David Tesar:
I hope this post will act as a good reference point to be able to quickly understand the good and bad about new AD auditing enhancements and then enable you to dive deeper at will using the links in this article.
There’s nothing more exciting than auditing right? Well, check this out and hopefully it will spark some interest.
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Aniban Chakladar:
Recently I tried running Virtual Server 2005 R2 on Vista Ultimate edition, the program installed ok but I was unable to start the Virtual Server Administration site. It prompted me Open or Save vswebapp.exe
In order to fix the same you need to do the following:
· Add IIS features on an existing Windows Vista OS
· Add an IIS handler mapping so it will treat EXE files as CGI
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Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) has been designed specifically to help meet the challenges of any business and the needs of all the different groups with a stake in the messaging system. Exchange Server 2007 SP1 is a mission-critical communications tool that enables employees to be more productive and access their information anywhere and anytime while providing a messaging system that enables rich, efficient access to e-mail, calendar items, voice mail, and contacts. For the administrator, Exchange Server 2007 SP1 provides advanced protection options against e-mail security threats, such as spam and viruses, as well as the tools to help manage internal compliance and high availability needs.
Download Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1
Today i was browsing the MS Learning website and noticed that Microsoft now offers a new down loadable transcript in both XPS and PDF format. Because i don't have the XPS reader installed on my workstation i was looking for the PDF version. Have a look at the following screenshot ;)
Wow ! That's a huge difference, when i want to download the file in XPS it says: "approximately a 500KB file" and when i want to download the PDF version it says:"Approximately a 10MB file"
I downloaded the file in PDF and it was 248 KB , I wonder who has a PDF of 10 MB?
Microsoft is set to release its capacity planning tool. This will help users plan deployment of products like Exchange and SharePoint.
The company said that the final beta of System Center Capacity Planner (SCCP) 2007 was now available on its website and said the final code will be completed by year-end. The SCCP 2007 "release candidate" is now publicly available. It includes capabilities for planning new server roles in Exchange 2007, selecting Exchange cluster configurations, factoring disk IO background load for mailbox servers and modeling for 64-bit processors.
SCCP 2007 will offer an Exchange 2007 model out of the box. Microsoft plans to follow with models for SharePoint Server 2007, SharePoint Services 3.0, and System Center Operations Manager 2007. The company did not offer a road map for the release of those models, but beta versions of SharePoint Server 2007 and SharePoint Services 3.0 are available at Microsoft Connect.
You are invited to take beta exam 70-401: TS: Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007, Configuring. If you pass the beta exam, the exam credit will be added to your transcript and you will not need to take the exam in its released form.
By participating in beta exams, you have the opportunity to provide the Microsoft Certification program with feedback about exam content, which is integral to development of exams in their released version. We depend on the contributions of experienced IT professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Microsoft certifications.
71-401: TS: Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007, Configuring counts as credit towards the following certification(s).
• Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): System Center Configuration Manager 2007, Configuration (
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Windows Server 2008 holds some major key benefits in Terminal Services technology. Some of these are discussed in various articles on my site (see Related Articles section below). One of these features is Display Data Prioritization.
Display Data Prioritization in Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services allows for automatic control over the virtual channel traffic that is passed between the client (RDP 6.0) and the server (running Windows Server 2008). This enables better performance and user experience because display, keyboard typing, and mouse movement data is given a higher priority over other virtual channel traffic, such as printing, clipboard operations or file transfers. This prioritization is designed to ensure that your screen performance (user experience) is not affected by bandwidth intensive actions, such as large print jobs. (
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If you take a look around your hard drive, you probably have noticed that a good number of operating system files hang out in the root directory of the boot drive. If you take a closer look at those files, you may notice a theme: boot.ini, NTLDR, and NTDETECT.COM are critical boot files, and hiberfil.sys is the hibernation file. These are all files that are involved in the crucial first stages of booting the operating system or, in the case of hiberfil.sys, resuming from hibernation, and they have to go into the root of the boot drive. Why can't you move them somewhere else?
