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SCOM 2012: What’s new: Agent Config in SCOM2012

This post is part of a series What’s new: Check here for the other parts.

In SCOM2007R2 you could multihome an agent to different management groups but it was quite the hassle as there was no option in the management console to control this feature. In SCOM 2012 this has changed by including the Operations Manager Agent Application to the control panel when the agent has been installed. Pretty cool feature if you ask my because now you have full control over the homing or multihoming of the agents.

Although this feature is not that high on a lot of peoples list of great new features this really facilitates the work of those who are working with a complex environment with connected management groups.

So where is this feature actually.

You can do this semi automatic by pushing the agent from all the different management groups (the maximum is 4). This is in fact a recommende maximum and not hardcoded. So in theory it is possible to multihome an agent to more than 4 management groups but it’s not supported as Alexis Yakovlev kindly pointed out. In fact the agent will be detected and not reinstalled but the additional management group will be added…

Now there’s the option to do it manually on the server as well using the new Agent Configuration app in control panel.

Before you had to run the setup wizard of the SCOM 2007 R2 agent and choose the “add a management group” option when installing.

Now you can just open your control panel:

Navigate to System and Security

Open up the Operations Manager Agent

You’ll see your primary Management group where the client initially was pushed from:

Click add and fill in the name / primary server and port of the additional management group:

It’s added! Click apply and wait for the services to restart and your done.

So at this point your agent is multihomed to your 2 management groups and is happily sending it’s alerts to both of the management groups.

This convenient little adaption has changed the way you multihome an agent and has significantly improved the user experience of doing so.

Stay tuned

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

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 2007R2: Ramp Up Guide

I came across an excellent list written by Sonda (MPFE in UK) of all the required resources you’ll need to get up to speed with SCOM 2007 R2.

There’s plenty of info for the absolute rookie and the novice.

You can find the exhaustive list here:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/mspremuk/archive/2011/08/03/ramp-up-guide-system-center-operations-manager-2007-r2.aspx

If you are looking for a similar list of links to resource for Service Manager look no further. Kurt Van Hoecke created a nice list of all the resources you’ll need to get you going.

http://scug.be/blogs/scsm/archive/2011/05/02/system-center-service-manager-information-blog-overview.aspx

Happy reading

SCOM 2007: Cumulative Update 5 is released

Yesterday Microsoft released the Cumulative Update 5 (CU5) for Scom 2007 R2.

This new update contains some additional fixes for Operations Manager 2007 R2 + support is added for Red Hat 6.

You can download the CU5 package (948.0 MB) here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26938

The KB2495674 article apparently is not online yet but can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2495674

For instructions on how to install a CU package in general (blog is written for CU4 but best practices can be followed for installation of CU5 as well) you can check this :http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2011/02/01/opsmgr-2007-r2-cu4-rollup-hotfix-ships-and-my-experience-installing-it.aspx

System Center Unlimited blog + Overview of Team blogs

Just recently in my ever during quest for information I stumble upon a great blog post which basically gathers all the different product team blogs of System Center and feeds them into one blog.

System Center Unlimited

It’s named System Center Unlimited and is maintained by J.C. Hornbeck. All the different posts on the different product team blogs are fed into this ever growing and very active blog. If you’re looking for one place to get a full overview of the System Center products this is the place to go…

However…

If you’re looking for a System Center specific product blog make sure to check out his extensive list of all the different product team blogs RSS feeds which he monitors :

http://blogs.technet.com/b/operationsmgr/archive/2011/05/12/system-center-unlimited-all-your-favorite-system-center-posts-together-in-one-central-place.aspx

I’ve included the links below to the different product team blogs :

If there are things missing please don’t hesitate to drop me a line.

Hopes it helps you to find your way through the System Center universe

SCOM 2007: How to backup your SCOM IIS settings

This blog post is part of a series how to backup your SCOM environment.

You can find the other parts here:

• How to backup your SCOM environment
• How to backup your SCOM dbases
• How to backup your SCOM encryption key
• How to backup your SCOM IIS settings
• How to backup your unsealed management packs
• How to Document your SCOM installation
• How to Backup your Reporting

There are 2 versions supported in SCOM and they both need a different approach to backup.

