Opalis Video Demos

This is a good post on demos surrounding Opalis. Check out the 8-minute video demos at  http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2010/09/21/opalis-8-minute-demo-video-series-now-on-microsoft-showcase.aspx

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R3

I believe the only product which has ever gone to an R3 version.. :)

SCCM R3 is now released. http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2010/10/14/system-center-configuration-manager-2007-r3-unleashed.aspx

Opalis Customer Experience program announced. Sign up Now

The CEP for Opalis has been announced. Check out the team post here. This is a good program to participate together with Microsoft on your Opalis experience. Sign up here

Windows Intune first steps

Started the Beta 2 of Windows Intune yesterday. Installed the 64-bit agent that was downloaded from the Management Console. It took a couple of hours for the whole setup to initialize. Here is some of the stuff that was noticed:

• My Forefront Client was uninstalled and replaced by the Intune Malware Protection
• Windows Intune Center was added
• Files were installed in C:\Program Files\Microsoft\OnlineManagement
• Noticed several common client based management packs imported into the C:\Program Files\Microsoft\OnlineManagement\Monitoring\Management Packs folder

Error: 'Element not found'

While setting up an Operations Manager 2007 R2 image on Hyper-V, I came across an error when I tried to START the virtual machine.

An error occurred while attempting to start the selected virtual machine. Could not find a usable certificate. Error: 'Element not found'

I manually stopped and started the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management Service

net stop vmms
net start vmms

... and now the virtual machine could startup.

Why did this happen??

Extend Schema Log 'Failed to create attribute cn=. Error code = 8206.'

Had a bit of an issue today at a customer site while trying to extend schema for SCCM. The environment was on Windows 2000 Active Directory so the ExtAdSch.exe tool could not be run directly on the DC. Since the SCCM server was running Windows Server 2003, i ran the tool from there.


Logged on as Administrator (member of Schema Admins) but the schema extension failed. checking the logs and there was a skew of 'Failed to create attribute... Error code = 8206'

Looking around I saw some help from Wei King's blog post.

Failed to create attribute cn=. Error code = 8206.

If you get this error while trying to extend your schema for Configuration Manager 2007, it may be because your account may not have enough privileges to do so...yes even if you are the administrator (check the C:\ExtADSch.log). To do this, make sure you have your schmmgmt.dll registered before you can add this console into MMC. Once opened, add the Active Directory Schema console into your MMC. From there assign the account you are using to have rights to update the schema.

When trying this, I had an issue where I could not modify the permissions on the AD Schema snap-in. This was on a Windows 2000 DC. I realized that for this, I needed to do a Right-click --> Operations Master... and select the option for 'Schema may be modified on this Domain Controller'. But after assigning explicit permissions to the Administrator account, the ExtendAd Schema still failed with the same error.

After checking AD, I noticed that there were a few orphaned domain controllers still sitting in AD. After using the ntdsutil tool to remove the DCs from AD and clearing the replication topology, the ExtendAD Schema worked successfully!! Which leaves me to assume that the AD had replication sync errors which prevented it from updating schema.

Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cumulative Update 2 is Released

CU2 for Operations Manager 2007 R2 has been released. It addresses a couple of key fixes as stated below taken from the Release Notes:

• The Network Devices State view does not display the device name.

• The discovery process fails when a double-byte character is inserted into a string that is searched.

• The availability reports that are exported as TIF files or as PDF files are truncated.

• The property bags of WMIEventProvider module do not support the including or excluding of specific properties.

•  The color of the chart lines does not match the legend in the Web console in the Performance view.

• When SQL Reporting Services is enabled in SCOM by using the United States Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) security, the datawarehouse encounters an InvalidOperationException error.

• The monitoring host process does not start the workflows immediately when tasks are received.

• The Operations Manager console crashes when you open multiple customized views in a new window.

• The Allow Anonymous discovery property in the Internet Information Services (IIS) Management Pack is incorrect in the console.

• When you run updates, a restart dialog box is shown before the files for the update are delivered.

• The agent update packages are not deployed to the servers that have the Terminal Services Gateway (TS Gateway) role installed or that have the Remote Desktop Gateway (RD Gateway) role service installed.

• Audit Collection Services stops collecting data if the Event Log service uses the automatic backup feature.

To view Release Notes and Instructions on how to apply CU2, click here

A direct link to the download page is here

Good posting on a first hand experience by Kevin Holman here

Service Manager 2010 officially goes RTM

Bob Muglia announced at the keynote at MMS that Service Manager 2010 is now officially RTM.

downloadable 180 day eval copy... here

Configuration Manager 2007 R3 Beta released

Following Brand Anderson's announcement yesterday at the keynote, the Config Manager R3 beta has been released on connect. If you've subscribed to it, you can start downloading the bits. Stuff that is in R3:

• Power Management
• OSD Enhancements
• Dynamic Collection Evaluation
• Delta Discovery
• Enhancements on Collections and DCM
• Scalability of support for up to 300,000 clients per site hierarchy

MMS2010: Excited and Sad

I've arrived in Las Vegas and excited about MMS 2010, however, i feel sad as well as this year is not going to be the same.

