Anderson Patricio Get-news Blog : System Center

Exchange Server 2010 Management Pack (x86) Release Candidate

Anderson Patricio — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:54:00 GMT

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 management pack is designed for monitoring Exchange Server 2010 events, collecting Exchange component-specific performance counters in one central location, and for raising alerts for operator intervention as necessary. You will need System Center Operations Manager 2007 to run and monitor Exchange Server 2010 with this management pack.

Get it from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=a0047276-553c-4054-afc9-ec3b4ececf3c#tm

Technorati : Exchange Server 2010, RC, SCOM
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Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2

Anderson Patricio — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 01:34:39 GMT

Hello folks,

Last Friday the Exchange Server 2007 management pack for SCOM R2 was released. Check this out:

The Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack is designed to monitor Exchange 2007 key health indicators, collect Exchange component-specific performance counters in one central location, and raise alerts for operator intervention as necessary. By detecting, sending alerts, and automatically responding to critical events, this Management Pack helps indicate, correct, and prevent possible service outages or configuration problems, allowing you to proactively manage Exchange servers and identify issues before they become critical. The Management Pack monitors and provides alerts for automatic notification of events indicating service outages, performance degradation, health monitoring, and centralized management.

Note: This Management Pack requires Operations Manager 2007 R2.

Feature Summary

A number of synthetic transactions ensure the Exchange servers are available and responding in a timely manner. The synthetic transactions are maintenance-mode aware, so that if the target of a transaction is in maintenance mode, the source will not run the transaction, and not alert unnecessarily.
This Management Pack includes a Management Pack template that provides a wizard-like interface for configuring synthetic transactions against Outlook Web Access (OWA), Exchange ActiveSync, Web Services, POP3, and IMAP.
This Management Pack includes a Management Pack template that provides a wizard-like interface for configuring mail flow synthetic transactions between agent-managed Exchange 2007 Mailbox servers.
This Management Pack provides 30+ reports specific to Exchange 2007 that track availability and performance compared to service level objectives. For the list of reports and for more information about the reports, see the Management Pack Guide.
All the synthetic transactions in this Management Pack use an Operations Manager 2007 R2 hosting feature for Windows PowerShell technology that provides a performance improvement when running synthetic transactions.
A significant number of rules and monitors that are not actionable or may be noisy are disabled. Note that many of these rules are still in the Management Pack so that you can enable them if necessary.
Support for monitoring any number of Exchange organizations using a single Operations Manager 2007 management group.
Full support for Microsoft clustered configurations. For more details, see the Management Pack Guide.
Discovery of Exchange 2007 server roles is disabled by default, and no Exchange 2007 monitoring is applied by default. This allows you to discover and monitor your servers gradually, as well as tune the Management Pack as you bring more agent-managed Exchange 2007 servers into the Operations Manager environment.

Link to download it: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e9f3cd3f-9bc0-45cd-b10f-120e937ee4c4&displaylang=en&displaylang=en

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio

DPM 2007 SP1

Anderson Patricio — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 23:24:07 GMT

Hello folks,

I hope you all had a wonderful Christimas and a happy new year!

I know that is not a really recent news but I would like to share with you guys the DPM 2007 SP1 release. There are new improvements and support to the new technologies of the products protected by DPM, such as: Hyper-V, SQL 2008 and Exchange Server 2007 (SCR feature).

You can get the DPM 2007 bits in the following links:

DPM 2007 SP1 x86	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125991
DPM 2007 SP1 x64	http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125992

Here are some of the new features of this new release:

Service Pack 1 for Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 provides continuous data protection for Windows application and file servers using seamlessly integrated disk and tape media and includes the following expanded capabilities:

Protection of Hyper-V™ virtualization platforms, including both Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and the Microsoft Hyper-V Server, has been added to the existing set of protected workloads, building on the virtualization protection originally delivered for Virtual Server 2005.
Enhanced SQL Server 2008 protection, including the addition of new protection capabilities for mirrored databases, support for parallel backups of databases within a single instance, and the ability to move data from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 for migration scenarios.
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 receive index protection, significant catalog optimization, and support for mirrored content databases.
Added protection for Exchange Server 2007 Standby Cluster Replication (SCR), enabling a complete disaster recovery solution that leverages SCR failover alongside DPM point-in-time restores.

In addition to enhancing the protection of each of the core Microsoft application workloads, additional capabilities have also been introduced with the release of DPM 2007 SP1, such as:

Local Data Source Protection enabling the DPM 2007 SP1 server to act as a branch office server offering self-protecting File Services and Virtualization hosting within one platform.
Cross-Forest Protection allowing large enterprise customers with multiple Active Directory® forests to now have even more flexibility in their DPM deployments.
Provision for a Client DPML answers customer demand for a more cost-effective way to protect Windows XP and Windows Vista clients using the same DPM 2007 infrastructure that protects their servers
Disaster Recovery capabilities within DPM 2007 SP1 now include the ability to leverage a third-party vaulting partner via the cloud (SaaS)

Cheers,
Anderson Patricio

Using DPM 2007 SP1 to recover individual items on Exchange Server

Anderson Patricio — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:47:26 GMT

Ilse Van Criekinge posted a video explaining the process to restore individual items through Recovery Storage Group (RSG) Exchange 2007 feature using DPM 2007 .

