The AIS team happily announces that AIS 1.5 has been rolled out! The next time you log into AIS, you will notice a new tab in the 'wunderbar' on the lower left hand corner of the console. This tab is labeled "Licenses", and it will take you into a brand-new area of the AIS service. As mentioned in my previous posts, the Licenses area will allow you to efficiently compare your installed Microsoft programs with your licensed quantities.
Microsoft Asset Inventory Service delivers an intelligent and comprehensive view of your company's desktop software environment. It is offered as part of the MDOP suite of products.
Visit the System Center Asset Inventory Service website
Microsoft released to manufacturing System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. The final code will be shipped on Nov. 1. The company bills the software as one-stop organization, allowing administrators to set up and deploy new virtual machines and manage hosts and other virtual infrastructure elements from one console.
The 2008 version of SCVMM introduces a wide scope of virtual platform support, performance and resource optimization, and enhances support of high-availability host clusters, among other improvements. In testing RTM escrow code in my lab over the past month or so, I found SCVMM to be a competent and convenient place to manage virtual machines. (
continue at source)
Roger Zander:The first public beta of SCCM Client Center V2.0 is online at:
http://smsclictr.sourceforge.net/smsclictrv2/
This beta version is for testing only and should not be used in a productive environment.
Feature-Requests and Issues should be reported on the
smsclictrv2 Tracker (a Sourceforge Account is required !).
Operations Manager 2007 integration into Active Directory can significantly reduce the administration efforts. Agents rolled out using software delivery or even as part of the OS image read their configuration information (management group membership, primary and fail-over server) from AD. The rules are maintained using the ‘Configure Active Directory (AD) Integration‘ wizard inside OpsMgr’s Administration workspace. It allows grouping agent computers on the value of attributes of their computer accounts. Attributes include:
* name
* description (in AD)
* location (in AD)
* operatingSystem
* memberOf (Security Group Membership)
Assigning configuration to agents based on their computer accounts’ OU (Organizational Unit) membership is not directly possible.(
continue at source)
The Savision Team: Over the last year, we have been busy improving Live Maps. This year at TechEd EMEA 2008, we will be demoing our soon to be released Live Maps v3. This version is the result of close cooperation with our customers, community experts and other System Center Alliance partners.
Key New Features:
- Network and application topology maps
- Business process maps
- Executive dashboards
- All maps are dynamic and change-aware
- Network-link monitoring on any map
- Wizard and template based map creation
Key Enhancements:
- Enhanced scalability of the Web and Authoring console
- Changed architecture for health state rollup
You can see Savision Live Maps v3 in action during Microsoft Teched EMEA where Savision will have
a booth.
Savision Teams up with Jalasoft and SecureVantage at TechEd
During TechEd, you will be able to watch joint demonstrations of Savision's Live Maps v3 with two other leading System Center Alliance partners,
Jalasoft and
SecureVantage. We've combined our solutions to highlight the extraordinary value your organization can realize with Operations Manager 2007.
Rakesh Malhotra: The team is already hard at work on the next release to align with the Windows Server 2008 R2 hypervisor update. Like this release, there will be a short gap between the platform update and the management update but we'll align the releases as close as possible (incidentally, the reason it takes us a little extra time is because once the platform has shipped and everything is "locked", we still need to run through a final battery of tests and stabilization just to make sure everything works as advertised). As we showed back in September, Live Migration will make it's debut in Windows Server 2008 R2 and SCVMM VNext will take advantage of that feature in addition to all of the other new functionality going into the R2 release.
An "R2" server release isn't as large of an incremental update as compared to a completely new major release version of the server OS. This tends to make it easier to adopt since the retesting/certification of applications effort can be more scoped. Of course, if you're using Hyper-V strictly as a virtual machine host and running business applications inside of virtual machines, it will be very straightforward to upgrade to 2K8 R2 since the applications will be isolated from the hypervisor OS update. SCVMM 2008 already supports the VMware VMotion feature directly and indirectly via PRO so adding live migration support isn't going to "change the game" if you will. The key thing we'll continue to invest in and improve is providing the best possible application knowledge so that you know *when* to execute a live migration, *which* applications need calibration and *what" that calibration should be. The beauty of PRO is that it is fully extensible and we can continue to provider a richer experience with improved knowledge incrementally between major and minor updates to SCVMM. On top of that, we're not doing it alone - our partners are coming to market with PRO enabled management packs for System Center so stay tuned for more news on that front.
