Category Archives: SCOM 2019

SCOM 2019: Update Rollup 5 is out!

UR5 for SCOM 2019 is available get it here!

A reasonable update with some quality-of-life fixes and enhancements, the most notable addition is the ability to discover SCOM MI instances in Azure which supports the hybrid approach to giving a single pane of glass across your on-prem and cloud IaaS estate.

Improvements

  • Discover Azure Monitor SCOM Managed Instance (preview) from SCOM console.

Issues that are fixed

Operations Manager 2019 Update Rollup 5 includes fixes for the following issues:

  • Fixed an issue where editing an existing Maintenance Mode schedule does not change the Reason and/or Comment.
  • Fixed an issue where when setting Maintenance Mode via PowerShell, the Availability Reports were not reflecting correct information.
  • Fixed the issue in which Member column in group View was introducing delay in group operations.
  • Fixed an issue of users getting HTTP200 error when trying to setup Log Analytics connection.
  • The script (GetOpsMgrDBPercentFreeSpace.vbs) which is part of System Center Core Monitoring MP monitor has been moved from VBS to PowerShell and, now reports Operations DataBase free space correctly.
  • A new registry key (for debugging purposes) to enable Bad.xml file creation is introduced in UR5 which does not exist by default but needs to be created. Registry key details below.
    • [HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HealthService\Parameters] – XmlDebugEnabled (DWORD) – default 0 and 1 for ENABLED

Security Enhancements

  • Fixed multiple Web Console Security Vulnerabilities.
    • Note: The Web.config files of both HTMLDashboard and MonitoringView web apps will be replaced, so any changes done to settings inside of these will have to be remade.
  • The organization of temporary files used for kerberos based authentication is further enhanced to prevent any misuse.
  • Fixed Data parsing issues in Linux agent that might cause the agent to crash.

Unix/Linux/Network monitoring fixes and changes

  • Fixed an issue where msgAuthenticationParameters needs to have 0 length during engine discovery of SNMPv3 devices. Also
  • Fixed an issue related to SNMP Discovery where we see MonitoringHost.exe crashes.
  • Fixed the issue where user was unable to run Get-SCXAgent and Invoke-SCXDiscovery remotely using Invoke-Command.
  • Fixed Linux agent crash issue caused by variable out of scope issue for _HandleGetClassReq.
  • Fixed an issue that would causes Linux agent to crash when DSC provider is installed.
  • Added supportability on Operations Manager Linux Agent for Rocky Linux 8, Alma Linux 8. systems with OpenSSL 3.0, RHEL 9.0 and Ubuntu 22.

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SCOM 2019: Update rollup 4 has arrived!

UR 4 is a fairly big update with a host of improvements and fixes, as always it can be downloaded from the catalog here now lets dive right in.

Overall some expected improvements to suppport later operating systems and versiosn of .net there are a tonn of fixes mostly around correcting minior issues which are too numerous to list here but can be found on the KB page

Improvements

  • Support for Windows 11
  • Enabled .NET4.8 support
  • UI improvements in Operations console:
    • Support for sort option by column, in Overrides Summary.
    • For Monitors, Rules, Task and Discoveries, Management Pack label text is selectable in the workflow Properties window.
    • Added new fields for Class Technical Name in the State Views. Added the same in the wizard for creating a new Alert, Event, Performance or State View.
    • Added Target Class Display Name to help identify the target of a rule while selecting rules during the creation of a new Performance View.
    • Added 3 new columns Management Pack, Sealed and Members in the Authoring pane > Groups.

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SCOM 2019: Which management server is my gateway paired to?

Sometimes for a variety of reasons it becomes necessary to try and figure out which gateways are paired to which management servers and unfortunately this is a configuration that can often slip under the radar when documenting a management group.

Luckily there is a simply way to figure this out without having to log on to each server and trawl through the registry.

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Powershell to the recue!

Get-SCOMGatewayManagementServer | where {$_.Name –eq “< GATEWAY SERVER >”} | Get-SCOMParentManagementServer

Note: this command has changed slightly from past versions of SCOM

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SCOM 2019: Update Rollup 3 released!

