Monday, June 23, 2008

Tech Ed SEA 2008 is rolling in the thunder

During the next thunderstorm (which happens pretty often in Malaysia), reach out and grab all the thunderbolts and put it into to a box! Bring that box to the KL Convention Center and open it on August 11th 2008. That's what Tech Ed SEA 2008 is going to feel like!! woohooooo..

ok.. it'll probably fry everyone in sight but the experience alone is exhilarating don't you think?? :)

ok i get it... Corny 101.

But I tell you i'm super excite about this year's Tech Ed 2008. I'll be conducting 2 sessions this year on Increasing Security and Compliance with System Center. I plan to talk about how to use the various System Center products inline with current security practices as well as introducing the various ways and techniques you can use System Center to achieve compliance. I'm currently working on what demos i want to show but as much as possible, i want the sessions to be demo centric.

I'll be starting my rituals to the Demo Gods to go easy on me this year and i'm thinking that if i offer enough meat and a virgin goat.. hopefully.. my demos will work flawlessly. OoOommmmmmm...

If there's anything you feel you'd like to see or hear, inline with my session topic, please do leave a comment.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Operations Manager Service Pack 2.. What would you want to see?

The Product Team is currently working on Operations Manager Service Pack 2. What do you think? What would you like to see personally in Service Pack 2? Please comment

Management Pack Roadmap till Q3 2008

Quite a few people has asked me what the availability of Management Packs there are and what's coming soon. So i thought i'd share this with you. This was actually pulled out from MS. Hope it helps you plan on what's coming.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Operations Manager 2007 SP1 Important HotFix Released

Heads up guys! The Product Team has just released a Hotfix for Ops Manager SP1 that addresses some important areas.

Please note: This patch applies to System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1 Only

These are the problems that were identified from a couple of management packs that this hotfix will solve

  • Uable to discover CSDVersion on Windows Vista machines
  • Unable to discover operating system properties on Windows 2000 SP4
  • Agent HandleCountThreshold monitor does not restart Health service on exchange agent if HandleCountThreshold is exceeded
  • ACS Collection rule references a wrong EventID
  • Performance collection raises erroneous alerts for disabled services due to unavailable perf counters
  • A script bug prevents cluster discovery where Virtual Server Name is a subset of the Physical Server Name.

If you suffer from the following symptoms... please download and apply the patch fast

  • Dicover operating system properties on Windows 2000 SP4
  • Discover CSDVersion on Windows Vista machines
  • Restart Health service when HandleCountThreshold is exceeded
  • Collect correct ACS event
  • Discover cluster where Virtual Server Name is a subset of the Physical Server Name
  • And additionally generates erroneous Alert for Performance Data Source Module when the services are disabled

Installation
This hotfix contains four management packs. Install these management packs from an Operations Manager console.

To extract the management pack files contained in this hotfix:

  1. Copy the file: SystemCenterOperationsManager2007-SP1-KB951979-X86-X64-ENU.MSI to either a local folder or accessible network shared folder.
  2. Then run:
    SystemCenterOperationsManager2007-SP1-KB951979-X86-X64-ENU.MSI locally on each applicable computer that meets the predefined criteria.

    Note: The installation path is typically the following: Program Files\System Center Hotfix Utility

This hotfix contains the following updated Management Packs which must be imported into Operations Manager. These management packs are located in the folder noted above.

Microsoft.SystemCenter.2007.mp (Version 6.0.6278.19)
Microsoft.SystemCenter.ACS.Internal.mp (Version 6.0.6278.19)
Microsoft.SystemCenter.Internal.mp (Version 6.0.6278.19)
Microsoft.Mom.BackwardCompatibility.mp (Version 6.0.6278.19)

For additional information about this issue, see KB article KB951979 at http://support.microsoft.com/