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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.

340B9927

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

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System Center 2012 SP1 UR1 released

This morning the System Center community is once more buzzing with excitement.

System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 is live since a couple of weeks and already Microsoft has released the first Update Rollup (UR1) for it.

This show great dedication of Microsoft to keep this product up to date and regularly release updates. The good thing these Update Rollups are all cumulative so no need to perform a series of updates.

Although you need to install SP1 first to install the UR1 of course.

More info on the updates is found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2785682

Note: Pay special attention to the “how to install” section as the correct version of the file needed according to your CPU architecture and local  is identified:

Example for SCOM:

SNAG-0004 

So if you have an agent on X86 machine you will need to run the file with F2 at the end and not the 5A.

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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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System Center Universe 2013 Be Simulcast registration is open

 

System Center User Group Belgium is proud to announce the fact that the registration for the Belgian multicast for this online event is now open.

Make sure to reserve your physical seat for this virtual travel through the System Center Universe broadcasted from Dallas US.

scu2013

The speaker list is already out of this world: http://www.systemcenteruniverse.com/presenters.htm and still not complete…

Wally Mead Cameron Fuller Maarten Goet
Jason Sandys Michael Washam Travis Wright
Pete Zerger More to come…
For more info please check http://www.systemcenteruniverse.com or keep an eye on #scu2013 on Twitter.

Reserve your seat today because the seats in our spacecraft in Brussels are unfortunately limited: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/4989971138/eorg#

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System Center Team Blog Relaunch

 

I came across a post of Travis Wright who announced the “rebrand” of the System Center Team blog.

The blog will be more technical because it is now maintained and updated by the engineering team instead of the marketing team.

New items will include more technical content and cross System Center product collaboration options.

SNAG-0002

As Travis points out all System Center announcements from the engineering team will be posted on this blog so you definitely will want to subscribe to the RSS feed attached to it and check frequently.

So start updating your bookmarks to the new and improved System Center Team blog for your one stop for all new System Center announcements.

Link to the original post of Travis Wright: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2012/11/26/system-center-blog-relaunch.aspx

Link to the RSS feed: http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/rss.aspx

At the bottom of the post is also a handy list of all the different specific team blogs so make sure to check them out as well!

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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.

a0983d0e-9819-4cbc-a995-f9cb7fd44d36[1]

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

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Scom 2012 Visio Stencils

 

Larry Rayl a senior consultant at Catapult Systems has created and posted a nice set of SCOM 2012 Visio Stencils creating the possibility to even further customize your SCOM 2012 Visio designs.

There are some really specific Visio stencils in there which were not available out of the box in Visio or in the old Scom 2007 visio stencils.

A pretty cool addition to your standard toolkit if you ask me!

toolkit-white

Check the original blog post here: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/lrayl/archive/2012/11/13/system-center-2012-operations-manager-2012-stencil.aspx

Download them from SystemCenterCentral here: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/Downloads/DownloadsDetails/tabid/144/IndexID/96587/Default.aspx

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SCOM 2012: shortcut tip

 

NOTE: This blogpost is part of a series of tips and tricks. You can find more tips and tricks on the central blogpost located here; http://scug.be/dieter/2012/10/07/scom-tips-and-tricks-series/

Just a small shortcut tip this time.

As part of the unified console the shortcuts to the tabs in scom have been included in the SCOM 2012 console.

I find this personally particularly handy when you want to switch between the different tabs while browsing through the console.

CAUTION: You’ll need access to the tabs to be able to open them.

So just pressing CTRL + a number will open the tab.

TIP: If you don’t know the exact number there’s always a way to get it by hovering over the specific tab. SNAG-0128

No point in using the shortcut when you hover over the tab but you might remember it the next time and save yourself that nanosecond of valuable SCOM time Smile

 

CTRL+ 1: SNAG-0129

CTRL+ 2:SNAG-0130

CTRL+ 3: SNAG-0131

CTRL +4: SNAG-0132

CTRL +5: SNAG-0133

 

Stay tuned for more tips and tricks in the series.

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System Center 2012 RU3 released

 

Today the RU (Rollup) package 3 for System Center 2012 was released.

Improvements for the different products in the suite included minor fixes for DPM / SCOM and SCSM.

