Multi Host Ping Monitoring

In a recent deployment, our customer had asked how they would be able to perform some constant connectivity testing. So, we installed the Multi Host Ping Monitoring MP that can be downloaded from SystemCenter Forum. We've been using this MP since 1.0 and works pretty well.

This cool and simple MP can be used to test connectivity to a URL as well and provides alerts when the threshold for time out seconds are breached.

Intervals for the testing can be configured and these return as collection data to run performance analysis on.

It also comes with pre-defined views! What more can you ask for! :)

You can get it here... http://www.systemcenterforum.org/multi-host-ping-mp-20-beta-now-available/

SCUG launched!!

We had a great launch of the System Center User Group, Malaysian Edition. About 84 people attended the launch and from that we gathered about 65 members on Day 1. I was superly excited about this.

Andrew McMurray, a Technology Specialist from Australia spent about 45 minutes talking to us about the System Center Roadmap and showcased the Config Manager R2 and its integration with SoftGrid

Jeff Low from Redmond then gave us a surprise visit to showcase to us some new stuff coming in MDOP. New DART tools as well as the all new Kidaro solution. Which was super cool.

The crowd got some chances to win prizes sponsored by Microsoft, Easy Safe and Redynamics Asia.

After the awe of technology, we came back down to earth to have a scrumptous dinner.

It was also a great that our local media decided that our event was worth covering :). Thanks Jo... http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2008/8/14/technology/20080814104157&sec=technology

Overall, I had a great time at the launch and I hope this community will remain useful for many years to come.

Photos of the launch can be viewed on my SkyDrive http://cid-528396cd62a32ef8.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/SCUG

We have continuous request for membership and hope that we can reach our 100 member mark by end of this year. Awesome!!

Our next event will be on September 30th at the Microsoft Auditorium, KLCC, Malaysia and I'll be speaking on the topic "ACS Masterclass - Installing, Configuring, Optimizing"

Jalsoft Xian Network Manager Io SP2 BETA released

Its good to be back to blogging after a long lay off due to work schedules.

About a week or so ago, Jalasoft announced that a Service Pack 2 for their popular Xian Network Manager Io will be released somewhere in the November timeframe. I just got news today that the BETA is already released.

In case this is new to you, Xian Network Manager is an excellent add-on to Operations Manager 2007 that allows you to proactively monitor network devices. It does a pretty good job and has a well built Management Pack.

Pete Zerger of System Center Forum wrote a great article on it and can be found at http://systemcenterforum.org/wp-content/uploads/Jalasoft_Series_rollup.pdf

From what i understand, Service Pack 2 will introduce a couple of architecture changes. The first and most important change is that they are no longer using the SDK on the Root Management Server (RMS) to send alerts and counters to OpsMgr2007. Instead the load can now be taken by any Management Server and so preventing any overload of the RMS. Now you can send without any problem thousands of counters per minute to OpsMgr2007. It is expected that this enhancement can increase the performance by more than 400%! Cool...

This would also mean that to scale, all you would need to do is just to add additional Management Servers.

Other changes in SP2 are improved management packs which are faster to load and require less instance space on OpsMgr2007. More robust SNMP module is also added to increase performance

I've downloaded the BETA today and will be testing it out. Will post any findings here.