Creating custom reports in Configuration Manager can be a challenge, not only to create the SQL statement for the report, but to figure out what SQL view contains the information you need and how the SQL views can be joined together. The Windows Installer CreatingCustomReportsByUsingSQLViews.msi package provides information that will help you to create custom reports, determine which Configuration Manager SQL views contain the information you need for your reports, and identify a path between the necessary SQL views and determine what columns can be used to join them.
Download:
the Windows Installer CreatingCustomReportsByUsingSQLViews.msi package
As part of the System Center Online family, the new category System Center Online Client will be made available soon. Updates offered in this category will apply only to computers running the System Center Online Client software and will contain updates including security updates for the client software of Asset Inventory Service (AIS).
AIS is an online service that translates inventory data into business intelligence.AIS is accessible through the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance.
For more information, see:
http://www.microsoft.com/sconline
The Infrastructure Planning and Design team has released a new guide: Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 with R2.
Download the guide by visiting
http://www.microsoft.com/ipd and selecting "Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager" under the Guidance section, toward the top of the page.
This guide enables you to quickly select which Configuration Manager feature(s) your organization needs in order to meet business requirements. Determining which site roles will be required in order to support those features is now a less daunting task as you are guided through the process. The guide leads you through Configuration Manager infrastructure-design decisions in a logical, sequential order. Accelerate the infrastructure design process by leveraging best practice guidance from the product group and subject matter experts. With assistance from this guide, you will be able to make the best decisions for successfully optimizing your infrastructure to best meet business requirements.
Just like
last year, Techlog will be covering Teched EMEA IT Professionals 2008 live, from the venue! Still IT Forum last year; this year it was renamed to Teched EMEA IT Professionals 2008 . From monday 3-nov through friday 7-nov, Techlog and its reporters will post the latest information, screenshots and news from Barcelona.
We expect some announcements around SCVMM 2008 (RTM), Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V R2 and
the website is also hinting that we will see some Windows 7 screenshots and information:
"Latest news! Be among the first to get a look at Windows 7. Hear from senior members of the Windows Product Management team from Redmond about the enterprise value of Windows 7 and new scenarios and capabilities for IT professionals."
The title of the keynote on monday is "Keys to an Innovative and Dynamic Enterprise in Changing Business Conditions". Brad Anderson, General Manager, Management and Solutions Division, will share how changing business conditions have affected IT priorities today and what IT professionals can do to leverage Microsoft solutions to drive their agenda forward. With a focus on Microsoft’s Dynamic IT initiative, Brad will discuss how IT leaders can reduce costs, increase IT innovation and deliver new capabilities to the business through optimizing IT processes and technology infrastructure.
(more)
I’m Zane Adam, sr. director of virtualization strategy here in Redmond at Microsoft. I’m writing today to announce the exciting news that we’ve released to manufacturing (RTM’d) System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and to talk a bit about its critical role in the broad set of virtualization offerings from Microsoft.
Recently, I returned from a trip abroad where I attended some of our international getVirtualnow launch events which initially kicked off with our September launch event in Bellevue. During this world tour I had the opportunity to visit with customers and partners from a variety of countries, having some great discussions with them. As I talked to representatives from large and small companies, I heard a consistent theme that all these groups are looking to aggressively manage costs and improve operational efficiency, and partners are also looking for ways of helping customers do so. The timing of these conversations couldn’t have come at a better time as I was able to share with them how the broad set of Microsoft virtualization software addresses these areas. First, I was able to talk to these customers about the fact that they can acquire our virtualization offerings for about 1/3 the cost of what a comparable VMware installation would cost, helping them realize immediate cost reduction benefits. The portfolio of technologies we offer spans the entire IT infrastructure from the desktop to the datacenter, while providing the tools for managing a customer’s infrastructure and apps regardless of whether it’s their physical or virtual assets. Additionally, because the solutions we’re delivering are based on Windows, customer and partners can take advantage of the skills and knowledge they already have when implementing, developing to, or managing our virtualization offerings helping to save them both money and time. (
continue at source)
The Windows Server Operating System Management Pack consists of the following five management packs: Microsoft Windows Server Library, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Discovery, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Monitoring, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server. The Microsoft Windows Server management packs monitor the performance, health, and availability of Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, and Windows 2000 Server.
