This is a summary of the wave of Management Packs that were released in April 2016. Information and download location in the links provided:
Skype for Business Server 2015 MP v9319.247 – here Lync Server 2013 MP v8308.951 – here Lync Server 2010 MP v7577.723 – here Windows Server Storage Spaces 2012 R2 MP v1.1.270.0 – here Microsoft Azure MP (Technical Preview) v1.3.18.0 – here
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
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:
Automatic discovery for Client Sign-In Client applications that sign-in to Skype for Business Server 2015 often automatically discover the server to sign-in to. Synthetic transactions now support verification that automatic discovery is configured correctly.
Customized synthetic transaction run intervals To simplify the set up process of Watcher Nodes, synthetic transactions can share user accounts. This slows down the frequency at which the tests are run as the tests are serialized to avoid conflicts. By default, synthetic transactions run every 15 minutes to ensure all tests have time to run. Administrators who choose to use more users or fewer tests per user may now reduce the run interval, as well.
Video Interop Services synthetic transaction Customers who are migrating to Skype for Business Server 2015 from other vendor solutions often desire to continue using the video teleconferencing devices (VTCs) from these other vendors. Video Interop Server is a new Skype for Business Server 2015 server role that enables customers to continue to use Cisco VTCs in their conference rooms by connecting to Cisco CUCM via a video SIP trunk. This feature also adds a synthetic transaction to help verify that the Video Interop Server is up and can handle incoming connections over a video SIP trunk.
Application Sharing Conferencing synthetic transaction End-to-end scenario validation for Application Sharing Conferences is now supported.
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…’”
This is a summary of the wave of Management Packs that were released in March 2016. Information and download location in the links provided:
SQL Management Packs v6.6.7.6 – here OpsLogix VMware MP V1.3.2.10 – here Windows Server Technical Preview MP v10.0.0– here SQL Server MP Community Technical Preview 1 – here SCCM MP v5.00.8239.1008 – here
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
An updated SCCM MP has been released and is available here.
The guide refers to itself as being an RTM release and doesn’t include any change log so testing will be required. There is however an extensive appendix which includes a list of rules/monitors for every SCCM component.
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 Analysis Services 2016 MP Features and Fixes
Updated references and removed deprecated elements to support 6.6.4.0+ visualization library
Fixed bug when SSAS Monitoring Pack could not collect OS performance counters with localized names
Updated discoveries to throw errors in case of some problems detected during the discovery
Fixed module error collection on cluster instances to reduce the noise
Changed defaults for CPU Usage monitor, added sampling to Memory Usage on the server monitor
Reduced inner complexity of modules
Fixed the discoveries; now the last items can be undiscovered
Simplified the dashboard to make it quicker and more informative
Reviewed and updated the Knowledge Bases
Added timeout support for every non-native workflow
Fixed Blocking Session Monitor – in some situations it could calculate blocking sessions incorrectly
Win10 support: fixed OS version detection issue
Fixed CPU usage alert description
“Known Issues and Troubleshooting” section of the guide is updated
New Reporting Services 2016 MP Features and Fixes
Fixed issue: Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server Reporting Services doesn’t discover SSRS instance when the instance name starts from some certain symbols (0-9, A-F)
Instance configuration monitor is introduced
Implemented a better logging system
Improved the Report Manager availability monitor: now it parses human readable message to get the real status of the Report Manager
Improved the Report Manager and Web Service availability monitors: now the user can treat some status codes as healthy via the override.
Fixed the discoveries, now the last items can be undiscovered
Added timeout support for every non-native workflow
Simplified the dashboard to make it quicker and more informative
Reviewed and updated the Knowledge Base articles
Improved Run As mappings
Updated the discoveries to throw errors in case of some problems detected during the discovery
Updated the references and removed deprecated elements to support 6.6.4.0+ visualization library
Changed the performance rules write actions accounts to “Default Action account”
“Known Issues and Release Notes” section of the guide is updated
Fixed “Memory consumed by other processes (%)” rule having no Run As profile for DS; added SQL MP default Run As to the data source
Fixed “Failing replacement: $Data/Context/Property[@Name='<MonitorName>’]$” issue in OM log
New SQL Server 2005-2012 MP Features and Fixes
Fixed intermittent “Cannot login to database” alert with some rules
Added support for SQL Express Instances
Updated Knowledge Base articles
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 x86 on Windows 2008 R2: fixed the issue when DB file groups cannot be discovered
Win10 support: fixed “Cannot bind argument to parameter ‘Path’ because it is an empty string.” issue
Fixed issue when SQL Configuration Manager starts snap-in of wrong version
Fixed invalid Always On non-readable replica detection
New SQL Server 2014-2016 MP Features and Fixes
Fixed intermittent “Cannot login to database” alert with some rules
Fixed display string for AgentsGroup.Discovery
Added support of SQL Server Express Instances
Always On issue: Events “967” are no longer fired for File Group and Files discoveries when server has a non-readable DB
DB Discovery issue fixed: masterDB is to be used if the target is inaccessible
DBSize issue: filter < 0 values in provider, return data for fileSize
Win10 support: fixed “Cannot bind argument to parameter ‘Path’ because it is an empty string.” issue
Agent Job Discovery is now disabled by default
Fixed issue when SQL Configuration Manager starts snap-in of wrong version
Fixed invalid Always On non-readable replica detection
OpsLogix, a company long involved in developing management packs to improve the functionality of SCOM, have released an update to their VMware management pack. It is already available if you have a valid support contract.
