Security & Management : SCOM

System Center Partner Solutions

daniel — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:47:00 GMT

I just completed some PoC for the customers in the last afew months. And these PoC included the solutions from the System Center partners, such as 1E, Jalasoft, AVIcode, excSoftware and Silect Software.

And i want to share my experience on these great partner solutions with all of you.

Operations Manager:

-AVIcode Intercept Studio/SEViewer.

It is a great partner solution for monitor Microsoft .NET in Operations Manager. It enables Operations Manager to monitor .NET Executable Applications, ASP.NET Application and ASP.NET Web Service.etc. We also work with AVIcode to enable the monitoring capability for .NET Remoting. Other than Health monitoring for the .NET Application, AVIcode Intercept Studio/SEViewer also monitor the Job Failure, SLA Performance Violation and missing page.etc. Administrator use the Intercept Studio UI to configure monitoring and performance thresolds for each Application. The AVIcode .NET Enterprise Management Pack also integrate the SEViewer with Operations Manager. We can create and configure the .NET Application Health Model and Distributed Application within Operations Manager, and use Distributed Application Designer to create the Service Model. It is very useful for the Developer who require the tool to detect the issue within their codes and the Administrator who require to monitor the health and Performance of the .NET Applications.

-Jalasoft Xian Io Network Manager.

To monitor Network Device, such as Switches, Routers, Load Balancer and Firewall in Operations Manager, You need to spend so much effort to configure the SNMP collection and alert generation. And you may not get the expected or good result by this manual configuration task. Jalasoft Xian Io Network Manager included the predefined rules and wizards to configure the monitoring for the network devices. Once the Xian Io Network Manager discovered the devices in the network, you can apply the monitoring template or rules to the device, and the monitoring is started. The Rules and Templates can be customize to fit the business requirement by using the Xian Io Network Manager UI. It also included the Management Pack to allow Operations Manager to build the service model that contain the Jalasoft monitored network devices.

-excSoftware

excSoftware developed the Virtual Agent to collect the data by using Syslog, SNMP and CLI from the non Windows devices and applications, such as Linux, Unix, Lotus Domino, Apache.etc. These data will forward to Operations Manager and generate the events and alerts for the administrator to check the health status of the non Windows Devices and Applications. And It covered many non Windows Devices and Applications.

Configuration Manager:

-1E SMSNomad.

1E released so many add on for SMS and Configuration Manager. SMSNomad is one of the add on. In SMS 2003, It enabled the SMS Advanced Client Workstation to be the Local Distribution Point. This reduce the required Server machine in the Small Branch Office. SMSNomad also enables the multicast functionality in SMS and Configuration Manager Software Distribution. It is a great add on for reduce the network traffic of software distribution and Speed up the Software Distribution.

-Silect Software.

To author Operations Manager Management Pack and Configuration Manager Configuration Baseline easily, Silect Software released the MP Studio and CP Studio to help the administrator to author the MP and the Configuration Baseline. For Configuration Baseline, CP Studio included the "Master Image" Capture function to capture the OS and Application Configuration on the Master Machine, And convert to the Configuration Baseline automatically. It also supports to capture the Active Directory data on the machine for the configuration baseline. It reduced the effort to author the configuration items and configuration baselines in Configuration Manager DCM.

I will share the experience of another Partner Solutions with all of you in the future.

System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1 RTM.

daniel — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:14:00 GMT

The System Center Operations Manager 2007 team is excited to announce that System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1 has Released-to-Manufacturing (RTM), and is now available for download! This release of SP1 marks an important milestone for the System Center Operations Manager 2007, making the product easier to support, easier to use, and easier to deploy.The goals that this Service Pack addresses include:

Address critical customer initiated issues, including a roll-up of all hot-fixes.
Improve the ability to deploy and use Operations Manager 2007.
Enhance the supportability of Operations Manager 2007.

With over 3000 downloads of the SP1 Release Candidate (RC) to date, and with over 15,000 SP1 RC agents deployed into production by TAP customers, it’s clear that customer’s are eager to get their hands on this powerful update to Operations Manager 2007—Microsoft’s industry-leading and award-winning end-to-end service monitoring solution for enterprise environments!Congratulations to the Operations Manager 2007 team on getting Service Pack 1 out the door!

What's Included in Service Pack 1?