By detecting, alerting on, and automatically responding to critical events and performance indicators, management packs reduce resolution times for issues and increase the overall availability and performance of your Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003, and Windows 2000 Server operating systems, thereby helping to reduce the total cost of ownership.
Download:
Windows Server Operating System Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007
As described in the previous post the lab environment includes multiple forests, domains and workgroup computers. One of the nice things about SMS 2003 is the fact that once the SMS Client has been installed on a system, you "own" that system and can manage it from that day forward. In the previous post, we discussed how to use a logon script to install the SMS Advanced Client. In this post we will discuss how to configure computers that are not located within the same domain as the SMS server to be able to find the SMS Management Point (MP) and Server Locator Point (SLP).
All Windows operating systems since Windows 2000 rely on DNS for name resolution. A clients still have WINS installed to support some legacy applications but most do not. An LMHOSTS file is similar to a HOSTS file. A HOST files is used to map DNS hosts names to IP addresses. An LMHOSTS file is used to map NetBIOS names to IP addresses. NetBIOS names differ from DNS names because you can have different types of NetBIOS names (e,g, domain, workstation service etc.). The LMHOSTS files is placed in the same folder as the HOSTS file (%WINDIR%\System32\Drivers\Etc).(
http://blogs.msdn.com/muaddib/archive/2008/10/19/configuring-sms-to-work-on-workgroup-computers-and-computers-in-other-domains-lmhosts.aspx)
When using command line notifications it is often of interest to pass command line variables to the program being called. One such variable is to specify the web console URL and associated alert ID of the alert that generated the notification so an operator can click the URL to see details about the alert.(
continue at source)
Now that R2 for SCCM has shipped that includes multicast support, unknown computer support and run as support in OSD one might ask the question - why do I need MDT?
There is a great deal to MDT, including the ability to operate standalone and in conjunction with SMS 2003. For SCCM specifically there are a number of advantages. (
continue at source)
Multicasting is a new feature of R2 in SCCM and is a welcome addition to the OSD feature. Multicast allows for image deployment with a much reduced network load. If, for example, you are deploying a 500 MB image to 20 workstations that have just arrived from the OEM then with normal OSD imaging you would see network traffic equal to around 5 Gig! Using multicasting would result in a significant decrease in network utilization. Depending on the configuration, as little as about 500 MB of traffic required to deploy to a single machine!
How do you setup multicast? Let's walk through the configuration that is required step by step.(
continue at source)
In SCCM 2007 SP1 the console will experience an error when you try to edit a Run Command Line step that was created in SCCM 2007 RTM. This can occur if you upgraded from RTM to SP1, if you import in SP1 a task sequence that was exported from RTM, or if you use the "Import Microsoft Deployment Task Sequence" when using MDT SCCM integration. This issue is described on The Manageability Team Blog here.
This is caused by the fact that SCCM 2007 SP1 introduces an additional property, _SMSTSRunCommandLineAsUser, for Run Command Line tasks to support the SCCM 2007 R2 feature to run command line actions as another user. Unfortunately, the SP1 console is not smart enough to detect that a Run Command Line step is missing this property and fix it. It will simple try to modify the step when it is edited and generate an error when it cannot save the missing property.(
continue at source)
Aly Shivji: Many scenarios arise in which you may want to port your task sequence from one environment to another. Common scenarios include promotion through Lab and QA environments and migration between disconnected hierarchies. Configuration Manager allows you to export task sequences into XML files as an out-of-the-box feature, however there are some things to remember when doing this.(
continue at source)
Back in March, Richard Smith wrote a post about how to move the Task Sequence window to one side so that you can display a new window in the centre of the screen without it being covered up by the “Always On Top” Task Sequence window.
Richard’s solution works great, however if you try to use it during the WindowsPE stage of any task sequence it exhibits some rather peculiar behaviour. Basically, when launched in WindowsPE it tends to only work if you give the mouse a ‘waggle’ (yes, that is a technical term), i.e. the AutoIT code is executed but for some reason WindowsPE does not actually move the Task Sequence window until the mouse cursor is moved.