IIS6 is normally used if you are running SCOM 2007R2 on a Windows 2003 platform. It is used to support the components of the web console and the SQL Server Reporting Services. If you are using SQL Server Reporting Services from SQL 2008 IIS is not used anymore and it is just sufficient to backup the dbases.

IIS7 is normally used if you are running SCOM 2007R2 on a Windows 2008 platform (it can also run on a windows 2003 server but is not installed by default). The approach to backup IIS7 is somewhat different as it stores it’s data differently. The files you need to backup are web.config files and the applicationhost.config files. For more info on how to backup IIS 7 you can read this nice reference:  http://blogs.iis.net/bills/archive/2008/03/24/how-to-backup-restore-iis7-configuration.aspx

So let’s start with the backup shall we:

Backup IIS6

Connect to the RMS and navigate to Start > administrative Tools > Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager

Right click the server name and navigate to “All Tasks” > “Backup/restore Configuration…”

The configuration backup dialog box will come up.

Fill in a backup name and if you want to make a secure backup you can tick the box “Encrypt Backup using password” and supply a password for the backup.

Click OK and your backup is made…

The actual backup file is stored in “%systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\MetaBack”

I suggest you take a copy of this file in case your RMS is unrecoverable. Otherwise the file itself which resides on the server will also be gone and what’s the point in backing up then

Backup IIS 7

Open an elevated prompt on your RMS

Navigate to %windir%\system32\inetsrv

Run the command “appcmd add backup “name of your backup set”. If you not specify a name a name will be generated with the date and time.

If you are using IIS 7 your live just became a little bit easier. If you are using Vista SP1 or later / Windows Server 2008 the backup is automatically done if you create an initial backup like shown below. IIS automatically makes a history snapshot of ApplicationHost.config each time it detects a change so you can easily restore a prior version. By default it will keep 10 prior versions and checks every 2 minutes.

The files are stored in “%systemdrive%\inetpub\history”

Pretty cool feature if you ask me and a big improvement from the previous version.

To enumerate a list of backups and configuration history files, use the following command:

“%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe list backup”

SCOM 2007: Convert MOM2005 management pack guide

Recently I was working on a migration from MOM2005 towards SCOM2007R2. Unfortunately the MOM2005toSCOM2007 migration tool which was included in the SCOM2007 install media was not working anymore so I had to convert the management packs manually.

This post is for my reference whenever I need it again but in my search on the web I did not find many good write-ups so I wrote one of my own.

Case

I needed a Microsoft Biztalk 2004 management pack in SCOM 2007. Unfortunately Microsoft never released a SCOM 2007 management pack but only a MOM2005 one.

So I had to convert it and load it into SCOM.

I’ve downloaded the management pack here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=14417

It’s an exe file which you need to unzip to a folder of your choice. I this example I’m going to put it on c:\managementpacks .

The file you need for the initial conversion is “c:\managementpacks\microsoft biztalk server 2004 management pack\Microsoft Biztalk Server 2004.AKM”

Convert to XML

Next we need to convert the management pack to a valid XML file format which is used by Scom 2007.

You need MP2XML.exe to perform this conversion. It’s part of the MOM2005Resourcekit.

The syntax: C:\program files\microsoft operations manager resource kit\tools\convert management packs to xml\mp2xml.exe “inputfile”.akm “outputfile”.xml

so in this case C:\program files\microsoft operations manager resource kit\tools\convert management packs to xml\mp2xml.exe “c:\managementpacks\microsoft biztalk server 2004.akm” “c:\managementpacks\microsoft_biztalk_server_2004.xml”

Note the underscores in the naming. It’s not allowed to have spaces in the name of the XML file.

Convert XML to SCOM2007 format

Next thing we need to do is convert the actual XML file to SCOM2007 format.