Operations Manager 2007 SP1 addresses critical customer-initiated issues, including improved deployment, performance, reporting, and enhanced support. Highlighting some of the key new features and enhancements:

New capability to export Operations Manager 2007 diagrams to Microsoft Visio VDX file format.
New ability to publish reports to multiple locations, such as Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Web sites.
Improved performance and reliability across the product, such as when working with alerts, overrides, and searches.
Enhanced “advanced search” by improved the ability to search across monitors and rules by their overrides.
Simplifying the creation of new management packs by allowing users to copy views from existing management packs to an unsealed management pack.
New ability view performance data through the Operations Manager Web console, and setup filters for desired performance counters to ease searching and navigation.
New discoveries and views added to the Audit Collection Services (ACS), along with new monitors and alerts to track the health of ACS collectors.
Enhanced backup and recovery with the introduction of an easier-to-use Secure Storage Backup Wizard.
… and much, much more!!

A comprehensive list on what’s included with Service Pack 1 can be found by visiting the What’s New in Ops Mgr 2007 SP1 and What’s Fixed in Ops Mgr 2007 SP1 resources.

The Final Build

Operations Manager 2007 SP1 is available for both x86-based and x64-based computers. The Service Pack is available as a standalone executable that you can use to upgrade an existing Operations Manager 2007 installation, and it has also be ‘slipstreamed’ into the Operations Manager 2007 installation media to enable a single installation. Note that the Release Candidate is fully upgradable to this final RTM version of SP1!

Final build number: 6278

Public Availability

Operations Manager 2007 SP1 is currently being pushed out to the web, and the following links are being replicated over the weekend (replication is expected to be completed by Mon Feb 25^th, or earlier).

Where can i go for further information?

A new dedicated SP1 page on TechNet will go live by Monday Feb 25^th, which will provide links to newly available resources, including What’s New, What’s Fixed, SP1 Training Videos, updated documentation, and more! Any additional information will be posted to the Operations Manager 2007 page of System Center Web.

Operations Manager 2007 Reports Authoring Guide

daniel — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:02:00 GMT

The OpsMgr 2007 Reports Authoring Guide just released.

You can download it in this blog post.

My 20th Microsoft KB Article

daniel — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:13:00 GMT

556056 HOWTO: Create System Center Operations Manager 2007 task to execute a VB Script

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/556056

Adding custom information to alert descriptions and notifications

daniel — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:39:00 GMT

There are the great post on Kevin Holman's Blog:

Custom Properties for Alert

Descriptions and Notifications:

Alert Descriptions:

Event info: (Updated by Daniel)

1. Publisher Name - $Data/PublisherName$

2. Event Number - $Data/EventNumber$

3. User Name - $Data/UseName$

4. Event Description - $Data/EventDescription$

Service Monitor:

Service Name - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='Name']$

Service Dependencies - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='Dependencies']$

Service Binary Path - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='BinaryPathName']$

Service Display Name - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='DisplayName']$

Service Description - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='Description']$

Performance:

Counter Value - $Data/Context/Value$

Performance Object Name - $Data/Context/ObjectName$

Performance Counter Name - $Data/Context/CounterName$

Performance Instance Name - $Data/Context/InstanceName$

Notifications:

$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertId$ The AlertID GUID

$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertName$ The Alert Name

$Data/Context/DataItem/Category$ The Alert category PerformanceHealth,PerformanceCollection,Operations,EventCollection,StateCollection,SoftwareAndUpdates,Alert,System,Custom,AvailabilityHealth,ConfigurationHealth,SecurityHealth,Discovery,NotificationCategory,Maintenance

$Data/Context/DataItem/CreatedByMonitor$ True/False

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom1$ CustomField1

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom2$ CustomField2

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom3$ CustomField3

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom4$ CustomField4

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom5$ CustomField5

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom6$ CustomField6

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom7$ CustomField7

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom8$ CustomField8

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom9$ CustomField9

$Data/Context/DataItem/Custom10$ CustomField10

$Data/Context/DataItem/DataItemCreateTime$ UTC Date/Time of Dataitem created

$Data/Context/DataItem/DataItemCreateTimeLocal$ LocalTime Date/Time of Dataitem created

$Data/Context/DataItem/LastModified$ UTC Date/Time DataItem was modified

$Data/Context/DataItem/LastModifiedLocal$ Local Date/Time DataItem was modified

$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntity$ ManagedEntity GUID

$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityDisplayName$ ManagedEntity Display name

$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityFullName$ ManagedEntity Full name

$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityPath$ Managed Entity Path