My colleague Adrian Oney explained: in order to read the boot files off the disk, you need the file system driver, but the file system driver is on the disk, which you can't read until you've loaded the file system driver. Oh no, Catch-22!
The vicious cycle is broken by having a miniature file system driver built into the critical boot files. This miniature driver knows just barely enough to locate files in the root directory and load them into memory. Those files can, in turn, get the operating system off the ground, at which point the real file system driver can take over and look for files in much fancier places like subdirectories.(
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Ever since Microsoft released Windows 2000 way back when, the options for delegating certain tasks have been available. The concepts of delegation can be a bit confusing, but in the core of what the delegation provides is essential to an efficient network. Without the use of delegations, you are stuck with only default groups that grant administrative privileges over certain tasks and objects. For example, without delegation over user and group accounts, a user must be placed in the Account Operators group to be given the ability to just manage users, groups, and computers in the domain. Of course, a user could also be placed in the Domain Admins or Enterprise Admins groups, but this would grant them far too many privileges than just managing accounts. In a similar manner, placing users in the Account Operators group also grants them too many privileges, such as modifying not only user accounts, but all administrative accounts. Delegation solves this issue, by allowing very granular delegations to objects and tasks throughout the enterprise.(
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The Configuration Manager Documentation Library has been updated. The Documentation Library is the primary documentation for Configuration Manager 2007. The November update contains new material and fixes to documentation problems reported after Configuration Manager 2007 was released. Refer to “What's New in the Configuration Manager Documentation Library for November 2007” for a list of topics that are new or updated in this version. The updated smsv4.chm will have a date of 11/06/2007 and will overwrite the existing smsv4.chm in %systemroot%\help. This information is also available online in the
TechCenter Library.
Feature Bullet Summary:
The Documentation Library includes the following types of information:
• Setup and upgrade instructions.
• Information about new features and backwards compatibility.
• Conceptual descriptions about the technologies and features in Configuration Manager 2007.
• Procedural topics describing how to use the various features in Configuration Manager 2007
• Step-by-step topics to guide you through sample deployments
• Scenario topics to provide examples of how the technology might be used
• Security and privacy information about the features
• Troubleshooting information
Download the System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Documentation Library
Chris Wolf of Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine explains how you can tell what hypervisor type a VM is running on when you connect remotely to a VM.
The easiest way that I have found to profile a VM thus far is by querying its virtual MAC address. For example by doing a ipconfig /all in a command prompt.
To save you the step of looking up the vendor OUI prefixes, here are the OUIs of the most popular virtualization platforms:
* Microsoft: 00-03-FF
* SWsoft: 00-18-51
* Virtual Iron: 00-0F-4B
* VMware: 00-0C-29 and 00-50-56
* XenSource: 00-16-3E
Cache is used to reduce the performance impact when accessing data that resides on slower storage media. Without it your PC would crawl along and become nearly unusable. If data or code pages for a file reside on the hard disk, it can take the system 10 milliseconds to access the page. If that same page resides in physical RAM, it can take the system 10 nanoseconds to access the page. Access to physical RAM is about 1 million times faster than to a hard drive. It would be great if we could load up all the contents of the hard drive into RAM, but that scenario is cost prohibitive and dangerous. Hard disk space is far less costly and is non-volatile (the data is persistent even when disconnected from a power source).
Since we are limited with how much RAM we can stick in a box, we have to make the most of it. We have to share this crucial physical resource with all running processes, the kernel and the file system cache. You can read more about how this works
here
The Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 MSIT Basic Configuration Pack is designed to be used for managing the configuration of Exchange 2003 servers. This configuration pack defines recommended configurations based on a limited number of settings affecting the configuration of Exchange 2003 servers in the Microsoft IT environment. More extensive configuration items and settings can be obtained by downloading the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 MSIT Intermediate and Comprehensive Configuration Packs. It is recommended that users begin by evaluating their configuration against the Basic configuration pack, and then progress to the Intermediate and Comprehensive configuration packs as desired configurations are verified.
