Monthly Archives: October 2013

SCOM: Xian Wings 2.0

Jalasoft has released a new version of it’s Xian Wings product, which allows SCOM information such as graphs, alerts and states to be viewed on SmartPhone and Tablet Devices.

Link: http://www.jalasoft.com/xian/wings

No more running back to the office when your network beckons you. With Xian Wings for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 and 2012 (Operations Manager) you have a real client application for your smartphone, which means states, alerts, performance graphs, and more are always at your fingertips. Perform any task—from anywhere.

Features:

Just like with your Operations Manager console, Xian Wings lets you have a states-view to see the health of the objects you want to monitor.

Check the alerts of a specific object or see all the alerts that are currently active—right form your smartphone. Plus, you can easily filter or limit the number of alerts forwarded to your mobile devices so you only see what you need. You can even view and change alert properties in real time, right from your phone. No more being tied to your Operations Manager console.

How’s your network performing? You’ll always know. Xian Wings lets you see performance graphs on your smartphone too. Just select the object and the counters you want to view and you’ll get the corresponding graph. Xian Wings even stores the latest graphs you made automatically so you can quickly retrieve them with a couple of taps.

Whether you need to obtain memory usage information, IP configuration, or respond to an event that you would normally respond to, Xian Wings lets you do the tasks you need to do from your smartphone. It is up to you to create even more Operations Manager tasks to execute while you are out of the office.

Want the most important alerts the moment they occur? Xian Wings gives you the option to set up notifications, too. It’s simple. No need to synchronize Xian Wings—you’ll be notified of important alerts automatically.

Especially for iPad, there is Wings HD. This version offers all the features of Wings but adjusted for tablets. You have the ability to create your own dashboards with graphs, states, alerts, a click on any object will open an object related screen that gives you the direct ability to see the root cause of the problem and take actions. It is now possible to run power shell and prompt commands directly from your iPad against the OpsMgr server or another computer. And besides alerts, states and performance graphs, it is possible to add a notifications widgets to any Wings dashboard. Wings HD is the best mobile dashboard you can wish for Operations Manager

Loading

SCOM: Updated SQL Management Pack 6.4.1.0

An updated SQL management pack has been release which fixes the issues being experienced with version 6.4.0.0

SQL Server Management Pack version 6.4.1.0 includes the following changes:

  • Fixed CPU Utilization Monitor
  • Fixed SQL Server seed discovery for WoW64 environments
  • Alert severity of Average Wait Time Monitor was changed to Warning, added consecutive sampling to reduce noise, threshold was changed to 250
  • Alert severity of SQL Re-Compilation monitor was changed to Warning, threshold was changed to 25. The monitor was disabled by default.
  • Minor fixes

Kevin Holman has written a great article on the correct way to configure this management pack which is definitely worth the read.

Loading

System Center: Update Rollup 4 for System Center 2012 Service Pack 1

Update Rollup 4 for System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 has been released:

Note: This Post from Microsoft hi-lights issues with the SCSM UR4 and explains why it was pulled from the download center.
“Our team realized today that no Debug Symbols were available for the MSI. Giving us no ability to support any issue that may occur.
We are asking everyone that has downloaded it as of now to please “NOT” install UR4 into your Service Manager 2012SP1 environments. If you have already installed the update, we ask you to please bear with us while we sort out the issue. “

.This update contains many fixes listed below, particularly for SCVMM and overall seems like a good update, there are 20 updates for SCOM and the SCOM Unix agent , however as usual test before implementing as these updates can cause their own complications.

More information and fix list: Here
Download: Here

Loading

SCOM: Updated Managment Packs for Server 2012 R2 and SystemCenter 2012 R2

As many of you are aware new Management Packs have been released for Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2. Remember to read those guides and leave a comment if you experience any issues with these Management Packs.

Windows Server 2012 R2

AD 2012 R2

Windows Server 2012 R2 Components – IIS, Printing, NLB etc.

System Center 2012 R2

Loading

SCOM: Visual Studio Authoring Extensions for System Center 2012

This past friday saw the release of the Visual Studio Authoring Extensions for System Center 2012.

The Visual Studio Authoring Extensions allow you to create management packs for System Center 2012 – Operations Manager using Visual Studio.

  • Work directly with the XML of the management pack allowing you to create any management pack element and monitoring scenario.
  • Provides XML templates and IntelliSense for different management pack elements so that you don’t have to have detailed knowledge of the schema.
  • Allows you to create XML fragments containing different management pack elements. The fragments can be copied within the management pack, to another management pack, and combined to build the final management pack.
  • Allows multiple authors to work on a single management pack project at the same time.

Download here
Documentation and requirements can be found here

Note: To use the Visual Studio Authoring Extensions, you must have a copy of Visual Studio installed. Download the VSAE from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30169 

Loading

SCOM: Base OS MP update 6.0.7061.0

A new version of the Base OS MP has been release (6.0.7061.0) to cater for Windows Server 2012 R2 RTM.

Get it Here:

Changes in This Update

The October 2013 update (version 6.0.7061.0) of the Windows Server Operating System Management Pack included the following changes:

  • Fixed Windows Server 2012 R2 Beta Monitoring bugs for final release.

Loading

SCOM: Updated SharePoint 2013 Management packs

A new version of the SharePoint 2013 management packs has been released which fixes the report deployment  bug which causes the following error  “Failed to deploy reporting component to the SQL Server Reporting Services server. The operation will be retried.”

This version is 15.0.4557.1000 and can be downloaded below:

SharePoint Server 2013

SharePoint Foundation 2013

Loading

SCOM: Microsoft Monitoring Agent

With the upcoming release of System Center 2012 R2, Microsoft will be replacing the familiar SCOM agent with a new Microsoft Monitoring Agent which can be downloaded here.

The key feature being that the agent can operate in a standalone configuration, which generates an IntelliTrace file view-able with Visual Studio 2013 Release Candidate.or any other version of Visual Studio 2013.

It is worth noting that the current SCOM agent is not compatible with SCOM 2012 R2, the MMA agent is however able to connect to a SCOM 2012 SP1 and RTM management groups meaning it will be worthwhile to upgrade your agents ahead of your Management Group if you want to minimize monitoring downtime.

Marnix Wolf has created a table detailing the primary differences between the two agents here.

Loading