The much anticipated UR3 for SCOM 2019 is out as usual available through windows update or via the packages here

This is a solid update with many useful fixes and includes the security hotfix released last month for previous versions of SCOM 2019

Improvements and issues that are fixed

Operations Console fixes and changes

  • SCOM UI scaling issues for high resolution displays have been fixed to work seamlessly.
  • Some IPv4 resources were being discovered as IPv6 in a cluster where both resources co-existed. This logic has been fixed to ensure IPv4 resources are no longer discovered as IPv6.
  • The UR2 setup stalling issue at the “Removing backup files” stage has been fixed. The task wait time threshold has been set to 30 mins. It is also recommended to have Service Broker always enabled for smooth functioning of Operations Manager.
  • The assumption of having provider element to be the first reference in the connection string has been removed in the OleDB module.
  • Fixed the combo box related text issue regarding the domain of a new RunAs account getting incorrectly changed.This issue was arising when creating a new RunAs Account in the SCOM console for an account that belongs to an untrusted domain, the fix ensures that the domain of the newly created RunAs Account should remain the one initially specified during the account creation.
  • Fixed the “invalid class” error that was occurring when adding a subscriber with user details having more than 1024 attributes.
  • Daily aggregation of reports now takes date and time into consideration to ensure time-period calculation is accurate.
  • Fixed the monitoring agent related issue around formatted strings, these are now read from the provider dlls to show a localized string.
  • Fix has been provided for when the monitor erroneously turns critical due to the URL module incorrectly parsing the charset header value.

Web Console fixes and changes

  • The security issue regarding reverse tab nabbing has been fixed in the operations manager web console.
  • Fixed the filter issue that occurred when state view was created in “My Workspace” in the web console.
  • Global search option for Metrics section of Performance Widget in the Web Console has been fixed.

Other Fixes:

  • Updating Management Groups with a shared Data Warehouse to UR2 sometimes lead to issues with reports deployment. This is now fixed by restricting Installation of sealed MP with same version in the Data Warehouse.
  • Migrate SSL Admin certificates to Microsoft PKI – Pinning Thread for Agents
  • Fixed the issue that was occurring when the UR2 SQL patch is executed again on a previously patched database.
  • The deadlock issues arising when SCOM agents are put into maintenance mode using SCOM API with parallelism have been resolved by adding indexes and updating the SQL queries.
  • Performance improvement of the DB function fn_ManagedEntityLifetimeDependency.
  • Updated the scoping logic used in some State View queries and Console Cache Refresh queries for performance improvement.
  • Added “Recompile” flag for sprocs “p_SelectForTypeCache” and “p_SelectForNewTypeCache” for SCOM perf improvement.

Unix/Linux/Network monitoring fixes and changes:

  • The issue with SSH call failure leading to memory corruption has been fixed .
  • Fixed a thread race condition that was leading to Linux script based monitoring fails due to child process that failed to start.
  • Fixed an infinite loop condition, which was leading to the 100% CPU related issue.
  • The issue of the MonitoringHost.exe process crashing on the Management Servers that run the Unix/Linux workflows has been fixed.
  • Fixed the memory leak inside of the WsMan modules when UseMIAPI is enabled with workflows that have SplitItems set to TRUE for the EnumerateAsWA WriteAction.

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SCOM 2019: New version of the SQL Management Pack v7.0.24.0

The latest version of the SQL version agnostic mp is out you can get it here

What’s New

  • Added a new “Securables Configuration Status” monitor targeted to SQL Server databases
  • Updated the “Product Version Compliance” monitor with the most recent versions of public updates for SQL Server
  • Updated the “Securables Configuration Status” monitor targeted to the DB Engine when a SQL Server instance participates in Availability Groups
  • Removed the “Securables Configuration Status” monitor targeted to the Availability Replica as non-useful
  • Updated the “SQL Server Database Engines” discovery; the “Netbios Computer Name” property is now uppercased.
  • Added reports from version-specific management packs for SQL Server
  • Updated monitor “Job Duration” to add current job run’s duration to its alert description
  • Updated Web Console version of SQL MP Dashboards to support SCOM 2019 UR1
  • Updated alert description of monitor “Securables Configuration Status”
  • Added “CheckStartupType” property to SSIS Health Status monitor
  • Revised columns of SQL Agent and SQL Agent Jobs state views
  • Updated display strings

