SCOM Maintenance Mode Scheduler

Jeff Blankenburg – You have too much time

Off the topic of SCOM. Jeff Blankenburg delivers an interesting presentation on how we waste our time.

Jeff Blankenburg – You have too much time from The Kalamazoo X Conference on Vimeo.

Disable The Server Manager Dashboard on Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2

It was not real obvious to me how to disable the Server Manager Dashboard that launches every time I login to a Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2 Server.

Personally I find it annoying unless the server is running one of the built-in roles.

In Server 2008 R2 it was a simple check box.

In Server 2012 and 2012 R2 it is a little more hidden.

To disable the Server Manager at login you need to go to

Manage

Server Manager Properties

Then Check the check box for “Do not start Server Manager automatically at logon”

Download Windows 8.1 RTM, Visual Studio 2013 RC and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM Today

Starting today, we will extend availability of our current Windows 8.1, Windows 8.1 Pro and Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM builds to the developer and IT professional communities via MSDN and TechNet subscriptions. The Windows 8.1 RTM Enterprise edition will be available through MSDN and TechNet for businesses later this month. Additionally, today we’re making available the Visual Studio 2013 Release Candidate.

Updated SQL Management Pack released with sweet new SQL Server 2012 Dashboard

Download: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10631

Changes in This Update

SQL Server Management Pack version 6.4.0.0 includes the following changes:

· New Dashboard for SQL Server 2012 DB

· New Monitors and Rules – only for SQL 2008 and SQL 2012

o Collect DB Active Connections count

o Collect DB Active Requests count

o Collect DB Active Sessions count

o Collect DB Active Transactions count

o Collect DB Engine Thread count

o Thread Count monitor

o Transaction Log Free Space (%) monitor

o Transaction Log Free Space (%) collection

o Collect DB Engine CPU Utilization (%)

o CPU Utilization (%) monitor for DB engine

o Buffer Cache Hit Ratio monitor

o Collect DB Engine Page Life Expectancy (s)

o Page Life Expectancy monitor

o Collect DB Disk Read Latency (ms)

o Collect DB Disk Write Latency (ms)

o Disk Read Latency monitor

o Disk Write Latency monitor

o Collect DB Transactions per second count

o Collect DB Engine Average Wait Time (ms)

o Average Wait Time monitor

o Collect DB Engine Stolen Server Memory (MB)

o Stolen Server Memory monitor

o Collect DB Allocated Free Space (MB)

o Collect DB Used Space (MB)

o Collect DB Disk Free Space (MB)

o SQL Re-Compilation monitor

· SPN monitor improved

· Support for special symbols in DB names.

· Improved AlwaysOn seed discovery

· Run As configuration changes to support Low privilege for SQL Server 2012 Cluster

· Improved performance of AlwaysOn discovery

· Custom User Policy Discovery and Monitoring performance optimization

· Hided AG health object from Diagram view

· Minor changes

Free ebook and Hands on Lab for Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview Release

Get the high-level overview you need to begin preparing your deployment now. This book is based on the Preview release and will be updated to cover Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM.

Download the PDF version of this title here (108 pages, 5 MB).

The EPUB format is here

The MOBI format is here.

Hands on Lab: Getting to Know Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview

https://vlabs.holsystems.com/vlabs/hol?eng=Windows8&auth=none&src=microsoft.holsystems.com&altadd=true&labid=10407&loc=zTS3z&prod=zWSz&tech=zOttechz&prog=zOTprogz&type=zVLz&media=zOTmediaz&country=zUSz

Team Foundation Service – A great place to store your Management Packs using the Visual Studio Authoring Extensions

http://tfs.visualstudio.com

I recently started building Management Packs using the Visual Studio Authoring Extensions. Using Visual Studio in the past, I used a local Team Foundation Server for versioning of my C# projects. Maintaining a TFS server for one user is a pain as I am constantly updating it for the newest version of Visual Studio. I recently found out about the new cloud based Team Foundation Service on Azure.

The great thing about this is that it’s free for MSDN subscribers (and everyone right now). I can access my projects from any computer anywhere in the world.

Right now I only have a few projects. But I plan on building a library of examples so that whenever I am building a MP I can quickly find and reference an MP I created in the past.

Error "No such file or directory" error when you try to install a Unix agent after applying CU6 or CU7 for SCOM 2007

KB2882532

To resolve the issue, remove the 1 KB agent installer files from the following folder on the management server under the System Center Operations Manager installation directory:

%ProgramFiles%\System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\

Make sure that you have valid installation files from Cumulative Update 7 on the folder that contains the version 318 files.

If you have Cumulative Update 6 applied on the management servers, the Unix agent installation file version is 298.

If the latest Unix agent installation files are unavailable in the following folder, follow these steps to obtain the installation files:

%ProgramFiles%\System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\

Rename the SCXAgent DLL files in the following folder to something like SCXAgent*.dll.old:
%ProgramFiles%\System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2\AgentManagement\UnixAgents
Reapply Cumulative Update 6 or Cumulative Update 7 on the management server to obtain the latest Unix agents files that were extracted to this folder.

SCOM 2012 SP1 UR2 agents not showing up in Pending Management

Recently I ran into an issue of agents not showing up in Pending Management after installing SP1 UR2 at a customer. I had installed the files using and elevated command prompt and the files on the Management Servers were updated to the correct version. The installer didn’t return any errors on the screen.

I tried rebooting the MS servers and that didn’t help. So I tried the update again and no change.

Looking through the event logs I ran across this error.

Log Name:      Operations Manager
Source:        DataAccessLayer
Date:          5/31/2013 10:42:34 AM
Event ID:      33334
Task Category: None
Level:         Warning
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      ms04.scom2k7.com.com
Description:
Data Access Layer hit the maximum number of retries on SqlError:
Request: SqlConnection.Open
Class: 14
Number: 229
Message: The EXECUTE permission was denied on the object ‘fn_ManagedTypeId_MicrosoftSystemCenterHealthServiceCommunication’, database ‘OperationsManager’, schema ‘dbo’.

Resolution:

The user doing the install was an admin on the Server and the SQL server but didn’t have SA rights to the DB. When installing SP1 UR2 make sure the user has SA rights to SQL.