An updated MP has been released for Lync Server 2013 version 8308.956 is available here.
Once again documentation for this MP has also not been updated to include any fixes or updates at this time.
A new MP for SharePoint Server 2016 has been released it is available for download here.
The guide does not seem to be in the catalog yet but setup seems to be the same at for the SharePoint 2013 MP.
The SharePoint management packs can be quite tricky to get working, there are some particular access requirements which aren’t completely documented.
With the above access and correct configuration of the run as account and microsoft.sharepoint.library.mp.config all should be fine.
Note: microsoft.sharepoint.library.mp.config needs to be in the same location on all management servers in your management group. Otherwise the discovery task might not complete.
Those nice people over at NiCE have released a new management pack for IBM PowerHA (HACMP). More information and pricing is available here.
The MP offers the following features:
• Full overview of PowerHA landscape
• Detailed Resource Group Monitoring
• Cluster Status Monitoring
• Native SCOM integration means:
no additional services to be installed,
no ports to be opened,
re-use of existing AIX agent
• Using standard SCOM views and MP architecture
• Built on reliable NiCE components
A new version of the Azure technical preview MP has been released you can get version 1.3.18.0 here
New in this version
There has been a minor update to the Exchange 2013 management pack version 15.0.666.20 can be download here.
Fixes in this version
Exception:
‘InvalidOperationException’: The given value of type String from the data source cannot be converted to type nvarchar of the specified target column.
One or more workflows were affected by this.
Workflow name: Microsoft.Exchange.15.MailboxStatsSubscription.Rule
I’ve made some amendments to the Database Status Report that I posted about in 2015, Version 4 is now more streamlined and cleaner.
Sample screenshot:
Feel free to contact me for information on this report or the questions about the RDL.
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has any comments or suggestions on this report or ideas for future ones.
This posting is a continuation of my basics series, this one deals with Understanding Grooming and Aggregation, two very important concepts which can have great impact on your environment if they are not functioning properly.
First you need to understand the different between these two concepts, at their most basic, Grooming is the method where data older then a specific period, called the retention period, is deleted. Aggregation is the method where raw data, which is collected on short intervals i.e. 5 minutes, are averaged into hourly and daily time intervals used for reporting purposes.
The Operations Database
A stored procedure, called p_PartitioningandGrooming is run by a SCOM rule on a once a day schedule. The retention settings for each data type can be set in the console under Administration > Settings > Database Grooming.
You can see the history of the OpsDB grooming jobs with the following SQL query:
select * from InternalJobHistory order by InternalJobHistoryId desc
A Status of 1 indicates a successful completion.
The Operations Data-warehouse
The Data Warehouse is more complex, you cannot change data retention settings from the console, they exist in a table called StandardDatasetAggregation, which contains the grooming and aggregation retention periods, intervals and other related data.
Data in the DW database moves through several tables as part of the aggregations process as the data is collected it is written to a Raw Data table, from there is will move to a Staging table where it will be aggregated and then moved to a relevant aggregated data table (Hourly / Daily) where it will be available to the reporting services.
Then once the data in these tables is older then the data retention period it will be groomed out of the database.
So why is it important for aggregation to work?
Reports use the hourly and daily data in order to generate, this means that if your aggregations are not working or slow there will be gaps in your reporting. Example below:
And there you have it. the basics behind aggregation and grooming, I hope this has been informative.
The newly released Skype for Business Server 2015 management pack version 9319.247 is available for download here.
This MP guide is not included in the download but is available on a separate technet page.
New in this version:
Update:
As noted from Marnix wolfs blog There is an issue with the sealing of this MP, the following error occurs when importing.
“‘…This management pack cannot be imported.: Cannot load the management pack from the specified sealed assembly file: C:\Program Files\Skype for Business Server 2015\Management Packs\Management Packs\Microsoft.LS.2015.Monitoring.ActiveMonitoring.mp. This assembly is not fully signed. Cannot verify the strong name signature of the file: C:\Program Files\Skype for Business Server 2015\Management Packs\Management Packs\Microsoft.LS.2015.Monitoring.ActiveMonitoring.mp…’”
An updated MP has been released for Lync Server 2013 version 8308.951 is available here.
Documentation for this MP has also not been updated to include any fixes or updates at this time. Testing will be required.
A Community Technical Preview has been released for all of the SQL server versions and components they are available for download here. This MP is accompanied by a refresh of the SQL MPs released earlier this month v6.6.7.6, could this be an attempt to improve QA and testing on management pack releases, especially considering the issues with the SQL MP over the past year.
The new features and fixes introduced in CTP1 management packs are as follows:
New Reporting Services 2016 MP Features and Fixes
New SQL Server 2005-2012 MP Features and Fixes
New SQL Server 2014-2016 MP Features and Fixes