$Data/Context/DataItem/Priority$ The Alert Priority Number (High=1,Medium=2,Low=3)

$Data/Context/DataItem/Owner$ The Alert Owner

$Data/Context/DataItem/RepeatCount$ The Alert Repeat Count

$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionState$ Resolution state ID (0=New, 255= Closed)

$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionStateLastModified$ UTC Date/Time ResolutionState was last modified

$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionStateLastModifiedLocal$ Local Date/Time ResolutionState was last modified

$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionStateName$ The Resolution State Name (New, Closed)

$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolvedBy$ Person resolving the alert

$Data/Context/DataItem/Severity$ The Alert Severity ID

$Data/Context/DataItem/TicketId$ The TicketID

$Data/Context/DataItem/TimeAdded$ UTC Time Added

$Data/Context/DataItem/TimeAddedLocal$ Local Time Added

$Data/Context/DataItem/TimeRaised$ UTC Time Raised

$Data/Context/DataItem/TimeRaisedLocal$ Local Time Raised

$Data/Context/DataItem/TimeResolved$ UTC Date/Time the Alert was resolved

$Data/Context/DataItem/WorkflowId$ The Workflow ID (GUID)

$Target/Property[Type="Notification!Microsoft.SystemCenter.AlertNotificationSubscriptionServer"/WebConsoleUrl$ The Web Console URL

Target/Property[Type="Notification!Microsoft.SystemCenter.AlertNotificationSubscriptionServer"/PrincipalName$

The principalname of the management server

$Data/Recipients/To/Address/Address$

The name of the recipient (e.g. the Email alias to which the notification is addressed)

MCTS: Operations Manager 71-400 Beta Exam

daniel — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 06:12:00 GMT

From the Certification Blog:

By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications.

Please remember that participation in the beta process is completely voluntary and Microsoft makes no promises or guarantees regarding the beta exam process. You can expect to receive your score on the beta exam within 12 weeks of taking the exam, although in some instances, beta exams may take longer to score and your results may be delayed.

71-400: TS: Microsoft® System Center Operations Manager, Configuring counts as credit towards MCTS: System Center Operations Manager, Configuration.

Availability

Registration begins: October 4, 2007
Beta exam period runs: October 4, 2007– October 26, 2007
Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately. Beta exams have limited availability and are operated under a first-come-first-served basis. Once all beta slots are filled, no additional seats will be offered.
Testing is held at Prometric testing centers worldwide, although this exam may not be available in all countries (see Regional Restrictions). All testing centers will have the capability to offer this exam in its live version.
Regional Restrictions: India, China, and Pakistan

Registration Information

You must register at least 24 hours prior to taking the exam.
Please use the following promotional code when registering for the exam: TSCCM
Receiving this invitation does not guarantee you a seat in the beta; we recommend that you register immediately.
To register in North America, please call Prometric: (800) 755-EXAM (800-755-3926)
Outside the U.S./Canada, please contact: Prometric

Test Information and Support

You are invited to take this beta exam at no charge.
You will be given four hours to complete the beta exam. Please plan accordingly.
Find exam preparation information: Prep guide not available yet

Exam topics:

Configuring System Center Operations Manager 2007

Configure notification
Manage roles
Configure System Center Operations Manager options
Discover and deploy agents within a trusted Active Directory (AD) forest
Discover and deploy agents to non-AD systems

Deploy and configure Management Packs

Import a Management Pack
Configure overrides
Configure a self-tuning threshold
Migrate a Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Management Pack to System Center Operations Manager 2007
Configure diagnostics and recoveries for a rule or monitor

Build and deploy custom Management Packs

Configure security options
Configure discovery for Management Packs
Create monitors and rules
Create a distributed application
Create a synthetic transaction

Maintaining System Center Operations Manager

Maintain System Center Operations Manager infrastructure
Create views
Create tasks
Fail over from Root Management Server (RMS)
Back up and restore System Center Operations Manager
Managing and maintaining reports

Configuring client monitoring

Configure Audit Collection Service (ACS)
Configure Agentless Exception Monitoring (AEM)
Configure Collective Client Monitoring (CCM)
Configure Business Critical Client Monitoring (BCCM)

My 18th, 19th Microsoft KB Released!

daniel — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 04:11:00 GMT

You cannot change the destination folder when install the Operations Manager 2007

555960

Addlocales value doesn't work in Inventory Tool for Microsoft Update v3

555961

My 17th Microsoft KB Released!