All the RU packages are cumulative so if you install RU3 the previous fixes are also included.

An overview per product:

Source the official mom team blog (=> bookmark this valuable blog!) http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2012/10/10/system-center-2012-update-rollup-3-ur3-released.aspx

You can find more details and instructions for obtaining and installing the update rollup on the associated KB article here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2756127

 

Update Rollup 3 for System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 (KB2751230)

Issue 1
After you upgrade System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 to System Center Data Protection Manager 2012, the tape management report does not display overdue tapes.
Issue 2
System Center Data Protection Manager 2012 Client Protection does not scale to the limits that are expected.
Issue 3
When you try to specify a client computer name in the DPMServerName attribute by using Windows PowerShell, Windows PowerShell crashes.
Issue 4
When the name of a Microsoft SharePoint site collection contains a space, and you perform a SharePoint item-level recovery operation in System Center Data Protection Manager 2012, the operation fails.
Issue 5
After you rename a SharePoint site in System Center Data Protection Manager 2012, you cannot restore the site.
Issue 6
The SharePoint Recovery Point Status Report displays incorrect data in System Center Data Protection Manager 2012.
Issue 7
A bare metal recovery fails in certain situations.

Update Rollup 3 for System Center Operations Manager 2012 (KB2750631)

Issue 1
When you use the 32-bit version of Windows Internet Explorer to start a web console, the Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Presentation.Controls.SpeedometerGaugeUIController controller does not work correctly.
Issue 2
When you run a Windows PowerShell cmdlet, you receive the following error message:

Get-BPAModel is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet.

Issue 3
When you try to change a URL in the “web application availability monitoring” template instance, the change is not applied.

Update Rollup 3 for System Center Service Manager 2012 (KB2750615)

Issue 1
When you open or close the Incident form in the System Center Service Manager 2012 console, a memory leak occurs.
Issue 2
When form control objects are rooted in the Garbage-Collected (GC) Heap, the System Center Service Manager 2012 console crashes, and you receive an OutOfMemoryException exception.
Issue 3
After you change the SharePoint site language to Turkish in the System Center Service Manager 2012 portal, the display strings are displayed in English unexpectedly.
Issue 4
When you open the System Center Service Manager 2012 console by using a Citrix application, and then you open the Incident form, you experience slow performance.

 

Check out the blog post of kevin Greene on how to deploy this update: http://kevingreeneitblog.blogspot.ie/2012/10/scom-2012-deploying-cumulative-update.html

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SCVMM PRO integration: InvalidRelationshipSourceExceptionOM10

 

During my Masterclass last monday I showcased the different integration possibilities between the different system center products. One of the integrations I showcased was the integrations between SCVMM 2012 to SCOM2012.

I followed all the different steps to get things up and running but when I wanted to test the actual PRO integration service I found I had an issue.

The connection details showed an error:

“Operations Manager discovery failed with error: “Exception of type ‘Microsoft.VirtualManager.EnterpriseManagement.common.discoverydatainvalidrelationshipsourceexceptionOM10’ was thrown.

 

SNAG-0001

Talking about a strange error message. I checked my SCVMM jobs but nothing was out of order.

Reboot of the machine also did not solve the issue. Well here is actually how I solved the issue by following a rather strange trick.

Solution:

Deselect both “Enable PRO” and “Enable Maintenance mode integration” and click refresh.

SNAG-0002

Now the connection is OK to my Opsmgr environment.

Well let’s continue with testing my PRO by enabling it and refreshing.

SNAG-0003

Error 25922 “PRO Diagnostics Target cannot be found” was thrown. A refresh of the connection once more and this was solved.

SNAG-0004

Error 25923 “PRO Diagnostics Target is not monitored” was thrown. Apparently there was still no SCOM 2012 agent on the SCVMM server due to the fact that it was not yet switched over to the new SCOM2012 environment. So pushed the agent.

SNAG-0003

After the SCOM agent was pushed another try was successful to initiate a test PRO towards scom and the message appeared in the console:

SNAG-0005SNAG-0006 

A good resource to troubleshoot the error messages can be found here:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4929.system-center-2012-virtual-machine-manager-vmm-error-codes-25000-25999.aspx

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