Blog

OMS Webinar: Get insights in your big data 07/03/2016

On 07/03/2016 I’ll be hosting another webinar on the excellent Microsoft Belux platform. This webinar about OMS will focus on getting the insights you need from the big data which resides in your workspace.

It’s basically a next step in your journey into a new way of creating your insights in your environment. This session will be filled with tips and tricks to select the correct solutions and create your first search queries to create something no one else can: your insights.

This session assumes you already have a basic knowledge of OMS and have already set up a workspace with data flowing into it. If not you can always check my get started fast series here: http://scug.be/dieter/2015/05/08/microsoft-operations-management-suite-quickstart-guide/

Hurry up as seats are unlimited and selling fast!

Register here and hopefully see you 7th of march at 10AM!

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032737604&Culture=en-BE&community=0

Technet Belux Webinar: 16/10/2015: OMS, What’s it all about…

It has been a while since I actually did a webinar for Technet Belux but it’s an honor and a privlege to be back on this platform answering one of the biggest question I get almost everyday at clients and at conferences:

“OMS, What’s it all about?”

During this session I’m going over the basics of the new OMS platform so you can be armed to position it in your environment or just have a starting point to start exploring the vast possibilities of OMS.

Expect the answers to the following questions during this session:

• What can it do for me?
• Do I need to take a look at it?
• What can it do to make my life as an ITPRO easier?
• Is this yet another tool that Microsoft is pushing us to use?
• Will it replace my good old on prem SCOM solution?
• ….

All these questions are actual questions I got from the community and clients.

“But hey… my question isn’t on there!”

No worries use the Q&A and get a chance to get yours answered!

So what are you waiting for? Make sure to register today to reserve your virtual seat for Friday 16/10/2015 as they are unlimited!

Register here: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032679984&Culture=en-BE&community=0

Hopefully see you there!

RECORDING is live and can be found here: https://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/BeLux-IT-Pro/OMS-Whats-it-all-about

Social Update: A manner of speaking…

A lot of exciting things are happening in the System Center community these days. Different new releases; new features are already delivered or are on the brink of being delivered shortly. TechED NA is right around the corner and other events are being planned as well. I always enjoy being part of these events and meet old and new friends all with the same interest: System Center products.

This blog post will be my (and your) one place to keep track of all sessions which I’m presenting and events I’ll be attending both national and International.

Hope you will attend one of my sessions and if you do, make sure to take the time to meet up!

If you have any suggestions or question about this list please sure to drop me a line on twitter or send me a mail

SCOM: Agentpostinstall.ps1 PowerShell demo script Webcast 01042014

On april 1st 2014 (a day I will remember for a long time due to various reasons) I held a webcast for Microsoft Technet Belux regarding automation of admin tasks in SCOM.

I went over the basics to get started, the pitfalls and gave some tips and tricks to get you going. This session was recorded and together with the slide deck it’s made available here:

http://www.slideshare.net/technetbelux/make-scom-work-for-you-and-not-the-other-way-around

In this demo I created a small PowerShell script that could save you some time when agents are installed in your environment through an image. In this particular scenario the agents are automatically in the “pending approval” list in SCOM.

Running this PowerShell will add them to the environment, make them remotely manageable, point them all to a management server of your choice and put agent proxying on true.

Feel free to adapt the script for your needs.

The script in question:

[xml]

#=====================================================================================================
# AUTHOR:    Dieter Wijckmans
# DATE:        01/04/2014
# Name:        agentpostinstall.PS1
# Version:    1.0
# COMMENT:    Approve agents after install, make remotely manageable, assign to 1 management server
#           and enable agent proxying.
#
# Usage:    .\postinstallagenttasks.ps1 mgserverfrom mgserverto sqlserverinstance dbase
# Parameters: mgserverfrom: the primary server at this point
#             mgserverto: The new primary server
#             sqlserverinstance: the sql server where the opsdb resides + instance
#             dbase: name of the opsdb
#
#=====================================================================================================

param ([string]$mgserverfrom,[string]$mgserverto,[string]$sqlserverinstance,[string]$dbase)
###Prepare environment for run###

####
# Start Ops Mgr snapin
###

##Read out the Management server name
$objCompSys = Get-WmiObject win32_computersystem
$inputScomMS = $objCompSys.name

