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Finally 2012 has arrived…

Ok first of all I’m wishing you all a very nice year 2012 with everything you wish for as well on private as professional fields…

But enough chit chat. That’s not why I’m so excited.

THIS… yes THIS year will be a milestone in the System Center family. All the new versions of System Center products are just waiting around the corner packed with new features to make your live as a Sysctr admins even easier.

It has been a bit quiet on this blog due to various professional and personal reasons but my resolution for 2012 (at least one I can keep) is to start posting to this blog back regularly.

Stay tuned for the next events in the pipeline:

• 06/01: I’ll be speaking at the next event of scug.nl: “Meet the System Center Operations Manager 2012”: http://www.scug.nl/2011/12/07/meet-the-system-center-operations-manager-2012-experts-6-januari-2012/
• 16/04 – 20/04: I’ll be attending MMS at the venetian (if you want to hook up drop me a line on twitter )
• 08/05: I’ll be hosting a livemeeting: The One million dollar question: Should I upgrade to Scom2012? More info later.

Next blog series in the pipeline:

• I’ll be highlighting the project approach on how to tackle a SCOM project (new install / upgrade)
• Of course all the hot news of MMS
• Various comparisons between SCOM2007R2 and SCOM2012
• And last but not least the various troubleshoots I need to pull out of my sleeve to resolve the SCOM issues which are thrown at me at various customer sites.

So take a deep breath, close your eyes and then jump in and let the system center 2012 rollercoaster take off

Meet the System Center Operations Manager 2012 Experts

I have the privilege of giving a session at the “Meet the System Center operations Manager 2012 Experts” event of Scug NL on 06/01/2012.

On the link below you can find the different topics + timetable.

http://www.scug.nl/2011/12/07/meet-the-system-center-operations-manager-2012-experts-6-januari-2012/

I’ll go over the different aspects of preparing yourself for the upgrade / move to the next best thing SCOM2012 by planning and not by being the IT_Rambo for a change…

There’s a good chance that IT-Rambo will surface in NL.

So if you see him start hitting next as quick as possible!

MMS 2012: Registration is open!

The Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) is THE event for all professionals who are working with the System Center Suite products.

This year the event is held from 16/04/2011 – 20/04/2011 at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.

5 days packed with sessions of qualified speakers, hands-on labs and different opportunities to meet with peers and top notch experts on a variety of different subjects with one thing in common System Center!

This year will be an even more special edition with all the new 2012 versions coming out for different products!

So if you work with System Center products be sure to be there!

Scug will be there with a delegation so if you are joining make sure to drop us a line so we can meet up!

More info here: http://www.mms-2012.com/

SCOM 2012: Webconsole fails to load after upgrade

In my recent session I’ve showcased an error I encountered when upgrading my SCOM2007R2 environment to SCOM2012beta.

After the upgrade was finished successful I performed my standard after migration health check and opened my web console to check out the new features of the SCOM 2012 console.

Only to find out this very “nice” cryptic error message:

Apparently this is because the ASP.NET version was installed after the IIS role and the new web app “SCOM 2012 Web Console” was never registered to use this version of ASP.NET with the IIS role.

So what are we going to do now… well euhm… Fix it

Open an elevated command prompt (make it a habit, this will save you a lot of trouble in your live)

Open explorer and browse to “c:\windows\Microsoft.net\Framework64\v4.0.30319\”

Note: Make sure you use your installed framwork and version

Locate the file aspnet_regiis.exe and drag it into your elevated command prompt and add the switch –iru at the end as shown below.

This actually will reinstall the ASP.NET version into the IIS sites so they can all use the new version. Sites which already use the new version are left untouched.

Finished installing… So we’ll see what happened to our console!

Well it’s loading up fine at this point

Note: You’ll need to have Silverlight installed. If you don’t have it on your machine a nice kind message will appear whether you want to install it. I’ve installed it in advance as it is one of the prerequisites.

There we have our nice brand new shiny Scom 2012 web console which we can start exploring

SCOM 2012: Upgrade failed with error 0x80070005

During the prep of my lab I came across an error which was in fact not this very common so I’ve decided to share my solution with you to save you some trouble when performing this in your environment.

After running through the entire installation wizard my upgrade process started fine… But after 10 minutes…

After restarting the process I was left with a broken SCOM2007R2 and SCOM2012 not installed. SQL Reporting services were broken so I had to revert my machine back to a snapshot I took earlier on and started all over again…

Now the solution so you shouldn’t have to go through the whole process of troubleshooting.

After checking the log file I found the following cause of my initial failing of the upgrade:

“System.UnauthorizedAccessException, Exception Error Code: 0x80070005, Exception.Message: Access to the path ‘MOMAspNet.msi’ is denied.”

This in fact is your ASP.net msi which is used when you install the agents. I’ve checked the rights and they were all good.

Delete folder: “C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\AgentManagement”

The installation went through after this.

After your upgrade this folder will be replaced anyway by the new SCOM2012 agent install packages so it’s safe to delete this before upgrade.