Watch it at: http://edge.technet.com/Media/DPM-2007-how-to-do-individual-item-restore-for-Exchange/

Data Protection Manager 2007 Volume Sizing Tool

Anderson Patricio — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:14:14 GMT

"DPMvolumeSizing" is a tool-set that eases the process of gathering data for DPM volume sizing purposes and apply DPM sizing rules to obtain DPM replica and recovery point volume requirements. Scripts collect (local or remote) and save information in a format tuned to easily import into an Excel workbook and is detailed in the user guide. The tool-set is validated to work for the DPM; SQL Server, Virtual Server, Exchange Server 2007, Volume and System State protection workloads.

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=445BC0CD-FC93-480D-98F0-3A5FB05D18D0&displaylang=en

Protecting and Recovering E-Mail Using DPM 2007 and Exchange 2007

Anderson Patricio — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:50:12 GMT

Hello folks,

An interesting post about Exchange Server 2007 and DPM 2007.

As more and more data is stored in electronic formats, data backup and recovery is increasingly becoming a key business requirement. Apart from being an operational requirement, today companies also may need to maintain a backup of their data for other reasons such as to fulfill legal requirements. Data comes in various forms, such as operational data, accounting information, and emails among others.

In this blog post, we look at Exchange data recovery goals and why Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 (DPM) is an effective solution to protect emails and mailboxes on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 (Exchange).

Technorati : DPM 2007, Exchange Server 2007

System Center Capacity Planner 2007 RTM was released

Anderson Patricio — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 22:41:41 GMT

System Center Capacity Planner 2007 is a pre-deployment capacity planning and post-deployment change analysis solution for Exchange Server 2007.

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=E754F35D-59DB-4BC4-8386-E83E66A16FAD&displaylang=en

Technorati : Exchange Server 2007, System Center Capacity Planner 2007
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DPM Server protecting Exchange Server

Anderson Patricio — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:45:30 GMT

Hello Folks,

DPM protects either Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or Exchange Server 2007. During the protection group wizard we are able to copy the ese.dll and eseutil.exe in order to run eseutil to validate the backup process on the DPM side to decrease the workload in Exchange Servers.

Basically we just need to copy both files from the Exchange Server box to DPM Server, but we have some variables such as: Which DPM are we running? (x64 or 32bits), Exchange 2003 doesn't run in x64, Exchange Server 2007 doesn't run in 32bits.

To resolve this issue of DPM version versus Exchange Server versions, there is a section into the DPM documentation where we can find a table with all possible configurations, as it follows:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb808827.aspx

Grande abraço,
Anderson Patricio

Data Protection Manager 2007 Storage Calculator

Anderson Patricio — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:12:22 GMT

Hello folks,

The DPM Team has released a DPM 2007 Storage Calculator for Exchange Server.

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

Technorati : DPM, Storage Calculator
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Installing the DPM Management Shell

Anderson Patricio — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 05:00:00 GMT

Hello Folks,

I've been working with DPM since the previous versions and yesterday I started to play with DPM v2. In this blog post I will cover the installation of the DPM Management Shell portion of the product.

The initial screen, click on Install DPM Management Shell.

License Terms, If you agree Accept and click on OK.

Welcome. Just click Next

Prerequsites Check. The setup will validate the prerequisites, click on Next.

Installation Settings. We can change the installation folder, after that click on Next.

Installation. Just click on Close to start to manage the DPM through DPM Management Shell.

Now, PowerShell rocks!!!

Do you have any doubts about DPM Management Shell cmdlets? Don't worry we can use get-DPMCommand cmdlet to get all the avaiable cmdlets to manage the DPM through PowerShell.

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

Microsoft DPM 2007 v2 beta available

Anderson Patricio — Sat, 26 May 2007 04:07:00 GMT

Hello folks,

DPM v2 was released last week at Microsoft web site, and now we have more one product allowing PowerShell :). Here are some of the new futures of the product:

Support SharePoint
Support Virtual Server SP1
Windows Vista and Windows XP Desktops
DPM 2 DPM Disaster Recovery
System State
System Center Configuration manager / SMS / SUS
Uses Windows PowerShell :) and command line to control
Tape Support
Bare metal recovery

Specifically for Exchange Server 2007:

Support for Exchange Server 2003 and 2007
LCR it does backup of the Active base
CCR it does backup of the Passive Node
Near zero data loss for Exchange Server

The RTM version is expected to second quarter of 2007. :)

DPM overview: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/dpm/beta/overview.mspx

DataSheet: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=92499

Get the beta v2 here: https://connect.microsoft.com/programdetails.aspx?ProgramDetailsID=822

More information? http:/www.microsoft.com/DPM

Best Regards,
Anderson Patricio

System Center Capacity Planner for Exchange Server 2007

Anderson Patricio — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 00:53:00 GMT

Hi guys,

The new version of Capacity Planner will work on Exchange Server 2007 product. The new version, called SSCP (System Center Capacity Planner 2007) has a beta 1 version.

You can join to this beta program, clicking here: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/sccp/default.mspx

Au revoir,
Anderson Patricio
http://www.andersonpatricio.org

Operation Manager (OpsMgr) 2007 has been released

Anderson Patricio — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 00:43:00 GMT

Hi guys,

It's not so new.. but now we can work on the new version of MOM that now he has a new name SCOM (System Center Operations Manager).

You can get a 180 days evaluate version at http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/opsmgr/default.mspx

Au revoir,
Anderson Patricio
http://www.andersonpatricio.org