#Initializing the Ops Mgr 2012 Powershell provider#
Import-Module -Name "OperationsManager"
New-SCManagementGroupConnection -ComputerName $inputScomMS

#Get all agents which are in pending mode and approve
$pending = Get-SCOMPendingManagement | Group AgentPendingActionType
$Count = $pending.count
echo $count

If ($count -eq $null)
{
echo "No agents to approve"
Exit
}
Else
{
Get-SCOMPendingManagement | where {$_.AgentPendingActionType -eq "ManualApproval"} | Sort AgentName | Approve-SCOMPendingManagement
}

#Let all servers report to 1 primary management server

$serverfrom = Get-SCOMManagementServer | ? {$_.name -eq "$mgserverfrom"}
$agents = Get-SCOMAgent -ManagementServer $serverfrom
$serverto = Get-SCOMManagementServer | ? {$_.name -eq "$mgserverto"}
Set-SCOMParentManagementServer -Agent:$agents -FailoverServer:$null
Set-SCOMParentManagementServer -Agent:$agents -PrimaryServer:$serverto
Set-SCOMParentManagementServer -Agent:$agents -FailoverServer:$serverfrom

#Set all servers to remotely manageable in SQL

$ServerName = "$sqlserverinstance"
$DatabaseName = "$dbase"
$Query = "UPDATE MT_HealthService SET IsManuallyInstalled=0 WHERE IsManuallyInstalled=1"

#Timeout parameters
$QueryTimeout = 120
$ConnectionTimeout = 30

#Action of connecting to the Database and executing the query and returning results if there were any.
$conn=New-Object System.Data.SqlClient.SQLConnection
$ConnectionString = "Server={0};Database={1};Integrated Security=True;Connect Timeout={2}" -f $ServerName,$DatabaseName,$ConnectionTimeout
$conn.ConnectionString=$ConnectionString
$conn.Open()
$cmd=New-Object system.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand($Query,$conn)
$cmd.CommandTimeout=$QueryTimeout
$ds=New-Object system.Data.DataSet
$da=New-Object system.Data.SqlClient.SqlDataAdapter($cmd)
[void]$da.fill($ds)
$conn.Close()
$ds.Tables

#Set all servers to agent proxy enabled

Get-SCOMAgent | where {$_.ProxyingEnabled.Value -eq $False} | Enable-SCOMAgentProxy

[/xml]

It can be downloaded here

Note

• that you need to give the proper parameters for it to work as stated in the description.
• that perhaps you will have to check the SQL connection string on-line 68 with your SQL dba and adapt accordingly.

Webcast 01/04: Make SCOM work for you and not the other way around!

Face it… Sometimes keeping SCOM alive can be a real challenge especially when there are a lot of people who have access to the console… Sometimes it feels like monitoring SCOM itself can be a full time job!

I came across a lot of environments and one of the things I’ve learned is in fact if you automate a lot of tasks you already gain a lot of time. Well there’s PowerShell for that!

It gives you the opportunity to go from a SCOM zero to a SCOM hero by freeing up more time to do the cool stuff… Because let’s face it nobody likes scrolling through alerts, approving agents, checking the status of agents,…

In this session I’ll walk you trough some of the scripts I always implement when running a SCOM project to give me control, flexibility and save me some time in the end.

Apart from these scripts I’ll showcase also the awesome power the vast System Center community can bring you to even more facilitate the troubleshooting, configuration and manageability of your environment. The community is out there… No need to build something which is already out in the open. I’ll give you some pointers to get the community layer in your environment and will encourage you to start sharing in the process…

So if you want to save some time, see some cool pointers + tips and tricks to automate some of those tedious tasks?

Make sure to sign up below for my online webcast!

Hurry up because seats are unlimited!

Register here:

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032579216&Culture=en-BE&community=0

SCU_Jedi Finalist

System Center Universe is back in full force on the 30th of January to bring you for the 3th year in a row top notch System Center content. This event is held in Houston Texas but spread through the entire galaxy via a high quality live stream reaching out to all the System Center astronauts throughout the world.

To give a chance to someone to share his System Center force the SCU_Jedi contest was held. This epic journey to find the true SCU_Jedi is now in it’s final stage…

After the first stage the SCU_Jedi council elected a top 3 of the applications to enter the final round.

