Monthly Archives: November 2015

SCOM: Management Pack for Microsoft Azure (Technical Preview)

Microsoft released a technical preview of a management pack for Microsoft Azure:

The Management Pack for Microsoft Azure enables you to monitor the availability and performance of Azure resources that are running on Microsoft Azure. The management pack runs on a specified server pool, and then uses Microsoft Azure REST APIs to remotely discover and collect performance information about the specified Microsoft Azure resources.

Version 1.3.10.0 is available for download here

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SCOM: Opslogix VMWare ManagementPack V1.3.1.1 released

Opslogix released a new major update for their VMWare management pack it is available through their customer portal.

New in this version:

  • Cookdown for all the MP modules. This will result in less overhead of resources CPU/memory needed for the monitoring.
  • VMWare API/SDK session usage is tuned to a minimum.
  • Added more than 50 new ESX Host and Virtual Machine performance counter collections.
  • Added several new ESX Host , Virtual Machine and Datacenter health state monitors.
  • Direct attached ESX hosts monitoring. Now you can monitor ESX hosts without a VCenter in place.
  • Hardware monitoring. Discovers and checks the state of CPU, Fan, Power supply, Memory, Battery, Storage ect… of your ESX hosts.
  • Monitoring of VCenter alert messages. We have built in SCOM monitors that will reflect the state of the predefined alerts in VCenter out of the box.

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SCOM 2016: TP4 now with Management Pack Recommendations and Updates!

There is a new feature that has been released with Technical Preview 4 of System Center Operations Manager 2016, it is called Management Pack Recommendations and Updates.

This features scans your environment and makes recommendations for management packs which are not currently installed but could be used to provide additional monitoring to components that are not yet monitored.

The feature will also show available updates for currently installed management packs.

recommendatons

All in all this is a nice addition and it’s great to see more functionality coming to Operations Manager.

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SCOM: Updated management pack Windows Server 2012 DHCP v6.0.7299.0

A new version of the Windows Server 2012 DCHP MP has been released version 6.0.7299.0 is available for download here.

Fixed in this version:

  • In a DHCP server with multiple scopes, if the first scope exceeds the threshold for minimum available addresses, alerts are sent for all scopes on the DHCP server even for the ones that don’t violate the threshold. The fix ensures that alerts are sent only for the scope exceeding the threshold.

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SCOM: Updated SQL MP 6.6.4.0

Microsoft released another update for the SQL management packs version 6.6.4.0 can be downloaded from the below links:

SQL Server 2014 – here
SQL Server 2005/2008/2012 – here
SQL Server Replication 2014 – here
SQL Server Replication 2012 – here
SQL Server Replication  2008 – here

This version refers to additional updates to the visualization library:

  • Fixed an installation issue on SQL Server 2008
  • Fixed permission grants for Alert aggregation table

With the previous issues with these management packs I strongly recommend testing  thoroughly before importing them into production and also having a good rollback plan in the case of an issue.

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SCOM 2012: Maintenance Mode Scheduler Version 7 released

Tim McFadden’s maintenance mode tool has gone a long way towards filling a glaring gap in the SCOM tool set, That being the ability to easily schedule maintenance without having to hack together scheduled tasks or runbooks.

New Features in this version:

  • CSV Server Import – Now you can schedule a list of Windows or Unix computers for Maintenance Mode using a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file.
  • Intelligent Maintenance Mode – Before a computer or object is put into maintenance mode it is checked to see if it’s already in maintenance mode. If the existing maintenance window is longer then the new maintenance window, the existing window is kept.
  • Unix/Linux Support for Immediate Maintenance Mode – Unix Admins can now use the MMNow page to immediately put servers into Maintenance Mode using a web browser or wget from a shell script.
  • Management Servers in a Group are prevented from going into Maintenance Mode – If a group is scheduled for maintenance mode that contains Management Servers. The Management Servers are now skipped from going into Maintenance Mode.
  • New Jobs Report Fixed – Some users were experiencing an issue where the MMScheduler box was grayed out. This has now been resolved.
  • Improved permissions tool – It is now easier to grant new permissions as existing users and groups show up when the tool is opened.
  • Improved Logging – Events are created when a Schedule Maintenance Job is run or when a user puts a server into maintenance mode immediately using MM Now

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SCOM: Updated MPs for SQL Server v 6.6.3.0

Microsoft released updates for the SQL Server management packs:

It is strongly recommended to test thoroughly before importing into live due to the sever issues some people have experienced with previous versions of 6.6.x.

SQL Server 2003/2008/2012 – here
SQL Server 2014 – here
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QL Server 2008 Replication – here
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QL Server 2014 Replication – here
SQL Server 2012 Replication – here

This update:

  • Updated the visualization library
  • Implemented batching to all data aggregation mechanisms to ensure low temp database space and log space usage
  • Implemented a control bit to divide group from non-group references to save space in aggregated data storage.
  • Fixed the error message in SQL DB discovery script

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SCOM: Update OpsLogix Swift Management Pack V2.5.1.57

OpsLogix has announced an update to their Swift Management Pack V2.5.1.57 it is available in their customer download area

Changes in this version:

  • System Center Operations Manager 2012 contains a bug that prevents alert subscriptions form filtering variable text fields. This release of the Swift management pack offers a workaround by adding the description to “Custom Field1″ of the alert so that it can be filtered in the alert subscriptions.

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Management Pack Recap – October 2015 Wave

This is a summary of the wave of Management Packs that were released in October 2015. Information and download location in the links provided:

NB: The SQL management packs were pulled due to an issue.

SQL Server 2014 Replication v6.6.2.0 – here
SQL Server 2012 Replication v6.6.2.0 here
SQL Server 2008 Replication v6.6.2.0 here
SQL Server 2014 v6.6.2.0 here
SQL Server 2012/2008/2003 v6.6.2.0 here
SharePoint 2010 Products Management Pack 14.0.7137.5000here

If you know of any other Management Packs that have been released recently that I may have missed leave me a note in the comments and I’ll add them.

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