administrators and IT staff. You can easily schedule a computer group or any object to maintenance mode in seconds.

Once the app is installed and configured. All you need to do is visit the SCOM Maintenance Mode web page and select the computer, group or class object you want to schedule. Pick a start time, end time, and then click schedule; the app will automatically calculate the minutes for you.

New in Version 2

Auditing of who and when a scheduled maintenance mode job is created
New tool to easily secure and manage who has access to SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler
Added Ability to Hide Tabs to simplify the tool using the new Administration Page
Added Ability to enable and disable Schedule Jobs
Removed other tasks from showing up on the Manage Page
Minor bug fixes

Download V2 Free Trial

Auditing of who and when a scheduled maintenance mode job is created.

New tool to easily secure and manage who has access to SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler

Added Ability to Hide Tabs to simplify the tool using the new Administration Page

Added Ability to enable and disable Schedule Jobs

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Installing SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler on a non Management Server

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.

Securing SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler

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