Due to the Icelandic Ash Cloud, alot of european based speakers and delegates have had to cancel their trip. Not sure what's going to happen to the sessions which had these speakers scheduled but generally its going to affect MMS2010 in a big way. I was looking forward to meeting up with good friends but it looks like thats not going to happen this year.

Will be reporting as much as I can from MMS2010 in hope that it will benefit those that could not make it due to this.

SCCM 2007 Dashboard

The SCCM 2007 Dashboard has been officially released. It comes with built-in reports that is accessed through Sharepoint Services so it can be viewed wthout the SCCM console.

Just downloaded it and will post up some findings after fidlingwith it.

Download it here

Opalis offering as part of SMSE/SMSD

Opalis provides a very helpful techology in peforming process and workflow automation. It already has Integration Packs available for HP, BMC, IBM, VMWare, SCOM etc and you can even build your own. I have seen it working and am nw in the midst of testing it to perform some workflow automation betwen SCOM and VMWare. Prgress Blogpost will follow.

Good news for customers on Software Assurance and the System Management Suite (SMS-E/SMS-D) license, Opalis is provided for you free with this purchase. Check announcement here

Cross Platform CU2 Released

There is an update released for Cross Platform on System Center Operations anger 2007 R2. Generally addressing support for Suse Enterprise Linux 11, hotfixes and issues.

Refer to this technet blogpost for listing

Download the update from here

For any issue pertaining to the installation of CU2, post it in this forum

Updating OpsMgr R2 with CU1 – The Process

Just performed my CU1 update today. Here are the steps i took.

1. Downloaded the CU1 update (refer to previous post for link) to my D: drive
2. Open up a Command Prompt as Administrator (Elevated Privileges)
3. Changed to the D: Drive and ran the SystemCenterOperationsManager2007-R2CU1-KB974144-X86-X64-IA64-ENU.MSI file
4. The extractation will take place into default location of C:\Program Files (x86)\System Center 2007 R2 Hotfix Utility\
5. After such, the SetupUpdateOM.exe will run automatically. If not, or needed to update other servers, then run this executable as neccessary.
6. Once launched, the following are the order of the installation:

Make sure you close the Operations Console or you will receive the warning below…

The System Center services will be stopped at this point

Updating of the core files will take place here at this stage.

After which the installation will complete.
To verify the success of the updates, you' can check file versions of the following:

• HealthService.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.DataWarehouse.DataAccess.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.OperationsManager.DataAbstrationLayer.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.OperationsManager.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.OperationsManager.Web.ConsoleFramework.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.UI.Authoring.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• Microsoft.Mom.DiscoveryDatabaseAccess.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• Microsoft.Mom.RecorderBarBHO.dll (Version 1.0.0.2)
• Microsoft.MOM.UI.Common.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• Microsoft.Mom.UI.Components.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• MobileWebConsole.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• MOMBidLdr.dll (Version 5.2.3790.1290)
• MOMConnector.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• MOMModules.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• MOMNetworkModules.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• RootWebConsole.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)
• RSSWebConsole.dll (Version 6.1.7221.13)

Also included into the extracted folder are SRSUpgradeTool.exe, DiscoveryEntitySProcs.sql and Microsoft.SystemCenter.DatawareHouse.Report.Library.mp which will be performed later in this process.
Repeat the above for all Management Servers and any Operations and Web Consoles
After this is done, you would need to import the new Datawarehouse.Report Library MP. Open up your Operations Console and import the mp from the C:\Program Files (x86)\System Center 2007 R2 Hotfix Utility\Management Packs folder
Next, Update the OperationsDatabase
1. Stop the System Center Data Access, System Center Management and System Center Management Configuration services.

2. Launch SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the SQL Database Server hosting the OperationsDatabase

3. Expand and select the OperationsDatabase (or any other name that you’ve renamed it to) and click on New Query. Ensure that Operations Database is listed in the Available Database box.

4. Go to File –> Open and select the DiscoveryEntitySProcs.sql file from the extracted folders



5. Execute the TransactSQL


6. Lastly, restart all the system Center services

That’s the update of the OperationsDatabase done.

NEXT, Update the Agents
1. Launch the Operations Console. In the Administration tab, under the Pending Management, you should see a list of tasks referring to update of agents

2. Approve the updates.




This completes the CU1 update process.
At the point of this post, several other MVPs have reported some installation issues. Please comment on this post if you should receive any issues during your updates.
Thanks

Cumulative Update 1 for Ops Mgr 2007 R2 Released

The CU1 for Operations Manager 2007 R2 was released today to fix several key issues. Read about it here and download it here.

A quick note noticed by my fellow MVP Daniele Grandini, if you have an Ops Mgr console sitting somewhere and want to update just that, run the 'Run ServerUpdate' from the splash screen. It will do the update as neccessary just for the console as well.