I was selected with my “Combine the force of the cloud and SCOM” session. As the only not American contestant I’m up against 2 other great candidates. In this final round it is however no longer in our hands but I call upon you…

He who has the most votes by 15/12 on his YouTube video posted in the SystemCenterUniverse channel  wins the right to participate in person on this awesome event…

Therefore I would be so grateful if you could like my video on YouTube to get me there one like at a time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L81cv1bbogo

Please give me the opportunity to share my knowledge by giving this session . Every like counts so spread the word and get more SCOM content on this great event which is growing every year!

It would be a privilege to participate…

and remember…

Keep monitoring the force!

Livemeeting: 11th of June: So you’ve installed SCOM… now what.

So you are quietly working in your office on a cloudy morning when all of a sudden the IT manager walks in and drops a bomb:

“Hey we are going to use System Center Operations Manager to monitor our systems from now on so throw away all your little monitoring tools and get at it…”

This actually happend to me once and I would have prayed for a livemeeting like this. The installation is in some cases already a hassle but then you are looking at a pristine console ready to start monitoring the systems and save the day… Now what?

This livemeeting will start right after you have survived the installation procedure and will provide you a roadmap to get up quickly. Expect a demo packed session spiced with a lot of tips and tricks from my personal experience installing SCOM in different environments.

Let’s get you from scom zero to scom hero….

Register here (cape not included ): https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032549855&Culture=en-us&community=0

Techdays 2013 session Scugbe now online

The past edition of Techdays 2013 Belgium was one of the best so far with a great outcome and a real buzzz in the community for all different new products and evolutions that were showcased.

Scugbe was also present with a System Center 2012 SP1 overview session giving you a quick drilldown of all the different new features in SP1.

8 members of the Scug went through almost all the different products of System Center and highlighted the improvements in SP1.

If you could not make it to Techdays this valuable info is now available online on the Technet site. Believe me all this info in one place will save you a lot of research on what’s new in System Center 2012 SP1.

View the video here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/tdbe13-what-s-new-and-improved-in-service-pack-1-for-the-system-center-2012-suite

View the slidedeck here: http://www.slideshare.net/technetbelux

Overview of ALL the session of Techdays: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/video/ff832960?Category=TechDays+Belgium+2013&page=2

Scugbe hosting Live Meeting Tuesday 23/04/2013

Scugbe is proud to announce that we are hosting one of the Technet Belgium Tuesday Live meeting sessions.

There will be 1 session in the morning and 1 in the afternoon hosted by Kenny Buntinx and Dieter Wijckmans.

Morning session (10AM): SCEP 2012 inside CM12 : Install , maintain and manage

Kenny Buntinx will guide you through the process of monitoring your Configmgr 2012 with System Center Endpoint Protection (SCEP). Forefront Endpoint Protection is now System Center Endpoint Protection and its integrated in ConfigMgr 2012. Attend this session to discover what’s new and hear how we successfully deployed Microsoft System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection on System Center 2012 Configuration Manager.

Register here: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032548938&Culture=en-us&community=0

Afternoon session (2PM): Jump start your application monitoring with APM

So you heard about the new feature in SCOM 2012:  APM. But what exactly is APM?
Join Dieter Wijckmans to get a jump start on monitoring your applications with APM.
Learn to configure APM and use it to gain the knowledge about your apps to quickly answer the reoccurring question: “Why is my app so slow?” ​

We’ll go over the setup and walk you through the steps to get your app monitored in no time. APM will hand you the tools to quickly set up your app monitoring so you are armed and ready when there’s again a new fingerpointing game why an application was yet again not available during business hours.

Register here: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032548936&Culture=en-us&community=0

LiveMeeting 22/11/2012: System Center Products better together…

On the 22th of November I’m hosting a LiveMeeting on how to integrate the different System Center products.

We’ll go over the different steps to integrate the different System Center products to get past the standard “just monitor it” scenario with SCOM but truly integrate the different products together.

All the products will be positioned within the System Center stack and integrations will be showcased.

If you are looking for a session to convince your boss to install more system center products or just want to convince yourself of the force of system center products brought together…

Look no further this is your session.

Register here:https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032533093&Culture=en-us&community=0