System Center Operations Manager 2007: Announcements

The Deployment Guys: Blog Goes Live

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:10:08 GMT

If you work in the Management, Operations and Deployment space, here is a new resource: http://blogs.technet.com/deploymentguys/

OpsMgr Connectors Available for Free

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 13:10:08 GMT

Courtesy of: Rory McCaw

Microsoft's acquisition of Engyro was a very strategic purchase as it provided Microsoft with the much needed connectors that allow for the integration of Operations Manager into existing operations management applications. This was great for both Microsoft and customers as it allowed Microsoft access to great connectors and allowed them to offer them to customers at a significant price reduction to what they had retailed for previously. Now the news gets even better, as I just sent off a request to Engyro for an evaluation license of their connector and received the following message back, indicating that they are now FREE.

KB944443 - List of issues that are fixed in System Center Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:06:48 GMT

Courtesy of: Clive Eastwood

SUMMARY

This article lists the issues that are fixed in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1).

INTRODUCTION

This article contains a list of Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB) articles that describe the issues that are fixed in System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1. This article is primarily intended to help IT professionals and corporate helpdesk workers to support and to maintain a company’s computer system.

MORE INFORMATION

List of issues fixed

The following issues have been fixed in System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1:

935898 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935898/) Error message when you try to access a Web page view in the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Web Console: "Requested value 'UrlViewType' was not found"

937470 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937470/) A notification subscription's Alert Criteria options do not work as expected in System Center Operations Manager 2007

935896 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935896/) When the Health Service (HealthService.exe) runs timed scripts in System Center Operations Manager 2007, high memory usage may occur

936838 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936838/) After a System Center Operations Manager 2007 agent sends discovery data to a management group, no rules are deployed for monitoring in later management groups

939799 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939799/) The System Center Operations Manager 2007 agent is unable to restart the health service after its monitored thresholds are exceeded

936481 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936481/) You cannot install the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Reporting feature in a disjointed namespace environment

938505 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938505/) Some report information does not appear in Japanese in the Japanese version of System Center Operations Manager 2007

939364 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939364/) System Center Operations Manager 2007 cannot find some network devices by using the network device discovery process

939585 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939585/) Some SSL Monitoring monitors display an incorrect status or an incorrect name in System Center Operations Manager 2007

936219 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936219/) Error message when you try to install System Center Operations Manager 2007 Reporting: "The wizard was interrupted before Operations Manager 2007 could be installed"

938989 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938989/) Subscription notification objects in System Center Operations Manager 2007 may not be displayed correctly on a computer that uses a regional setting other than "English (United States)"

942865 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942865/) Error message when you try to generate a report in System Center Operations Manager 2007: "Cannot initialize report"

938626 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938626/) The Entity Health monitor for an Operations Manager 2007 management server displays "Critical" together with a Health Service threshold setting

938993 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938993/) You cannot deploy an agent by using the Discovery and Installation Wizard in System Center Operations Manager 2007

938991 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938991/) The SQL Server 2000 database engine health is not monitored in System Center Operations Manager 2007

938988 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938988/) You may be unable to delete a log file on a client computer in System Center Operations Manager 2007

936579 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936579/) The Operations Manager Audit Collection Service does not start and Event ID 4668 is logged after you install Audit Collection Server from a read-only source

943706 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943706/) The MonitoringHost.exe process on the System Center Operations Manager 2007 root management server may consume more than 2 gigabytes of memory

941985 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941985/) A management group that contains an Exchange Server computer may intermittently stop receiving new alerts in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007

938507 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938507/) Report scheduling fails in System Center Operations Manager 2007 when the regional settings on the client computer differ from the regional settings on the server

938510 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938510/) You cannot obtain elevated user rights in management servers and in agents in System Center Operations Manager 2007 or System Center Essentials 2007 environments

939769 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/939769/) You experience a delay in fetching "Actions for Tasks" and "Actions for Reports" for a selected row in System Center Operations Manager 2007

940224 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940224/) The Optimized Performance Counter Collection rule collects multiple values of 0 (zero) in System Center Operations Manager 2007

941307 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941307/) A health monitor may display state changes in an incorrect order in System Center Operations Manager 2007

941943 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941943/) The HealthServiceStore.edb file size grows to several gigabytes over time in an agent that is running System Center Operations Manager 2007

942168 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942168/) The Health service does not start after you install the RemotelyAnywhere program on the Root Management Server in System Center Operations Manager 2007

946429 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946429/) Error message when you try to view the AD Domains topology view in System Center Operations Manager 2007

946431 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946431/) You do not see the additional alert criteria that you selected when you view the properties of a subscription in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007

945946 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945946/) Event ID 2115 is logged, and a management server generates an "unable to write data to the Data Warehouse" alert in System Center Operations Manager 2007

943211 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943211/) You cannot use Active Directory integration for untrusted domains in System Center Operations Manager 2007

941977 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941977/) You receive error messages when you try to edit the Web application monitoring settings in System Center Operations Manager 2007