Issues Fixed

  • Fixed error “Unsupported path format” in workflows targeting Filegroups
  • Fixed discovery error on non-readable availability replicas
  • Fixed wrong Run As profile in SSIS Seed Discovery
  • Fixed issue that caused rule “Disable Discovery of Selected DB Engines” to fail
  • Fixed discovery issue for databases in recovering state
  • Fixed issue in monitor “Securables Configuration Status” when it went critical on Shared-Memory-only SQL Servers
  • Fixed the Alerting Rules data source to avoid an alert storm after exiting maintenance mode
  • Fixed the SQL Log Reader data source to support changing of the SQL Authentication method
  • Fixed the Performance Reader data source to support changing of the SQL Authentication method

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SCOM 2019: Scheduled reports fail to run – The job failed. Unable to determine if the owner has access

I encountered a minor issue today which luckily proved simple to solve. Hopefully this proves useful to others.

The Issue:

In a brand new SCOM 2019 deployment the scheduled reports weren’t sending. After investigation I found the below error in the Application log on the SSRS server:

SQL Server Scheduled Job ’62A9826E-082B-4ACD-9270-6BC13FC260BE’ (0x832F33183531EF4483665BBBFCCEBD9A) – Status: Failed – Invoked on: 2020-08-05 11:00:00 – Message: The job failed. Unable to determine if the owner (DOMAIN\USER) of job 62A9826E-082B-4ACD-9270-6BC13FC260BE has server access (reason: Could not obtain information about Windows NT group/user ‘DOMAIN\USER’, error code 0x5. [SQLSTATE 42000] (Error 15404)).

The Solution

The SSRS Instance, in this case SQL 2016 SP2, was deployed using system accounts for the SQL Server and SQL agent services. Simply changing these to use a domain account with access to the SQL instance resolved the issue and reports started sending shortly after.

See the source image

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SCOM 2019: Update Rollup 2 Released!

UR 2 for SCOM 2019 is out and it’s a big one get it here

This is a fantastic update with the long awaited MP change tracking feature and tons of fixes.

What’s new?

  • Change tracking for management packs
  • Improvements in scheduled maintenance mode
  • Favorite reports in web console
  • Support for folders in monitoring view of web console
  • Support for CentOS 8

What’s fixed?

This is a big update and the list of fixes is long as this includes not only the recent SCOM hotfix but also many other useful changes see here for the full list.

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Coming soon: SCOM as a Service!

See the source image

Let me start by saying that this news is really exciting, as any one in the monitoring world can tell you SCOM has faced a little bit of uncertainty in the past and the announcement of an upcoming SCOMaaS offering from Microsoft sends a clear message that the product has a place in the companies future.

Not a lot of information is available yet but here’s what we do know:

For starters the solution will be containerized which will leverage all of the benefits of containers such as speed of deployment and scaling to name a few.

A SCOM administrator will be able to “lift & shift” their existing SCOM environment into Azure – Aakash Basavaraj Program Manager for the SCOM Team at Microsoft.

This bodes well for existing SCOM customers as it means that the ability to easily migrate to a SCOMaaS solution will be available and that they won’t have to set up their new platform from scratch. This really shows that Microsoft has given thought and care towards truly bringing SCOM to the cloud.

When will is be available?

Unfortunately no details are available yet around timelines or pricing, I know I’ll be watching this develop with keen interest. One thing is for certain SCOM and Azure Monitor are now more firmly hand in hand then ever before.