In order to make this work as expected in WindowsPE, you’ll need to bring the required application window to the top of the Z-order rather than move the Task Sequence window out of the way. The only downside to this is that it might not be immediately obvious to the user that a new window has appeared (particularly if it is quite small) as it will appear on top of the Task Sequence window, whereas Richards method does not have this problem.(
continue at source)
Dave Berkowitz: It wasn’t so long ago (March 2007) that Microsoft unleashed System Center Operations Manager 2007 as a successor to Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, and it’s only been a few months (April 2008) since we followed up with a pretty major announcement of a cross-platform strategy for the product.
Now, Gartner analyst David Williams has published an in-depth look at OpsMgr, evaluating its enhancements against customer requirements, describing how the product is getting traction in the market and making some predictions about future adoption.
Unfortunately, I am restricted, as the analyst relations manager for the System Center business, from telling you exactly what’s in the report. But I can tell you it is a good read, provides a nice update on what customers have been doing with OpsMgr 2007 and, while we may not agree with all of the conclusions, it does have some interesting thoughts for customers looking at next steps for monitoring or event correlation and analysis (ECA) products.
Go read the report at:
http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/microsoft/vol10/article2and3/article2and3.html
In this article Pete Zerger gives some guidance on which hotfixes should be installed on your OpsMgr2007 or Essentials environment on how to determine if hotfixes are really installed.
In some cases running a WMI query or checking the Operation DB for a list of installed hotfixes is not always accurate. Therefore you only have one option, checking file versions.(
continue at source)
SCOM Remote Maintenance Mode Scheduler is a GUI based tool that lets administrators easily schedule maintenance mode for a server or group of servers inside System Center Operations Manager 2007.
New Features in version 2.0 include
* Ability to schedule a daily maintenance mode.
* New Show Scheduled Tasks Dialog.
* Added feature to see all details for scheduled jobs.
* Added feature to delete scheduled jobs
* Fixed Minor bugs
(
continue at source)
Johan Arwidmark has updated his HAL replacement script for MDT 2008.
The HAL Replacement script for MDT 2008 (LiteTouch and ZeroTouch) has been updated with support for XP SP3 and SCCM 2007.
The script updates sysprep.inf with another HAL type. Therefore the reference images should have an advanced ACPI HAL type.
Download:
here
One of the features in SCCM to facilitate deployment of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 is the ability to inject mass storage controller drivers offline. Traditionally mass storage drivers had to be included in the image (present when Sysprep is run) for these operating systems.
To do this in SCCM, for each computer model to be supported for XP or Server 2003, you must do the following:
* Import all device drivers for the model.
* Create a driver package for the model from the imported drivers.
* Add an Apply Driver Package step to the deployment task sequence for each driver package, filtered by the model (typically WMI make and model).
* If the driver package contains a mass storage controller driver, check the "Select the mass storage driver..." box and then select the driver and model for the controller.
(
continue at source)
Creating custom monitoring objects (rules, monitors, groups, and so on) is a normal part of many System Center Operations Manager (OpsMgr) 2007 administrators' routines. For every object that is authored, there is a common question that must be answered—what target to use.
Choosing the correct target for an object is critical, but the correct approach may not always be clear. OpsMgr provides a number of options for targeting. This article will take a look at several, with the goal of helping administrators choose the appropriate method for each scenario; and the terms "class" and "target" will be used interchangeably.
Let's assume you have an internal application called widget that needs to be monitored. All of the monitoring specifications have been defined and the work to build the monitoring objects for widget has begun. You quickly discover, however, that there is no precise target for widget! According to OpsMgr best practices, all rules, monitors, and so forth should be targeted to the most specific object possible in order to limit the scope of distribution to just the systems of interest. What are the options in OpsMgr that can help you meet this best practice goal?(
continue at source)
The much-anticipated release of Windows Server 2008 introduced significant changes to the OS, adding powerful functionality such as server core, server roles, read-only DCs, Hyper-V, Terminal Services Gateway, and enhancement support for Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). While these changes and new features are beneficial, they do somewhat alter how you use System Center to manage and monitor your Windows Server 2008 systems.