REFERENCES

For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

941811 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941811/) A memory leak occurs if an agent of the release version of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 reports to System Center Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 management servers

941557 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941557/) Management servers that are running the release version of System Center Operations Manager 2007 do not process the agent event data from an agent of System Center Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and System Center

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:44:23 GMT

Courtesy of: Techlog (maarten@goet.net)

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers a safe, secure, and reliable platform for running your most mission critical, line-of-business applications. It is the platform for building scalable business intelligence, data warehousing, and transaction processing that allows your business to grow and expand. Learn how System Center Operations Manager 2007, System Center Configuration Manager 2007, and System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 can benefit your SQL Server deployments.
Download SQL_SystemCenter_datasheet.pdf

Windows Server 2008 and System Center/Operations Manager and Windows Server 2008 Data Sheets Available

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:33:28 GMT

Courtesy of Clive Eastwood:

Monitoring you Windows Server 2008 Infrastructure - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=75cea55b-204f-497e-b75f-ec57c4b27aa0&DisplayLang=en

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and System Center - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4ce50d5f-72ff-4c25-bd2d-eb0191bf3b7f&DisplayLang=en

Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 Support for Windows Server 2008 - A Note

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:30:07 GMT

Courtesy of Clive Eastwood:

Bottom line = SP1 does not yet provide support for any role running on Windows Server 2008. Read on . . .

The Supported Configurations Guide included with SP1 RTM (ProductDocumentation folder) states the following:

Windows Server 2008 Operating System

Detailed support for The Windows Server 2008 operating system will be published 90 days after the release of Windows Server 2008. This document will be updated on the System Center Operations Manager TechCenter Web site at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90676.

For additional information on Opsmgr07 Role support as well as MOM 2005 support see http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2008/01/09/support-plans-for-opsmgr-2007-sce-and-mom-2005-running-on-windows-server-2008.aspx

Also applied to SCE SP1

OpsMgr SP1 RTM: Successful Installation

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 18:06:00 GMT

I just upgraded a completely distributed environment from SP1 RC0 to SP1 RTM with absolutely no errors. This included Gateway servers and MPs. I am working out a few issues with Custom MPs, but other than that, painless event.

SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit Released

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:47:07 GMT

Microsoft has released the SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit. This solution accelerator allows you to easily start monitoring SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 and SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 with System Center Operations Manager (OpsMgr) 2007 or System Center Essentials (SCE) 2007. The SharePoint Monitoring Toolkit includes Management Packs and documentation needed to effectively begin monitoring your SharePoint deployment. The solution accelerator can be downloaded from the link below:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e4600fd9-f53d-4ded-88bf-6bb1932794f9&DisplayLang=en

ReSearch This Management Pack

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:33:14 GMT

Courtesy of Cameron Fuller:

After what seems like a very very long time to put together all of the pieces required to make it happen, the "ReSearch This!" management pack is available for download!

ReSearch This! is a common repository for information on how to resolve alerts for Operations Manager 2007, System Center Essentials and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005. It provides a method to search a community repository for alert resolutions and to submit information to share how you have resolved alerts in your environment.

These management packs are available for download at:

http://systemcenterforum.org/wp-content/uploads/ReSearchThisOpsMgr.zip (Operations Manager 2007 and SCE)
http://systemcenterforum.org/wp-content/uploads/ReSearchThisMOM.zip (Operations Manager 2005)

The official announcement follows:

SystemCenterForum is proud to announce the creation of a shared repository for how to resolve alerts for Operations Manager 2007, System Center Essentials and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005.

This functionality is available through a management pack called "ReSearch This!" which was created through contributions from the team at SystemCenterForum and the MVP community members. ReSearch This provides a task which does a lookup based upon the alert information in the SystemCenterForum knowledgebase articles. We have currently uploaded over a hundred articles based upon work done by many individuals including Pete Zerger, Kerrie Meyler, and Cameron Fuller. The goal of this functionality however is to provide an easy to use method for users of OpsMgr, SCE and MOM to be able to share what they have found worked for their environment to resolve the variety of alerts which these products generate. After the management pack is imported, you can click on an alert and from the Alert Tasks choose "ReSearch This!" to search for the alert in the repository. To submit alert information to the shared repository right-click on the alert and from the Alert Tasks choose "Share This!".

OpsMgr SP1 RC1 Available

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:49:32 GMT

This will be publicly available release. Customers can download the Service Pack 1 RC from Microsoft Connect. Signup for this is public and available at http://connect.microsoft.com/systemcenter

This release will be fully supported. Support options include:

Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS) – you can use your standard support options to get support on this edition
Newsgroups – there will be a dedicated SP1 newsgroup
Hotfixes requests that are accepted will be incorporated into the final RTM version
This release is fully upgradable to the final RTM version of the Service Pack.

What's New in Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1

This topic describes some of the improvements and major changes in functionality that are included in Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1). Operations Manager 2007 SP1 is available in two ways. First, it is offered as a standalone executable file that you use to upgrade an existing Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 installation. Second, it has been "slipstreamed" into the Operations Manager 2007 installation media, which means that you can install Operations Manager 2007 from scratch and the final installed version will be Operations Manager 2007 SP1. Operations Manager 2007 SP1 is available for both x86-based and x64-based computers.