daniel — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 06:59:00 GMT

"Data Cannot be Updated in Data Warehouse" error after the new Root Management Server Promotion

555959

My 16th Microsoft KB Released!

daniel — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 12:20:00 GMT

"Loading Reporting Hierarchy Failed" error after the new Root Management Server Promotion

555950

System Center Remote Operations Manager (ROM) 2007

daniel — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 00:42:00 GMT

"System Center Remote Operations Manager (ROM) 2007. ROM, scheduled to RTM later this month, is a new product from the Microsoft System Center family that enables solution providers to more effectively and proactively monitor, control, update, and manage their mid-market customers? distributed infrastructures from a secure remote console.

Specifically, Remote Operations Manager with System Center Essentials at the customer end-point:

Creates a business advantage for IT service providers by enabling them to customize monitoring policies, configure and patch customer IT environments without interrupting users or network service, and providing access to expert knowledge for managing Windows platforms, applications and workloads.

Provides increased security and reliability by establishing a single aggregate view of customer health status and quickly resolve issues when an alert is raised.

Enables the customer to transition from reactive in-house troubleshooting to proactive outsourced management; takes the burden of constant monitoring and availability off of internal IT staff, freeing them to focus on innovation and development.

Additional ROM advisory services also will be available to Certified and Registered partners. These services will provide best practice recommendations, 1:1 consultative workshops, consultative discussions with partner technical consultants, deployment and architectural design guidance and remote access to Microsoft labs

More information here:

Remote Web Workplace

Exclusive: Services Provider Management Pack

Operations Manager 2007 Technical Walkthrough

daniel — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 03:38:00 GMT

http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/opsmgr/evaluation/techwalk/course/detect.html

This Online Training provide the overview and deployment scenarios of OpsMgr2007.

Operations Manager 2007 Scalability Recommendation

daniel — Sat, 05 May 2007 09:53:00 GMT

Monitored Item	Recommended Limit
Simultaneous Operations Consoles	50
Agent monitored computers reporting to a Management Server	2,000
Agent monitored computers reporting to a Gateway Server	200
Agentless Exception Monitored computers per Management Server	25,000
Agentless Exception Monitored computers per Management Group	100,000
Collective Client Monitored computers per Management Server	2,500

Some Notes for Operations Manager 2007

daniel — Tue, 01 May 2007 03:12:00 GMT

Local Management Group and Connected Management Group=2 Tier Only, CMG and CMG can't communicate.
Raise the Domain Functional Level to other than Windows 2000 Mixed before deployment. No Limitation for Forest Functional Level.
Agent/Server mutual authentication is mandated in Operations Manager 2007 for all agent/server communication
The certificates used for untrusted Domain scenario must ultimately trust the same root certification authority (CA)
Install and add the Gateway Server in the Untrusted Domain.
Create a domain security group for the Operations Manager Administrators role before deployment
Windows Installer 3.1 required for Agent Installation
An agentless managed device must not be separated from its Management Server or proxy agent by a firewall because monitoring is performed over RPC.
The action account of the agent that is performing the monitoring must have local administrative rights on the device that is being monitored.
Operations Manager 2007 requires SQL Server 2005 Enterprise edition for Audit Collection Services Database
SQL Server 2005 SP1 and Cumulative Hotfix Package (build 2153) for SQL Server 2005 required
Required to use SQL Server Windows Authentication mode
To provide the best recovery experience, configure the OperationsManager database to run in the Full Recovery model
SQL Server Service Broker must be enabled
Keeping the OperationsManager Database relatively small ensures faster operations
SDK and Config Service Account should be Local System when install single Management Server in the environment.
Each ACS collector must have its own ACS database.
Run the ACS Installation on the ACS Collector.
A Gateway server should not be used as an AEM Collector except in the System Center Essentials configuration
Business-critical client monitoring allows business-critical clients to be deployed as watcher nodes and run synthetic transactions against IT services. In addition to event and performance data, business critical clients often require audit collection to ensure that compliance requirements are met
To use Active Directory to Automatically Assign Agents, Run MOMADAdmim.exe with the Appropriate Parameters to create the OperationsManager Container with the permission in AD. Create the Inclusion or exclusion rule on the management servers. And configure manual installed agent from reject to review

Partner Solution for Remote IT Managed Services Beta

daniel — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 02:39:00 GMT

Microsoft is building a new managed services solution to enable partners to create a services-based business by delivering remote IT managed services to small and midsized organizations. Supported by System Center Operations Manager 2007 (Operations Manager 2007) and System Center Essentials 2007 (SCE 2007) technology, this combined solution creates a powerful platform with which you can provide remote software update management, monitoring and troubleshooting of customer environments over a secure internet connection. In addition, you will be able to create customized reports to show your customers the value of the services you provide.