Another little step towards our brand new shining SCOM2012 environment

SCOM 2012: Don’t be the IT-Rambo…

The title says it all…

Don’t be the IT-Rambo but prepare yourself for the move to SCOM2012 by checking my session which I gave the 20th of September and is now available online.

Check it here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/Hh443650

The slide deck is also available here: https://skydrive.live.com/?sc=documents&cid=f14edda98c2a18de#!/view.aspx?cid=F14EDDA98C2A18DE&resid=F14EDDA98C2A18DE%21126

SCOM 2012: Run WebConsole in different application pool

During my session on how to prepare yourself I’ve showcased some tips and tricks which will make your live much easier when you upgrade your existing SCOM 2007 R2 installation to SCOM2012.

One of the tricks I’ve mentioned was to run the SCOM2012 web console in it’s own app pool. During the upgrade of your web console the application pool will be removed and you can only choose the default application pool to install the website which is in my opinion not a best practice.

So before installing the Web Console on your webserver perform the following tasks in IIS:

Open the IIS manager on your machine

Right click the application pools and choose “Add Web Site…”

Fill in the details:

Note: At this point you need to choose another port than the default 51908. You can change this again after the upgrade.

The site is up and running.

During the wizard for pre installation you’ll get at one point at the following dialog to choose your application pool. Here’s the reason explained why we can’t reuse the “old” site:

The Operations Manager WebConsole will be deleted during the upgrade so it will default to the default application pool.

Select the new created website and continue.

After the upgrade you’ll notice that the old site has been removed. At this point you can edit the binding of the application pool again to the default port to keep the same transparency towards your users.

More tips to follow so stay tuned!

SCDPM 2012 Beta: How to install

Well the beta is live now. So let’s start installing it. In this particular case I’m installing it on a Hyper-V machine in my test environment. The SQL is on the same machine as this is just a lab environment.

Always make sure to run the Setup.exe as administrator. When opened we get the familiar install screen of all the System Center products.

Click the “Data Protection Manager”.

Accept the license terms and conditions and click OK.

After this the DPM installer will install all the necessary prerequisites to get the install going. These are not yet the prerequisites for the DPM itself.

When these are finished the familiar DPM install screen appears. Nothing changed here so far. Click next to continue with the Prerequisites check.

As said before I’m running this purely as test in my lab so I’m using a Dedicated Instance of SQL Server and install it on my DPM server. Click “Check and install”

DPM will install the basic components.

Unfortunately there’s a reboot required after installing the SISFilter. If you want to avoid this you could install the filter in advance by downloading it here:

After reboot run through the process again and choose Next when all the prerequisites are installed.

Fill in unser name and Company and click next.

I’ve left the defaults here but you can easily change them if you please.

Put in a strong password to run the SQL Server service and Server Agent Service.

Use Microsoft Update choice. It’s up to you to use the Microsoft update or not. I prefer to put this on Microsoft Update to receive the updates when they appear.

CEIP data. Again a personal choice to participate or not.

A nice summary before the magic happens.

Clicking install still launches a Security warning to open the SQL 2008 setup file. Click Run to continue.

The SQL Server install will take some time. In my case 14 minutes. Note that this can vary in your environment but don’t worry it’ll get there eventually. If you have a remote instance this step is not necessary.

Everything went fine.

So let’s open the console for the first time to check it out!

Time to start playing and see the new features in action.

I’ll be installing the SCOM extensions as well shortly to check out the new remote manage capabilities.

Live meeting: How to prepare for SCOM 2012

On 20th of September I’ll be hosting a live meeting where we’ll go over the different steps to prepare yourself and your environment for the move from SCOM 2007 to SCOM 2012. The upgrade path has been said to be easier than the one from MOM2005 to SCOM2007 (god thank). But still there are some things to keep in mind and consider before moving towards the new version when it’s released.

So join me on the 20th of September to prepare yourself for the next version of the SCOM software family.

The abstract of the topics covered (more to come):

• Backup and Document your environment.
• Health Check your SCOM installation.
• Compare management packs for SCOM2007 and SCOM2012.
• Supported upgrade paths.

Link to join in: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032492077&Culture=en-US

I’ll be prepared for SCOM 2012… will you?

SCOM 2007: How to add Custom Field to monitor

In SCOM 2007 it’s possible to fill in custom fields with rules like you did in MOM 2005 as explained here: http://scug.be/blogs/dieter/archive/2011/05/13/scom-2007-custom-alert-fields.aspx

However this is not possible in monitors because there’s a fundamental change in how the alerts are created. In Rules the GenerateAlert module is used to create the alerts. In this GenerateAlert module it’s possible to pass extra data like the custom fields. In monitors the alert creation is slightly different. The alert is generate with parameters in the monitor itself so it’s not possible to pass extra data.

Case:

For a client I’m migrating MOM2005 to SCOM2007R2 and of course I would like to take advantage of the fact I can create monitors instead of rules. My client has a mainframe based problem management system (could also be any other system which doesn’t have a connector) which uses a mail scrubber to read out mails and scan for specific keywords to create tickets.

