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OMS phone app now available on all platforms: First look

 

This is one thing I really like about the new strategy of Microsoft: All platforms (I know it’s not the official statement but still)

The OMS app was already available on WindowsPhone platform (in preview) and quite frankly it makes sense to actually develop for your own native platform first.

But today Microsoft has announced the availability of the OMS app across all the different platforms (Ios, android and winphone).

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The install is crystal clear as you are used to through the store.

More info here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2015/10/21/log-analytics-on-the-move.aspx

Direct link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/operations-management-suite/mobile-apps.aspx

NOTE: Fellow MVP Cameron Fuller has a blog post about the experience on an ipad here: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2015/10/21/the-microsoft-oms-experience-on-an-ipad/

A first look:

A couple of screenshots of the possibilities and look and feel on iPhone:

First start of the app (really like the look and feel):

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Login screen looks very familiar:

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Auto switch between corporate or personal

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Signed in and detected that your workspaces, it’s indeed possible to switch between the different workspaces:

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You have 3 options:

  • Dashboard: Is your personal dashboard which you can change by using the familiar pen icon
  • Overview: The general overview of you environment with all the solutions installed
  • Searches: Launch different searches in your workspace

Starts into your dashboard:

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Overview:

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Also possible in landscape 🙂

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Searches:

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Settings tab can be reached by tapping the 3 red dots on the top of the screen.

My wishlist:

  • Push notifications on home screen for predefined scenarios
  • Add new searches in the app to answer specific questions of people calling outside office hours
  • Ability to choose where to start (dashboard or overview)
  • change order of the solutions in the overview pane

Conclusion:

The app is intended as an extension / dashboard for your OMS workspace. It’s not possible to add servers or delete servers from your workspace nor add solutions. This is not a drawback in my opinion as you only want to see things happening in your workspace on the go. This is a first version of course but I had no issues installing and connecting it. I will keep an eye on the data usage on my cell phone plan though just to see how it will affect my usage of mobile data and of course my battery life.

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SCOM 2012: Overview link blog

This post will be my (and hopefully yours) one stop to post all the relevant info to SCOM 2012. I will try to generate an overview of all the different steps you need to start from scratch and continue to build your environment to a level that suites your environment.

If you feel there are things missing or you’ve found dead links please do not hesitate to leave a comment and I will update this post. This post has grown out of my favourite list of SCOM related topics and info I found on forums, technet and blogs.

Note:

    • I’ll sometimes post more than 1 link at a topic so you can combine the different blogposts to get the bigger picture.
    • Most of the info is relevant for SCOM 2012 and SCOM 2012 SP1 (if there’s specific info for a specific version it will be pointed out.)
    • This is a link post to relevant info I found on the web. All credits and copyright belong to the respective authors.

SCOM 2012 R2:

General information:

This section lists all links that will give you a general overview of SCOM.

Design and Topology

This section lists all links that will help and guide you to make a proper design and take the correct decisions concerning topology

How to install

This section lists all links to the install walkthroughs and possible issues.

Configuring scom

This section lists all links to help you quickly setup scom after you have succesfully installed it.

 

Specific configuration

This section lists all the different aspects of SCOM that need additional installation or configuration

Dashboards

ACS

APM (Application Performance Monitoring)

Gateway configuration

Network Monitoring

Azure Monitoring:

Management pack basics

This section lists all the links to give you the basics about management packs

 

Management pack advanced

This section liste all the links to the more advance management pack tips and tricks.

Community Management packs

A list of must have community management packs to increase your productivity and solve some gaps and functionalities in scom.

Note: These management packs are written by members of the community so no warranty is given. Test before you use in production!

Integration possibilities

This section lists links to different integration possibilities between the different System Center products.

 

Usefull blogs and sources for this list (In random order of importance)

Note: System Center Blogs: Now on iPhone, Android and Windows Phone

Tips & Tricks

Cool Showcases with SCOM

Partner solutions for SCOM (in random order)

Videos

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SCOM 2012: CU1 available for download

SCOM 2012 is just generally available and the first CU1 has already arrived.

You can download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29697

For a full list of the improvements check the official KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2686249/en-us

For the install experience check this blog post of Kevin Greene: http://kevingreeneitblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/scom-2012-deploying-cumulative-update.html

My personal experience with the install will follow shortly.

Don’t you just like the constant improvement of the System Center products?

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A travel guide: How to survive MMS2012.

So this years Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) in Las Vegas is coming… Finally it’s that time of the year where you always think: “Christmas DOES comes twice this year!”.

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You look forward to that week packed with System Center info, talking to peers, checking out the expo and yeah of course enjoy Vegas (we are here any way).

It will be my 3th MMS and I had the privilege to have some vets as wingmen who showed me the ins and outs the first time I landed at MMS.

MMS can be quite intimidating. The sheer size of the event, the location, the amount of info and most of all: The fear you’re missing out on things.

In the next weeks I’ll be posting a series of blog posts with my personal experience and tips and tricks to get the most out of the event.

I’ll walk you through the different session types, how to prepare yourself for the event itself, what to expect and much more.

Hopefully you (or your boss) already made the proper reservations because the event is sold out.

So stay tuned in the coming 6 weeks for this series on “how to survive MMS 2012”.

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MMS2012: Schedule builder has been opened for Alumni

9 weeks to go to THE event of the year for everyone who’s working with System Center software.

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As usual this MMS will be packed with good info, nice peers to talk to and sessions given by the best of the best of System Center Specialist.

This year will be extra special (is this possible?) because of the Tidal wave of new versions being released.

