Monthly Archives: February 2015

SCOM: Silect MP Author goes to SP3

Silect has released SP3 of their MP Author, the new version comes with a host of new features.

Product information page – here
Request a free download – here

New features:

  • Improved knowledge viewing and editing in multiple language environments
  • Improved XML editing
  • New feature to “Check for missing display names”
  • Added ability to use base classes other than LocalApplication when creating new classes
  • Additional MP elements are displayed
  • Added a drop down list of $$ parameters for alert messages
  • Schedule property grid made more user friendly
  • Improvements to memory usage
  • We’ve also fixed a number of bugs in this release.

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SCOM 2012 R2: Now supports SQL Server 2014

This article was posted on the Operations Manager Engineering blog this week detailing the newly included support for SCOM 2012 R2 having SQL Server 2014 Enterprise, Standard (64-bit) as its database.

They note the following issues and workarounds to be aware of:

Issue: Installation to a SQL 2014 cluster using Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) is blocked by SCOM 2012 setup.
Workaround: Deploy to a physical server and then use the documentation here to move the database to the CSV.

Issue: Upgrade of SQL SRS is blocked due to SCOM 2012 use of Custom Security Extensions.
Workaround: Uninstall SCOM Reporting and run ResetSRS.exe to clear the custom security extensions. Once that is complete, upgrade SQL and install SCOM 2012 reporting again. Can find similar steps in the documentation here.

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SCOM: Database Status Report

I’ve been tinkering with trying to get a single health view for one of my clients SCOM environments.

I started with the SQL instance as this can be intensive to manually check every component.

Here is a sample of what it looks like so far my next step is to add free space information:

DB Status Report

 

Thanks to Dave Pinal for his post giving me a starting point.

Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions as to what else can be added or if you have something similar.

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XPost: Creating dynamic groups for objects which exist behind a gateway in OpsMgr

Cameron Fuller said it best “Even when you spend years working on a specific technology occasionally you are pleasantly surprised to find out that something already exists in the product but you are unaware of it.”

He has written an article which is available here which describes the use of the /SiteName switch when approving a gateway in order to automatically create and populate a group containing all devices being managed by that gateway.

This is certainly a useful feature.

Note – If you use the /sitename switch then bookmark this article by Brian McDermott – How to remove an OpsMgr 2012 Gateway Server that is associated with a site to prevent some future headaches.

 

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SCOM: Veeam Management Pack™ v7 R2

Veeam recently released the v7 R2 version of their System Center Management Pack.

Go here for more information, a free trial and pricing.

This update looks to be a nice step forward in terms of functionality and visibility of the virtual layer, which can be neglected when monitoring an environment.

New in this version:

  • NEW tools help you get results fast. An updated Resource Kit, which is part of the install, accelerates and simplifies deployment with an updated Database Sizing Calculator, scripts for deployment and configuration, and ‘mini’ MPs for customization.
  • NEW enhanced database efficiencies boost performance under large, enterprise loads and reduce Veeam MP’s footprint in the System Center database more than 50%.
  • NEW app-to-metal visibility as well as metal-to-app visibility allows you to quickly trace problems and determine business impacts for both physical and virtual resources.
  • NEW capabilities help you quickly identify undersized vSphere VMs so you can provide more resources where needed to power critical applications.
  • NEW platform support for Veeam Backup & Replication v8 and System Center 2012 R2 Update Rollups.

New in v7 R2, if you have System Center agents on any VMs, you’ll be able to drill down in two directions for both app-to-metal and metal-to-app visibility. You can quickly identify apps being monitored on a specific VM to find services and applications that will be affected by compute, storage and networking problems. And you can navigate a topology tree to locate the host for a specific VM to see if there are any problems occurring below this level―whether in that specific VM, other VMs, host hardware or elsewhere.

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SCOM: Update Rollup 5 for System Center 2012 R2

Update Rollup 5 for System Center 2012 R2 has just been released, this KB article contains full information around the included fixes. The article also contains the installation instructions and download link.

A fix I am glad to see in here is the one around Specified cast is not valid when opening run as account properties which is an issue I blogged about 2 years ago.

All in all this seems like a good update, as always test before going live.

 

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SCOM: Updated MP for Unix and Linux v7.5.1042.0

A new version of the cross platform management pack has been released version 7.5.1042.0 is available for download here.

Updates in this version:

  • Update release – version 7.5.1042.0 for System Center 2012 R2 – includes agents with version 1.5.1-150
  • Added support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 MP

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