Version 1.3.2.10 contains following changes or additions:
The VMware modules have been optimized to take up less cpu/mem resources.
Previously, the performance collections for Virtual Machines were disabled by default. In this version you can enable it with an override.
Performance collections for Virtual Machines are set to 15min intervals
Performance monitoring for Virtual Machines and ESX Hosts are set to 5 min intervals
Added Virtual Machine Snapshot to count monitoring as running level and total count
Added property to see what snapshot is currently used for the Virtual Machine
Added the location path of the Host and Virtual Machine. For example: now you can see on which host a Virtual Machine is currently running.
Removed the overall status of a datacenter based on the VMware api. A rollup based on the availability status has been added.
Added availability, configuration, performance and security rollups for the datacenter.
Added VMware tools status monitoring.
Optimized the connections/session to the Vcenter or hosts to read out the monitoring data.
Updated the layout of the configuration dashboard.
Extra log features have been added to debug the management pack by using special registry keys.
The password is now always stored as FIPS. In environments without FIPS it will fall back to NON-FIPS.
Updated installation guide with new UI screenshots.
Microsoft has finally officially recommended a workaround that some of us have been using for some time to keep the SQL dashboards in a usable state.
Dashboards may work slowly if used rarely
Issue: When used rarely or after a long break, the dashboards may work rather slowly due to large amounts of the collected data to be processed; especially, it is related to large environments (2000+ objects).
Resolution: Below is a “warming up” script, which may be used to create an SQL job to run on some schedule. Before scheduling it as an SQL job, please test how long these queries will be executing (if you will schedule it to run too often or execution time is too long, that may kill the performance). If you have dashboards with thousands of objects to load, then time to load the content will be 10+ seconds anyway. It was tested with 600 000 objects, and the dashboard loading time was 1-2 minutes.
Several SQL Management packs have been updated, version 6.6.7.6 for each of them can be found at the following locations:
As usual treat new management packs with caution, especially considering the recent issues with SQL and Base OS ones and test, test, test!
SQL Server 2014 Analysis Services – here SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services – here SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services – here
SQL Server 2014 Reporting Services (Native Mode) – here SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services (Native Mode) – here SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services (Native Mode) – here
Fixed “The client has been disconnected from the server. Please call ManagementGroup.Reconnect() to reestablish the connection” exception.
Replaced 999+ presentation with a new one (26.2k)
Added configurable rule to pre-aggregate data in the DW (see the corresponding Known Issue)
Added second row in the instance view to show Path of the object, and allow searching by Path.
Fixed tooltip presentation on the Instance view
“Known issues and Troubleshooting” section of the guide is updated
SQL Server Reporting Services
Fixed issue: Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server Reporting Services doesn’t discover SSRS instance when the instance name starts from some certain symbols (0-9, A-F)
Instance configuration monitor is introduced
Implemented a better logging system
Improved the Report Manager availability monitor: now it parses human readable message to get the real status of the Report Manager
Improved the Report Manager and Web Service availability monitors: now the user can treat some status codes as healthy via the override.
Fixed the discoveries, now the last items can be undiscovered
Added timeout support for every non-native workflow
Simplified the dashboard to make it quicker and more informative
Reviewed and updated the Knowledge Base articles
Improved Run As mappings
Updated the discoveries to throw errors in case of some problems detected during the discovery
Updated the references and removed deprecated elements to support 6.6.4.0+ visualization library
Changed the performance rules write actions accounts to “Default Action account”
“Known Issues and Release Notes” section of the guide is updated
Fixed “Memory consumed by other processes (%)” rule having no Run As profile for DS; added SQL MP default Run As to the data source
Fixed “Failing replacement: $Data/Context/Property[@Name='<MonitorName>’]$” issue in OM log
SQL Server Analysis Services
Updated references and removed deprecated elements to support 6.6.4.0+ visualization library
Fixed bug when SSAS Monitoring Pack could not collect OS performance counters with localized names
Updated discoveries to throw errors in case of some problems detected during the discovery
Fixed module error collection on cluster instances to reduce the noise
Changed defaults for CPU Usage monitor, added sampling to Memory Usage on the server monitor
Reduced inner complexity of modules
Fixed the discoveries; now the last items can be undiscovered
Simplified the dashboard to make it quicker and more informative
Reviewed and updated the Knowledge Bases
Added timeout support for every non-native workflow
Fixed Blocking Session Monitor – in some situations it could calculate blocking sessions incorrectly
Win10 support: fixed OS version detection issue
Fixed CPU usage alert description
“Known Issues and Troubleshooting” section of the guide is updated