As organizations introduce Windows Server 2008 into their production environments, they'll need a way to manage and monitor the health, performance, and availability of these services. Fortunately, you can use existing System Center technologies. System Center Operations Manager 2007 (OpsMgr) recently added support for Windows Server 2008 through the availability of new management packs, and System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (ConfigMgr) added support for Windows Server 2008 with the release of ConfigMgr SP1.(
continue at source)
System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 includes Asset Intelligence updates and support for Intel vPro technology and Windows Vista SP1. But most important, at least in regard to this article, is that SP1 gives Configuration Manager full support for Windows Server 2008.
A critical point in providing an effective solution for managing and monitoring Windows Server 2008 was to provide the same functionality that is currently available for Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003. Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) 2007 has achieved this goal.
With SP1 installed, ConfigMgr works with Windows Server 2008 just as it does with other versions of Windows. (System Center Operations Manager 2007 has also made strides in this area with the release of new management packs. For more information, read Pete Zerger's article in this issue, "Monitoring Windows Server 2008 with OpsMgr 2007,"
technet.microsoft.com/magazine/cc974507.) In this article, I'll provide a quick briefing on how ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 lets you monitor your Windows Server 2008 assets.(
continue at source)
Malcolm Bullock: This is a question that often gets asked, and sometimes the answers are as clear as mud! So, I'm going to try and answer the question and you can tell me if it's clear or not! Firstly, my usual disclaimers on licensing related matters - This blog post represents my opinion, to the best of my knowledge it's correct (and I'll get it checked!) BUT you MUST clarify your understanding for your environment with your LAR, or whoever is responsible for selling you Microsoft licensing. And as an aside if you want to store the location of an excellent licensing blog from someone who really does know her stuff then check out
Emma's blog here. Emma's excellent (and accurate!) coverage of System Center licensing is
here - and
I've just noticed that she references my blog at the end :). So what I'll try and do here then is put the technical spin on this too and explain the 'workload' sentence which for SCCM may confuse! (
continue at source)
Matthew Hudson: SQL Server 2008 is now supported on Configuration Manager 2007 RTM and SP1
System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (RTM and SP1) now supports the use of SQL Server 2008 as a site database. In order to upgrade a site-server database to SQL 2008 there are 2 hot fixes required:
· ConfigMgr 2007 RTM customers must apply hot fix
KB955229
· ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 customers must apply hot fix
KB955262
The following are requirements when performing a clean install on a SQL Server 2008 database:
· A clean install of ConfigMgr 2007 RTM on a SQL Server 2008 database is not supported. You must first install SQL Server 2005, upgrade to SQL Server 2008 and then apply hot fix
KB955229
A clean install of ConfigMgr 2007 SP1 on a SQL Server 2008 database is supported, but should apply hot fix
KB955262
This announcement is to alert you that the next version of System Center Essentials Technology Adoption Program (TAP) is now accepting nominations.
Do you want to be part of making the next generation of the System Center Essentials product great? If you are a responsible for managing the IT assets and services for a midsized business and have a passion for providing feedback, you could be a great candidate for our Technology Adoption Program (TAP). We view our TAP program as one of the most important investments we make as a product team. We are very selective in which customers we invite to participate and we intend is to partner very closely with you. Our goal is to develop a mutually beneficial and long term relationship with you to enable building the next version of the System Center Essentials product that is designed to meet your needs to the best of our abilities.
For more information and to nominate yourself for the TAP please click
this link.
Trying to monitor everything with SCOM 2007 for ease of administration is a good thing and quite a challenge with al the third party management pack and additional frameworks. The configuration of a frame work usually takes a a lot of time and effort. Sometimes it even takes more than time than the basic SCOM 2007 implementation to get it all running as you would like.
With the Cross Platform beta bits available for public download its time to see what they can do. Installing the Cross Platform beta bits is an easy task. Just follow the detailed steps described in the "SCXPlatExtensions-QuickStartGuide" in the Cross Platform download package. I'm running SCOM 2007 SP1 on Server 2008 x64 on Hyer-V so I don't have to install WS-Management 1.1, which is a prerequisite for XPlatform, because its already in there, just check by typing "winrm id" in the cmd and you will get a response like this. If not you will need WS-Management to install the XPlatform bits.(
continue at source)
| 30 Oct '08 - 07:21 | kenneth van surksum | 
no comments | news source ~ Configuration Manager Writers 
