The System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (ConfigMgr) database can be installed on a clustered SQL Server, some things work different though compared to installing ConfigMgr on a normal SQL server installation, and you should be aware of them before starting your installation.

To summarize in front, what you should take into account before starting your installation:

1. Make sure that the SQL administrators are aware that during installation extra righs are needed and that after installation the Site server must stay local administrator on the cluster nodes
2. Make sure that the SQL administrators are aware of the fact that ConfigMgr will install a service on the Cluster Nodes, which is used for creating the backup using VSS
3. Make sure that each shared cluster disk contains a no_sms_on_drive.sms file on the disk
4. Configure the Site Backup tasks, so that it is either configured to backup to an UNC path or a drive which is suitable for storing the backup files on both the site server and the cluster nodes using the “Different Paths for the Site Backup and Database backup” option

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When you are installing System Center Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) 2007 in environments where group policies are used to control the User Rights Assignment and Security Options security settings of the Servers, because if you don’t the settings coming from the ConfigMgr installation will be overwritten at the next policy refresh, which could result in interesting scenario’s. To mitigate this you have to provide the settings needed to make the Server work correctly to the Group Policy Administrators.

How to determine the Policy Settings:

In order to determine the correct settings, its best to build ConfigMgr in a test environment, where the servers are isolated from Group Policies when you are installing them. Start with detailing the configuration of the Security Settings of the machine in the state which you received it, or just after you installed the machine yourself. This can be easily done by exporting the User Rights Assigment and the Security Options settings using the Export List… options when you rights click the User Rights Assignment or Security Options node. Save the output, and make sure you detail the fact that this settings reflect your start position. (more)

All who work with Configuration Manager know that clients sometimes stop working correctly. This means that the Configuration Manager client is not communicating anymore with its management point. This will result for example in that advertisements are not being presented to the users. Two well-known causes of this are: corrupted or broken WMI on the client computer or the Client Agent services has been stopped.

System Center Configuration Manager 2012 has a built-in health feature to repair the client. The program is called Ccmeval.exe and can be found in the folder C:\Windows\Ccm. When the client is installed a scheduled task is created on the client computer to run this program daily. This means that a client should not be dysfunctional for more than 1 day.

Let see if this works.. (more)

At Microsoft Teched North America 2011, Adam Hall presented on System Center Orchestrator 2012. System Center Orchestrator is the new name for Opalis, aquired last year — Microsoft’s premier tool for integration, orchestration and automation. Adam did an overview session, revealing much of the features we can expect in the next few months. He started his talk by announcing that the first beta of System Center Orchestrator 2012 will be available in June.

The System Center Orchestrator Beta marks a significant milestone, indicating a move of the codebase from the Opalis subsidiary to Microsoft System Center. This has many positive benefits, including a removal of the licensing complexity around the ‘grant’ of Opalis, greater alignment to the Microsoft Common Engineering Criteria and also things like the Support Lifecycle. (more)

This thursday, at Microsoft Teched North America 2011, Rob Kuehfus and myself will be presenting a breakout session (SIM354) on System Center Operations Manager 2012 network monitoring. Network monitoring is one of the new features that Microsoft is putting into System Center Operations Manager 2012. So what are the new features that we’re introducing?

• Out of the box discovery, monitoring, and reporting
• Server to network dependency discovery
• Multi-vendor support
• Multi protocol support
• SNMPv1/v2c/v3
• IPv4 and IPv6
• Robust platform for partners to build on

The first step to get monitoring working is to run the Discovery Wizard (the process of identifying network devices to be monitored). The network monitoring bits have been re-written from the ground up, so although the Discovery Wizards looks somewhat similar it actually allows you to use all these new features such as SNMP v3 and IPv6 support. So what is acutally discovered? (more)

My first session after the keynote at Microsoft Teched North America 2011 was a session hosted by David Chappell. The session had no demo’s but gave a good impression on cloud computing and how Microsoft is action on this, especially the Windows Azure Platform. First David defined what cloud computing is.  There are 2 broad categories: Cloud Applications often called SaaS (Software as a Service) like lync server and Cloud Platforms often called PaaS (Platform as a Service) like the Windows Azure platform. Cloud platforms are according to David the 6th platform in the history of computing. The rest of the session David focused on Windows Azure platform. (more)

Did you miss the Microsoft Teched North Amercia 2011 keynote or do you want to watch it again? Here’s the recording:

Keep a close eye on our website and twitter stream for Teched updates as they happen!

Using the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 connector for Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 (download CTP1 here), operations teams can easily forward application performance monitoring information directly into Visual Studio Team Foundation Server as operational work items, enabling engineering teams to rapidly identify the root cause in the code itself and develop a fix. This will dramatically reduce the mean time to repair (MTTR). In CTP1, the following is a supported configuration:

• Windows 2008 R2 x64
• System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2
• AVIcode .NET Enterprise Management Pack 5.7 for Operations Manager
• Microsoft Visual Studio Team Explorer 2010
• .NET Framework 4.0

How does it all work? Well, Avicode monitors the .NET application from within System Center Operations Manager and raises alerts when things (are about to) go wrong. Through the connector framework, Alerts are sent to TFS and created as an ‘operational issue’ (work item). The developer uses Visual Studio to follow-up and gets a direct link into Avicode to view the exact error, context, etc. (more)

Tech•Ed North America kicked off today in Atlanta, Georgia with a keynote from Corporate Vice Presidents Robert Wahbe and Jason Zander.  They discussed the company’s investments in the cloud and showcased how Microsoft developer solutions will help organizations increase productivity. But what else was announced?

• Exchange Virtualization Made Easy: Additional supported hypervisor scenarios for virtualized Exchange Server 2010, including Unified Messaging were announced today.  This combines Exchange’s high availability solutions, Database Availability Groups (DAGs) with hypervisor based clustering and failover solutions.
• Updated Exchange Server 2010 Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) program: Announced today, The Exchange Server 2010 MCM program allows Exchange Server 2010 experts to achieve MCM certification at a lower cost and with more flexibility by removing the barriers of travel and training time investment.
• New Features coming to Windows Phone 7:  New business features for mobile workers will be delivered in the next update of Windows Phone (code named ‘Mango’) to enable even greater productivity. Some of the forthcoming features being announced at TechEd 2011 including search enhancements in Outlook Mobile, out-of-the-box support for Office 365, and the new Lync mobile app.
• New License Mobility program: New license mobility options will become available on July 1, 2011 through Microsoft Volume License agreements with an active Software Assurance benefit were announced today.  The new options will provide customers with the flexibility to deploy application services on-premises or through hosted service providers in the cloud.
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V support for Linux-based CentOS: Window Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V will support for Linux-based CentOS to provide customers who run mixed-environments consisting of Linux and Windows.
• The ALM vision in Visual Studio vNext: Microsoft announced its vision for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) technologies in the next version of Microsoft Visual Studio. Microsoft described how its ALM capabilities will enable organizations to respond faster than ever to business needs and improve the flow of information between key stakeholders to plan, build and manage-applications.
• Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 connector for Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 CTP1: Microsoft announced a CTP of the new connector available in the next 30-60 days. The connector enables an operations team to send application performance monitoring information immediately to the engineering team for attention.

Keep a close eye on Techlog while we bring you the news live as it happens on the showfloor!