Year: 2015

  I previously wrote about using the network device monitoring in SCOM here:  http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2013/05/29/simulate-monitoring-of-network-devices-with-jalasoft.aspx and then setting up SNMP trap monitoring here:  http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2015/02/03/snmp-trap-monitoring-with-scom-2012-r2.aspx   One of the challenges we face in SCOM 2012, is that we cannot treat a “Windows Computer” as a network devices.  When network discovery runs, we actually filter out Windows devices…

    Get them here: Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server 2014 Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server 2008 Replication Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server 2012 Replication Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server 2014 Replication There were several…

  One of the big struggles in SCOM since it originally released, is scheduled, and on-demand maintenance mode.  Customers often need more enterprise options than what is provided in the console, or trying to hack together task scheduler scripts for each group and computer.  There is a commonly used tool by Tim McFadden, available at…

  This is a concept that I have seen several examples of, but realize not everyone knows of this capability. You can create a rule, that targets a class hosted by an agent (such as Windows Server Operating System), but have a script response run on the Management Server to take action. Here is a…

  I had a customer looking for an example of how SCOM can monitor a server for multiple reboots in a period of time. I previously wrote about the typical scenario of looking for repeated events in a defined time period here:  http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2014/12/18/creating-a-repeated-event-detection-rule.aspx However – this wont work across reboots.  The consolidator Condition Detection that…

  If you haven’t updated to this version, it has been removed due to an issue. If you have updated to this version – find the workaround at:    http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlreleaseservices/archive/2015/10/16/released-system-center-management-pack-for-sql-server-and-replication-6-6-2-0.aspx

  I had a customer request recently, where they wanted to generate an alert on the existence of a “Bad” event, but ONLY if it was NOT followed by a “Healthy” event after 5 minutes. One of the scenarios for this was a Redundant Power Supply temporarily losing input power.  It was common for their…

    KB Article for OpsMgr:  https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3064919 KB Article for all System Center components:  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3069110 Download catalog site:  http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Search.aspx?q=3064919 IMPORTANT Be aware that the SCOM Web Console package for UR7 includes an important security update (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/MS15-086) *** Take notice – this update is HUGE with LOTS of fixes, and also has an important security update…

  This is your chance to have an open forum to provide direct feedback on features or changes you’d like to see. The product group has opened a UserVoice for SCOM – you can submit your ideas or vote on the ones you’d like to see.  Make your voice heard!  All of the feedback you…

  This is an updated article specific to SCOM 2012 SQL maintenance.  I had a previous article that focused more on SCOM 2007, and some of the data structures, and therefore recommendations have changed. This question comes up a lot.  The answer is really – not what maintenance you should be performing… but what maintenance…

  In a previous post – I demonstrated using MPAuthor to create a VERY simple Powershell script based perf collection rule:  http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2015/06/19/mpauthor-using-a-powershell-script-to-collect-performance-data-in-a-scom-rule-101.aspx Now I am going to demonstrate a more advanced script with multiple propertybags, script parameters, and adding references for custom target classes. I’ll be using the base script from:  http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2015/06/20/using-a-net-assembly-in-powershell-when-a-cmdlet-doesn-t-exist-a-microsoft-service-bus-example.aspx First we need…

  I was recently working with a customer who wanted to monitor the Queue Size of Microsoft Service Bus Queues.  We looked in Perfmon, and this value doesn’t exist.  Next, I’d look in PowerShell to see if a PowerShell cmdlet exists that could deliver what I need.  Unfortunately – that didn’t exist either. I have…

  Just a quick note to cross post this update on a security hotfix that might cause issues for your management servers.  See the details here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2015/06/15/quick-note-on-an-issue-you-might-encounter-after-installing-microsoft-security-update-3004375.aspx The key to knowing if you are impacted – is exception events with this: System.Exception: Exception decrypting. The specified file could not be decrypted

  In this example – we will take the most BASIC PowerShell script possible, and show how we can us it to collect Performance data in a SCOM rule. We will use Silect’s free tool – MPAuthor. First – the script: I will simply count the number of items in the C:\Windows\Temp directory:   $TempCount…

  If you use SCOM’s Agentless Exception Monitoring, to examin application crash data and report on it…. one of the artifacts of SCOM is that this data never grooms out of the SCOM Operational Database.  One of the things you can do is to disable all of the monitors that ship with AEM that are…

  We made some additions to supported SQL versions for System Center.   This includes adding support recently for SQL 2014, along with now officially supports SQL Server 2008R2 Service Pack 3 for OperationsManager 2012 R2.   Check out the latest table here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/dn281933.aspx

  I was working with a customer recently, and I realized that our MP’s to work with Audit Collection Forwarders could use a little help. The default view for the “forwarder” discovers instances where the ACS Forwarder service is set to automatic, but it does some “bad” things like targets Windows Computer class, and the…

  The SCOM product team is asking for customer feedback.  We want to know more about our customer needs, and problems, to improve the NEXT version of Operations Manager.   Please take a little time and fill this survey out. Announcement:  http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2015/05/15/operations-manager-customer-feedback-survey.aspx Direct Survey Link:    https://aka.ms/scomcustomer

    KB Article for OpsMgr:  https://support.microsoft.com/kb/3051169 KB Article for all System Center components:  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3051171 Download catalog site:  http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/v7/site/Search.aspx?q=3051169   Key fixes:   The "Remove-DisabledClassInstance" Windows PowerShell command times out without completingThe cmdlet takes lots of time to complete in large SCOM installations and sometimes times out without completing its work. This is fixed by…

    There is an updated MP for print services: https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=3290 Unfortunately – the download and guide still reference “for Operations Manager 2007R2”.  That is incorrect – this is for both SCOM 2007 R2 and all SCOM 2012 versions. Note the update in the guide: Changes in Version 6.0.7294.0 Version 6.0.7294 of the Management Pack…