This is achieved with the mpconvert.exe which resides on the RMS in c:\program files\System center Operations manager2007\mpconvert.exe

The syntax in our example is: c:\program files\system center operations manager 2007\mpconvert.exe “c:\managementpacks\microsoft_biztalk_server_2004.xml” “c:\managementpacks\microsoft_biztalk_server_2004_converted.xml”

Now you can load the xml in SCOM like you load any other management pack.

Import MP in SCOM2007R2

There was an error with this particular management pack resulting in a failure of the import. Turned out there was an issue with the XML.

If you want to import the management pack you get the following error:

XSD Verification failed for management pack. The ‘Name’ element is invalid. This is an issue in the XML itself. A parameter which needs to be present in the XML is either corrupt or missing.

I’ve installed XML notepad 2007 on my machine to check the xml file.

You can download this nice tool here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=7973

Now if you look in the XML you browse down to the manifest > name field you immediately notice that the field is empty:

You can just fill in a name at the right like I did below:

Save the file and try to import the management pack again.

This time it’s working and it let’s you continue with the import.

In this example a standard mp without any customization was used from Microsoft. However during my migration I had a lot of mp’s which were full of custom rules.

I ‘ll create a Powershell script to automate this process and post it as a follow up on this blog.

If you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment or shoot me a mail.

SCOM 2007: How to backup your dbases

This blog post is part of a series how to backup your SCOM environment.

You can find the other parts here:

• How to backup your SCOM environment
• How to backup your SCOM dbases
• How to backup your SCOM encryption key
• How to backup your SCOM IIS settings
• How to backup your unsealed management packs
• How to Document your SCOM installation
• How to Backup your Reporting

In order to keep the possibility to restore your SCOM environment in case of a disaster you need to make sure that you have a good backup of your dbases.

Your dbases keep track of all the info in your environment so it’s crucial that you don’t loose these valuable assets of your environment.

A good backup strategy of your SQL dbases is crucial as you need to make sure that you always have a recent copy at hand.

If you have a backup admin in your environment and are using a backup product like Data Protection Manager it’s best to meet up with the admin to check how his SQL backup schedule is configured. If he’s confident that he provides your backups no need to backup them twice…

If not you’ll need to perform the backup yourself.

First of all a small word about the different options you have to backup a SQL dbase (this applies to all SQL dbases and is not SCOM specific)

1. Full backup: This is self explanatory actually. You take a full backup of your dbase. In case of a restore the existing dbase will be overwritten and rolled back to the point in time where the backup was taken. This consumes the most storage space.
2. Incremental backup: This method backs up all the differences since the last database backup. With this method you have more flexibility to do a point in time restore. It takes less space but can be more time consuming to restore.
3. Transaction log backups: With this method you just take a backup of all the changes to the dbase since the last transaction log. This method is fast and safes some storage space but can be a hassle to restore.

A good mix of the 3 methods above is a good strategy. I always take a full backup of the operations dbase once a week (datawarehouse once a month), a incremental backup once a day (for datawarehouse once a week) and Transaction log backups every 2 hours.

Again you can skip the Transaction log backups but then you risk to loose a max of 23h59m of data.

So let’s get the backups up and running:

We’re going to create the full backup schedule for Operations dbase in this example:

Connect to the dbase.

Open the tree and go to the “OperationsManager” dbase > right click > Tasks > Back Up…

• Select the OperationManager dbase
• Leave backup type at full
• Fill in a name of the backup set
• Click backup to disk and choose Add to create the file
• Set the expiration. I choose 40 days but again this can change according to your requirements.

Choose Options in the left pane and set:

Verify backup when finished

When all the settings are correctly configured choose Script button at the top of the page and choose “Script action to Job”.

This will generate a SQL job which you can schedule in the SQL agent so it can fire the backup when needed.

Name the job: In this case “Back up Database – OperationsManager_weekly”

Choose Schedules in the left pane and select New at the bottom:

Name the schedule and define the frequency + schedule. This will be scheduled in the SQL agent jobs.

When your schedule is made > click ok and the job is created.

You can check this job in the SQL Server Agent under the tree Jobs…

This is for the Weekly full of the Operation manager dbase.

You need to complete the same steps to perform the backup schedules for your other dbases.