Blog

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

Go back to the blog

SCOM: One million dollar question: Should I upgrade?

IMAG0114

On the 8th of May I’ll be hosting a LiveMeeting that will hopefully give you some answers to some of the most heard questions buzzing around at MMS2012:

Should I upgrade to SCOM2012?

Join me to give you strong arguments to do so!

The abstract of the livemeeting:

After all the work you’ve put in your Scom2007 environment to get it state of the art is it worth upgrading to scom2012?
Will I risk my Scom2007 environment while upgrading to Scom2012?
Will I really benefit from upgrading in my environment?
If you ask yourself one of the questions above make sure to join this session to get some answers to get you going!

Register here check out the LiveMeeting to find out some answers to all these questions!

https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032510700&culture=nl-BE

Go back to the blog

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.

Go back to the blog

SCOM 2012: Meet the SCOM 2012 experts at SCUG NL (wrap up)

Last friday 06/01 the event “Meet the SCOM 2012 experts” was held by SCUG NL near Amsterdam.

The turn up was really great and a lot of speakers (including yours truly Smile ) gave sessions regarding the next big version of System Center Operations Manager.

WP_000823

The day was quickly sold out and those who made it in enjoyed the session which gave away a nice first view of the different aspects of the SCOM 2012.

All the slide decks can be found here:

http://www.scug.nl/2012/01/13/presentaties-scug-nl-vrijdag-6-januari-2012/

Program (in order of appearance):

Dieter Wijckmans:

Session about the proper preparation to upgrade your environment from SCOM 2007 to SCOM 2012 with all the different tweaks and perks you need to do to make sure everything goes smoothly: scug_nl_How to prepare yourself for SCOM 2012_Dieter_Wijckmans

Walter Eikenboom:

Session about the End to End application monitoring in SCOM 2012. Nice session packed with demo’s how to take full advantage of the different aspects of correctly monitoring your applications with SCOM 2012: SCUG NL – OpsMgr 2012 End-To-End monitoring v1.0_Walter_Eikenboom

Michael Guthrie (Microsoft product team of SCOM 2012)

Session about the different aspects of Application Monitoring features in SCOM 2012. The features are greatly improved to give you even more in depth insight in where to pinpoint the issue of a problem with an application: SCUG NL APM with OM12_Michael_Guthrie

Vishnu Nath (Microsoft product team of SCOM 2012)

Session about the greatly improved Network monitoring features in SCOM 2012. Discussed a broad variety of new features and possibilities in the field of network monitoring. The initial configuration is also explained: SCUG NL OM2012_NetworkMonitoring_Vishnu Nath

Oskar Landman (SCOM MVP)

Session about the difference between SCOM 2007 and SCOM 2012. Oskar highlighted some well hidden new features which make your live as a SCOM admin a lot easier. An in depth insight deep down the SCOM application. A nice interactive session with lots of questions from the crowd (unfortunately they are not documented in the slide deck Smile with tongue out): SCUG NL – under the hood_Oskar_Landman

Go back to the blog

Meet the System Center Operations Manager 2012 Experts

I have the privilege of giving a session at the “Meet the System Center operations Manager 2012 Experts” event of Scug NL on 06/01/2012.

On the link below you can find the different topics + timetable.

http://www.scug.nl/2011/12/07/meet-the-system-center-operations-manager-2012-experts-6-januari-2012/

I’ll go over the different aspects of preparing yourself for the upgrade / move to the next best thing SCOM2012 by planning and not by being the IT_Rambo for a change…

There’s a good chance that IT-Rambo will surface in NL.

So if you see him start hitting next as quick as possible!rambo-ii-9

Go back to the blog

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:

printscreen0050

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)

printscreen0051

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

Note: Make sure you use your installed framwork and version

printscreen0052

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!

printscreen0055

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.

printscreen0056

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

Go back to the blog

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:

printscreen0037

“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

Go back to the blog

SCOM 2012: Run WebConsole in different application pool

During my session on how to prepare yourself I’ve showcased some tips and tricks which will make your live much easier when you upgrade your existing SCOM 2007 R2 installation to SCOM2012.

One of the tricks I’ve mentioned was to run the SCOM2012 web console in it’s own app pool. During the upgrade of your web console the application pool will be removed and you can only choose the default application pool to install the website which is in my opinion not a best practice.

So before installing the Web Console on your webserver perform the following tasks in IIS:

Open the IIS manager on your machine

printscreen0022

Right click the application pools and choose “Add Web Site…”

printscreen0026

Fill in the details:

printscreen0045

Note: At this point you need to choose another port than the default 51908. You can change this again after the upgrade.

printscreen0046

The site is up and running.

During the wizard for pre installation you’ll get at one point at the following dialog to choose your application pool. Here’s the reason explained why we can’t reuse the “old” site:

printscreen0033

The Operations Manager WebConsole will be deleted during the upgrade so it will default to the default application pool.

Select the new created website and continue.

printscreen0031

After the upgrade you’ll notice that the old site has been removed. At this point you can edit the binding of the application pool again to the default port to keep the same transparency towards your users.

More tips to follow so stay tuned!

Go back to the blog

Live meeting: How to prepare for SCOM 2012

0e0a0bc7-b72d-4af2-a9b9-7df871f9c7ea

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?

Go back to the blog

SCOM 2012: Beta is live today

A new milestone in the development of System Center Operations Manager 2012 (SCOM2012) today. The release of the beta to the public.

OpMgr_2012_Beta-Logo

More info on the team blog here:

SCOM 2012 blog

A small portion of the SCOM 2012 FAQ which is something most people are very curious about:

“We’ve made significant investments to help our customers build more comprehensive monitoring for their private cloud environments, while integrating their existing datacenter investments.

  • Common console across datacenter and clouds.
    • You get a consistent view across the Operations Manager 2012 console, web console, and SharePoint, with the information you need to keep IT services running across datacenter and cloud resources. In addition, you can use dashboard templates to create custom views tailored to your specific needs.
  • Rich Application Performance Monitoring:
    • With newly integrated AVIcode technology for monitoring .NET applications, Operations Manager 2012 delivers .NET application performance monitoring and diagnostics. Additionally, support for JEE application health monitoring has been added to help ensure the availability of a broad number of business-critical applications and services.
  • Support for heterogeneous environments.
    • If you run a variety of operating systems—Windows, Linux, and UNIX servers and their workloads—Operations Manager 2012 provides a single console to monitor this heterogeneous environment.
  • Integrated network device monitoring and alerts.
    • Operations Manager 2012 now includes network device monitoring. Instead of simply monitoring each server, it is now possible to look at the underlying network topology that connects the servers. You get a single end-to-end view to help you understand how your server and network infrastructure is working as a whole—from node to network to servers to applications and services.
  • Simplified management infrastructure.
    • The use of management servers and server pools enables a highly available monitoring infrastructure without expensive hardware or complicated configurations. And with one-step setup for high availability, you get support for automatic failover.”

Here’s the direct download link:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26804

Technet info link:

http://technet.microsoft.com/nl-be/library/hh205987(en-us).aspx

The final release is still planned for the first half of 2012. But you can evaluate it now already.

Caution:

As this is beta software it’s not supported to run this in a production environment.

We’ll be blogging more on the install process and first findings soon.

Go back to the blog

Enough talk, let’s build
Something together.

Reach out now