The session builder is open to alumni (people who attended MMS in the past year) since yesterday and will be available to the general public beginning of March.

I’ll be posting my favorite sessions shortly so check back soon to find out where you’ll find me taking in all the new things to use them to make my customers happy as never before.

There are 4 things you need to book when you’re at MMS2012:

  • Breakout sessions
  • Instructor Lead Labs (ILL)
  • Birds of the feather sessions (BOF)
  • Last but not least the new Certification Track!

But more on this in my series: How to get the most out of MMS2012 which will start shortly.

Do you feel the buzz?

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SCOM 2012: What’s new: Maintenance mode changes

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

In the second part of this series of what’s new in SCOM2012 I’ll be highlighting a small change with big implications in SCOM 2012 in the maintenance mode department.

image_2It was kind of frustrating to see that a lot of issues at customer sites had to do with the fact that the RMS or MS (or even worse both) were put in maintenance mode and never came out of it until manually removed.

Putting your RMS in maintenance mode is a big no no as this is the pounding heart of your environment and can cause serious issues.

But hey enough said about the past… let’s talk about the future! Fortunately the future is bright in the SOCM 2012 world concerning maintenance mode.

These are in fact the changes in maintenance mode:

  • When a management server in SCOM 2012 (remember no more RMS) is placed in maintenance mode the System Center Management Configuration Service will act up and make sure that the agents are forced to failover to another management server so no data loss will occur. This is of course possible by bundling the management servers in resource pools.
  • The far most important change in maintenance mode is the fact that when you put a management server in maintenance mode the workflow to get that particular management server out of maintenance mode is actually moved to another management server which is not in maintenance mode. This way the command to get the server out of maintenance mode is triggered from another server. Finally…

Why is this such a huge improvement?

In SCOOM2007R2 if you for one reason or another find your RMS in maintenance mode the workflow to actually get it out of maintenance mode was also fired from the RMS. Which of course will not fire because… yeah it’s in maintenance mode. This can keep your RMS in maintenance mode without you even knowing it. The only possible way to get it out is to manually remove the maintenance mode.

So this is resolved in SCOM2012 by moving the workflow to get the management server out of maintenance mode to another management server in the resource pool. Another cool feature of the resource pools where the different management servers are residing in.

The only catch is that to have this new approach working you’ll need at least 50% of your management servers out of maintenance mode. So take this in account when you decide on update strategies to divide your management servers in at least 2 different patch groups with different action times.

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New System Center 2012 licensing model

Today Microsoft released some details about the new licensing model of the System Center 2012 products.

In a constant effort to reduce the different licensing models they have significantly changed the way you need to license your products. Pricing at this time is not yet available but you can already prepare yourself to check which licenses you need to purchase for the new suite.

There’s of course a difference between existing customers and new customers but in general this is what’s new in the licensing model:

What’s included?

To maximize the support for your private cloud the following tools will be included when you buy a standard or Datacenter edition of System center 2012:

  • Configuration Manager

  • Service Manager

  • Virtual Machine Manager

  • Operations Manager

  • Data Protection Manager

  • Orchestrator

  • App Controller

  • Endpoint Protection

Difference between Standard and Datacenter Edition of System Center 2012:

The Standard and Datacenter editions of the System Center 2012 server management licenses differ only based on the number of Operating System Environments (OSEs) that may be managed.

Standard edition:

  • allow customers to manage two OSEs on premises or two OSEs in a public cloud environment.
  • Targeted at lightly or non-virtualized private cloud workloads.

DataCenter edition:

  • Allow an unlimited number of OSEs in an on premises environment or eight OSEs in a public cloud environment.
  • Maximizes cloud capacity with unlimited Operating System Environments (OSEs) for high density private clouds.

Server Management Licensing

System Center 2012 server management licensing maximizes your private cloud value while simplifying purchasing:

  • License required only for endpoints being managed. No additional licenses needed for management servers or SQL Server technology.

  • Consistent licensing model across editions. Processor based license, covering up to two processors targeted at most common hardware configuration.

  • Same capabilities across editions differentiated by virtualization rights. All server management licenses include the same components and the ability to manage any private cloud workload.

Client Management Licensing

System Center 2012 client management licensing provides simple, cost-effective options to manage and protect client systems. Client management licenses are available in three offers:

  • System Center 2012 Configuration Manager: System Center 2012 Configuration Manager is available on a per-user or per-OSE basis as well as in the Core CAL and Enterprise CAL suites.

  • System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection: System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection (the next version of Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010) is available as a per-user or per-device subscription as well as in the Core CAL and Enterprise CAL suites. The subscription includes all antimalware updates and product upgrades during the subscription period.

  • System Center Client Management Suite: The System Center 2012 Client Management Suite is available on a per-user or per-OSE basis as well as in the Enterprise CAL suite. It is composed of Data Protection Manager, Operations Manager, Service Manager, and Orchestrator.

Core CAL and Enterprise CAL Suites will continue to be the most cost effective way to purchase client management products.

The new licensing model is mainly focused towards the private cloud and significantly reduces the number of options to choose from while keeping enough options for your environment.

More info here Microsoft licensing model System Center 2012

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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:

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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 Smile

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

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

Note: Make sure you use your installed framwork and version

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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. printscreen0053

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.printscreen0054

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

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Well it’s loading up fine at this point Smile

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.

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

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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…printscreen0036

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:

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“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 Smile

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SCOM 2012: Don’t be the IT-Rambo…

The title says it all…

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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

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