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 Evaluation Edition

daniel — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 15:30:00 GMT

Overview

System Center Operations Manager provides an easy-to-use monitoring environment which includes thousands of event and performance monitors across hundreds of operating systems and applications to provide a single view of the health of an organization’s IT environment.

This view of a service’s health is key to a rapid, agile response to events that may impact the normal running of business and ultimately cost an enterprise money.
System Center Operations Manager 2007 is the third version of Microsoft’s award-winning monitoring solution. Operations Manager 2007 builds on the success of its predecessors by adding key features and functionality that customers and the market have been demanding. Microsoft enhanced the already capable Operations Manager solution by designing Operations Manager 2007 around these four pillars:
• End-to-end service monitoring
• Best-of-breed manager of Windows
• Reliability and security
• Operational efficiency

The evaluation edition is valid for 180 days after installation

Download

SCOM 2007 Beta 2 Lab Installation Summary

daniel — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 02:45:00 GMT

Windows Server

Install Windows Server 2003 Standard or Enterprise Edition With SP1 or R2 (32Bits-Management Server, 32Bits/64bits-OM Database, 32Bits-Reporting Database).
Run dcpromo to promote the Windows Server to Domain Controller.
Restart the Machine.
Create Management Server Action Account (Member of Domain Admins) and SDK and Config Service Account (if needed).
Create Data Warehouse Write Action Account (Member of Domain Admins).

Management Server and Database

Install IIS, ASP.NET and Network COM+.
Install SQL Server 2005 Standard or Enterprise Edition with SQL Server 2005 Server Components Prerequisites-.NET Framework 2.0.
Install Database Services and Reporting Services.
Install WinFX RunTime Components (Internet Connection Required)
Install Windows "Power Shell".
Run the Default.hta in the Installation Package.
Click Check Prerequisite, check the Operation Database, Server, Console, Monad Command Shell. Reporting, Data Warehouse checkboxes. Click Check.
Close the Prerequisites Check.
Click Install Operations Manager 2007. Click Next, Accept the EULA and Complete the Product Registration. Click Next.
Configure the Custom Setup Page. Click Next.
Click Next in the Prerequisites Check Page.
Specify the Management Group name and Configure the MOM Administrators. Click Next.
Specify the Database Instance, Click Next.
Configure the Database and Log File Options, Click Next.
Specify Management Server Action Account, Click Next.
Specify the SDK and Config Service Account (Local System or Domain User). Click Next.
Enable or Disable the Error Reporting, Click Next and Start the Installation of the Management Server and Database.
When the installation completed, Click Finish.

Reporting Server and Database

Run the Default.hta in the Installation Package.
Click Install Operations Manager 2007 Reporting
Click Next, Accept the EULA and Complete the Product Registration. Click Next.
Configure the Custom Setup Page. Click Next.
Specify the Reporting Services Server, Click Next.
Specify the Root Management Server (The 1st installed Management Server of the Management Group), Click Next.
Specify the Database Instance, Click Next
Configure the Database and Log File Options(The default database name for reporting is OperationsManagerDW), Click Next.
Specify Data Warehouse Write Action Account. Click Next and Start the Installation of the Reporting.
When the installation completed, Click Finish.

NOTE| It is just a BASIC installation. Without AD Integration, MP Authoring and other new features configuration. To test the features and enhancement of SCOM 2007 Beta2. Follow the instruction of the Beta2 Scenarios Document on the Beta Site.

MOM v3 Public Beta

daniel — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 01:55:00 GMT

System Center products such as Operations Manager and System Center Essentials bring dramatic reductions in the cost of managing Windows and non-Windows devices and services to organizations of all sizes.

System Center Operations Manager 2007 delivers enterprise-class operations management by providing comprehensive event management, proactive monitoring and alerting, reporting, and trend analysis. OpsMgr 2007's mission is to increase productivity for IT professionals by creating a knowledge driven, proactive Windows management solution that enables monitoring and control of all devices.

To get into MOM v3 Beta, Visit connect.microsoft.com and complete the survey.