New Features

The new features that are in Operations Manager 2007 SP1 are:

Improved performance and reliability when working with alerts, overrides, and searches.
In all Alert views, performance has been increased through better fetching and yields alert row selection that is three times quicker. Actions and reports are fetched in the background, which further improves performance. Alert knowledge that is displayed in the Alert Details pane can be shown or hidden according to the user's preference.
Operations Manager 2007 advanced search has been improved by enabling the ability to search across monitors and rules by their overrides.
Support for the discovery and monitoring of both SNMP v1 and SNMP v2 network devices. Users can select which SNMP Community Version to search for in the Discovery Wizard.
Support for exporting Operations Manager 2007 diagrams to Microsoft Visio VDX file format. Note that the Visio button is located on the toolbar when in a diagram view. Diagram layouts can now be saved and will be remembered when the diagram view is selected again.
Support for copying and pasting (CTRL+C and CTRL+V) from the Alert details pane.

Setup and Recovery

The following are improvements in setup and recovery:

To make backup and recovery easier, setup in Operations Manager 2007 SP1 starts the Secure Storage Backup Wizard at the end of setup, by default, to back up the RMS encryption keys. This is the same command-line tool used in the original version of Operations Manager 2007, but with an easier-to-use wizard interface. The wizard is actually started by using the command-line version of the tool when no parameters are passed to the tool or it is started from Windows Explorer. The Secure Storage Backup tool is located on the installation media in the Support Tools directory. The Secure Storage Backup Wizard can be started according to the user's preference.
To make the recovery of a clustered RMS easier, Operations Manager 2007 SP1 enables the repromotion of the RMS cluster to the RMS role after it is fixed. This addresses the situation where a clustered RMS has failed and another management server in the management group has been promoted into the RMS role.

User Interface and Experience

The following are improvements in user interface and experience:

To make the creation of new management packs easier, Operations Manager 2007 SP1 introduces the ability to copy views from any existing management pack to an unsealed management pack. This is done in the Monitoring view. For example, if you have created a management pack for SQL Server overrides and want to use one of the SQL Server management pack views in the SQL Server overrides management pack, you would simply select the desired view, right-click to copy it, and then paste it into the target management pack folder.
In all Alert views in the Monitoring space and in the Web console, Operations Manager 2007 SP1 ensures that the Repeat Count value is incremented correctly.
After you have created an override for any management pack object, you can look at the summary of overrides for the object type in the Overrides Summary box. Operations Manager 2007 SP1 ensures that the description of the override target is complete. For example, if you create an override for Logical Disk Free Space for the C:\ of Server1, the summary will display 'server1/c:'

Core Product

The following are improvements in the core Operations Manager 2007 product:

·SP1 ensures that when agents are uninstalled from a computer in the Administration space\Device Management container\Agent Managed node of the Operations Console, that they are also removed from the computer views in the Monitoring space.
Scripts can now be used for diagnostic tasks.
View names, data and, display strings in the Operations Console that have been collected from computers running different language versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems are displayed correctly.

Reporting

The following are improvements to reporting:

When you are in a report, you can now choose to publish the report by selecting Publish from the File menu. This will allow you to publish reports to multiple locations, such as Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services Web sites.

Web Console

The following are improvements in the Operations Manager 2007 Web console:

The Operations Manager Web console provides access to performance data. Users can then select specific counters to graph. In Operations Manager 2007 SP1, it is now possible to construct a filter for the desired performance counters to ease searching and navigation. This ability is available when a performance view is selected and displays in the Performance legend pane. The search options available are All items, Items in the Chart, Items not in the Chart, and Items by text search.
The Web console has been further improved so that the Favorite Reports container is now available in My Workspace.

Audit Collection Services (ACS)

The following are improvements for ACS:

New discoveries and views have been added. These features detect and indicate which agents and servers are ACS-forwarding enabled.
There are more monitors and alert generating rules to track the health state of the ACS collectors. For example, Operations Manager 2007 SP1 includes the ability to watch the DB Queue % full level against default thresholds, such as the back-off threshold or disconnect threshold.
The ACS forwarder feature is now supported on the Management and Gateway Server roles. The ACS Forwarder is disabled by default. When enabled, it will allow the inclusion of security auditing data for these server roles.
When using ACS, one of the most common tasks is to enable forwarding on ACS agents. In Operations Manager 2007 SP1, an Operations Manager Command Shell script can be used to enable forwarding for entire computer groups, thereby greatly easing the deployment and administration of ACS.

Agentless Exception Monitoring (AEM)

AEM now provides an improved appearance and functionality of AEM reports.

SP1 RC0 Newsgroup Live

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 12:48:54 GMT

The newsgroup for Operations Manager 2007 SP1 is now live. This newsgroup will serve as the central point for discussion on the upcoming Service Pack. The address for the newsgroup is: microsoft.public.opsmgr.sp1