Problem:

The specific keywords were passed in MOM through the custom fields. This is also possible in SCOM but only by using rules and not monitors. A solution could be to create a monitor and create a separate alert generating rule for that monitor. This solves our issue but is not manageable because if things change you have to change both the monitor and the rule to make sure they reflect the new situation.

Solution:

Therefore I came up with another solution. Because there are only 15 possible combinations of keywords at my client I choose to use the Subscription / notification channel to insert the keywords in the dbase before I send it to the Problem management system. I could have just passed the parameters to the mail and send it but I prefer to update the dbase as well to also reflect the changes in the alert.

I’ve based my script on the script I used earlier on and is featured here: http://scug.be/blogs/dieter/archive/2011/05/11/scom-dump-alerts-to-text-file-and-mail.aspx

The main difference with the script above is that instead of reading the custom fields out of the dbase I pass them with the Notification Channel. Doing this makes the keywords centrally manageable when the keywords change.

The script:

As mentioned above I mostly reused the script of my previous blog post but for the record I’ll explain the script here once more:

First of all. You can download the script here: http://scug.be/members/DieterWijckmans/files/create_customfields_monitors.zip.aspx

Preparing the environment and reading the parameters:

The main difference with the previous script is the fact that we are not reading the data out of the dbase (in the $_.customfield fields) but inserting the data in the dbase through parameters by using the script.

Parameters: The “param” statement needs to be on the first line of the script. In my case I’m reading 3 parameters: The alertID (which is mandatory for the script), The Problemtype and the Objecttype.

The last 2 fields will be inserted in the $_.customfield dbase fields and are needed by the third party problem management solution to make the proper escalation.

RMS: Read the RMS server name of your environment. If you are using a clustered RMS it’s better to fill in the name of the cluster and comment the automatic retrieval of the name out to avoid problems.

Resolution State: The resolution state needs to be defined here and also defined in the SCOM environment (for more details on how to configure this in the SCOM environment check here: http://scug.be/blogs/dieter/archive/2011/05/11/scom-create-custom-alert-resolution-states.aspx

Loading the SCOM cmdlet

Culture Info: To make sure that the data format is correct you need to fill in the Localization. In my case it’s nl-BE.

Read in alert + fill in custom fields: The alertID which is passed as parameter is read in here and the data is retrieved out of the dbase. The other 3 custom fields which are required by the problem management system are filled in here and updated in the dbase. Technically there’s no obligation to fill in the fields in the dbase but to make sure that the custom fields are filled in when you open the alert in the console I update the alert anyway.

Error Handling setup to make sure we have proper error handling

The conversion before dumping the data to the file.

Note that I needed to make modifications to the date format to reflect the localization format here. All the data will be dumped to a file which is kept for future reference. The File path in yellow can be changed to reflect your location.

Mailing section:

Mailing the file to the problem management system or if in case an error occurred alerting the SCOM admin. Make sure you fill in the OK recipient, the NOK recipient and the SMTPserver to send out the mail.

Last but not least we are writing an event in the event log whether the operation was successful or not. This gives us the opportunity to monitor the problem creation script from within SCOM.

This solution works for me because I have a limited number of possible combinations.

A couple of things you need to configure before this script can be used in production:

1. Create custom resolution state in SCOM: http://scug.be/blogs/dieter/archive/2011/05/11/scom-create-custom-alert-resolution-states.aspx
2. Create a notification channel per combination of the values of the custom fields: http://scug.be/blogs/dieter/archive/2011/05/11/scom-setup-command-notification-channel-subscriber.aspx

1.  
   • The following data is needed for the notification channel
     •  
       • Full Path of the command file: In my case this is PowerShell as I would like to run a PowerShell script: C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Powershell.exe
       • Command Line Parameters: In my case I’m running a PowerShell script and I’m passing the AlertID of the specific alert, problemtype and objecttype as arguments which I’m using in my script. Again you can use any arguments here if you like: C:\scripts\monitorcustomfields\create_customfields_monitors.ps1 -sAlertid ‘$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertId$’ -Problemtype ‘OSSUP’ -Objecttype ‘server’
       • Startup folder for the command line: This is basically the path of your program you want to run. C:\scripts\monitorcustomfields

The script must be run on the RMS (if it’s a clustered RMS make sure that the script is on both clusters in the same location).

Note:  If you want to use more parameters or different names you have the change the following things:

• In the command line parameters: add –parametername ‘desired value’ to the command line
• In the script:
  • change the first line in the script to reflect your custom situation: param([string]parametername,…)
  • change the section where the custom fields are filled in to reflect your situation:
    • $oalert.customfield# = desired value

There are 10 customfields available in the dbase so you can pass up to 10 parameters in the script and thus into the customfields.

If you have remarks or questions regarding the script please do not hesitate to drop me a line or contact me on twitter http://twitter.com/#!/dieterwijckmans