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SCOM 2019: Updated SQL Management Packs for SSRS and SSAS v7.0.22.0

Updated management packs for SSRS and SSAS have been released, they are available at the below links and support versions from 2012 through to 2019 and now include Power BI Report Server:

SQL Server Analysis Services

SQL Server Reporting Services

SQL Server Analysis Services MP Changelog

What’s New

  • Added support for SQL Server Analysis Services 2012, 2014, and 2016 in addition to previously supported 2017 and up
  • Added Start/Stop Analysis Services Windows Service tasks
  • Implemented Database Status monitor 
  • Updated display strings

SQL Server Reporting Services MP Changelog

What’s New

  • Added support for monitoring SQL Server Reporting Services 2012, 2014, and 2016 in addition to 2017 and up
  • Added Start/Stop Reporting Services Windows Service tasks
  • Updated Event Log Collection Target Management Server Discovery to make it use default SCOM action profile instead of SQL MP Discovery run as profile
  • Updated display name of SSRS Deployment object to display AG name as part of it instead of GUID
  • Updated logic of installation detection for local Reporting Services instance to query Windows Registry instead of WMI
  • Improved error handling for cases when error “Process with an Id is not running” is returned
  • Updated display strings

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed false alerting with status code 400 in monitor Report Manager Accessible for SSRS 2016 and PBIRS
  • Fixed alert parameter replacement failure in monitor Report Manager Accessible
  • Fixed issue with accessing DBConnectionString property of PBIRS
  • Fixed NullReferenceException error when Report Server portal being configured to have several ports

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Azure Monitor and SCOM: Together in a hybrid world

I recently published an article on LinkedIn with my thoughts on monitoring Hybrid cloud with Azure Monitor and SCOM, I am cross posting on my blog for my record but if you prefer you can also read it here https://lnkd.in/d8PvWsH

With the shift of the IT landscape towards public cloud and then toward hybrid there has been some confusion as to which monitoring solutions are the best fit. People with System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) are wondering about the product life-cycle and others are wondering where Azure Monitor comes into the picture.

Hopefully I can shed a little light onto this puzzle.

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First lets look at SCOM, well good news, it’s not going anywhere for quite some time. The current iteration 2019 has a commitment of 10 years of support from Microsoft with an Update Rollup release every 6 months. If you have any on-premise real estate then SCOM is still a strong contender to manage those systems with it’s powerful proven track record, extensible custom monitoring and data-center focused features. If you have extended your network into the cloud you can also leverage these features for your data center-like IaaS components such as VMs.

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Now for your cloud needs, let’s talk Azure Monitor. You may be thinking “but I’m not using Azure” and that’s ok because have I got more good news for you, Azure Monitor can integrate with VM’s running on other clouds, additionally with Azure Arc you can now make use of Azure services and features on any cloud.

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Azure Monitor is a cloud first monitoring tool as such it’s designed to manage and monitor a wide range of cloud components and services leveraging not only the real-time capabilities of Azure Metrics but also the power of Log Analytics both of which feed into a wide variety of insights, visuals and analysis tools. This allows you to have a complete in-depth picture of your cloud real estate from a single location. Azure Monitor is also designed to be configured to monitor only the items you deem most critical which, when done properly results in a lean noise free monitoring experience.

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So what should I use to monitor my Hybrid Cloud scenario?

The short answer is: No matter where you are you are on your cloud journey there’s a monitoring scenario that has you covered.

Regardless of whether you are migrating your VMs to an IaaS platform; refactoring your on-premise applications to leverage PaaS/SaaS services or have some applications which reach back into your on-premise environment, you have options and you don’t have to use a single tool either

Lets unpack this a bit.

If you have a large on-premises environment then certainly a data center designed tool such as SCOM will meet your needs and it can also cater for any VMs that you have migrated into the cloud. This will of course give you the on-prem monitoring experience that you are familiar with, which does offer a level of comfort while preparing to move to more cloud focused services.

Similarly if you are nearing the end of your cloud journey then Azure Monitor has got you covered from Billing to Subscriptions and everything in-between. Not only will you be able to proactively handle your tenant and resources through automation but you will also have access to rich interactive reports in the form of workbooks as well as machine learning capabilities.

However if you are between these two scenarios you can use both tools, in fact I’d even encourage it, they work very well together and leverage each others strengths to give a comprehensive single pane of glass across any Hybrid environment.

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