Download the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 MSIT Basic Configuration Pack for Configuration Manager 2007
The Office Communications Server 2007 QoE Monitoring Server Management Pack for MOM 2005 monitors the audio and video quality for Office Communications Server 2007 Server Enterprise Voice deployment. Alerts are fired when audio and video quality degrades based on network degradation such as delay and packet loss.
Feature Bullet Summary:
The management pack provides:
• Automatic notifications of audio and video quality degradation
• Automatic notifications of media connectivity failures
• Health monitoring by locations, A/V Conferencing Servers, and Mediation Servers
• Centralized management
More information and download
We are often asked about the centralized management of Internet Explorer configuration options for which there are no Group Policy settings included with the default IE GPO templates. One of the settings that we are asked about the most is the "Launching Applications and Unsafe Files" setting, since that setting is not defined in the IE Administrative Policy settings file (inetres.adm).
There are a number of different ways that you can manage this setting in an enterprise. The first is to use the Internet Explorer Maintenance Policies, which import from a source system's registry. The problem with this approach is that there is no granularity in what settings you are importing - it's an all or nothing solution, and you wind up deploying the entire collection of IE settings that are defined on the source system.(
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When you protect a Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 site system, only clients in that boundary can access the distribution point or state migration point role on that site system. You protect these site roles to help control network utilization.
However, before protecting any distribution points, you should consider the effect on software distribution. Careful configuration of protected distribution will preserve network bandwidth, but haphazard configuration of protected distribution points might prevent clients from accessing crucial content, including software updates and operating system deployment packages.
Continue reading
here
Stefan Schörling has published a nice guide:
"I wrote a brief introduction on Desired Configuration Management (DCM), the article contains information about what DCM is and some guides for importing configuration packs and assigning them. I hope this will bring some light to thoose of you who want to get familiar with DCM."
You can read my article here:
Introduction-to-desired-configuration-management-in-configuration-manager-2007.pdf
Windows Vista may have some compatibility and reliability issues. But it also sports some pretty cool new features like a 3D window manager and animated backgrounds (if you shell out the money for the "Ultimate" edition). One Vista feature that we'd love to see more of is SideShow, but unfortunately hardware makers have been slow to create SideShow capable devices.
In a nutshell, SideShow lets you access certain Vista features from a secondary display. For example, you can check your email without opening your laptop's lid. Or you can schedule a TV recording on Windows Media Center using your case's front-panel display. You know, if you have a laptop or PC case with an external display.
If not, you're pretty much out of luck. But maybe not for long. Microsoft has just published an
SDK for SideShow with support for Bluetooth and QVGA screens: two features that many Windows Mobile devices already have. The folks at
"the unwired" speculate this could mean a Windows Mobile SideShow application is on its way. In other words, you'd be able to fire up a program on your phone or PDA that will give you control over your desktop. Your PDA could become your favorite remote control, web browser, or email tool.
Earlier this year Microsoft announced that a Windows Mobile Sideshow program
was on its way, but we've been waiting about half a year to see anything materialize. Hopefully the SDK launch means we won't have to wait much longer.
My good friend and fellow MOM-MVP,
Pete Zerger, has some more information on a new hotfix that will solve some of the problems around RMS sizing:
"I’ve spoken with several administrators complaining of high memory utilization of the Root Management Server. It has definitely impacted hardware sizing decisions for us. MS has released what may be a fix, at least for some people."
Get the fix at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943706
This kind of was mentioned by
Richard and Don, but I thought I would spell it out explicitly.
According to Jeffrey Snover, PowerShell is becoming a part of the
Common Engineering Criteria (CEC) 2009 at Microsoft. Meaning that every server product released by Microsoft in their financial year 2009 (which starts July 1, 2008) needs to ship with PowerShell support.
Of course, a product can get an exemption, and of course support can vary to something as advanced as Exchange 2007 cmdlets, or as basic as
PowerShell in SQL 2008, but nevertheless this is a huge success for PowerShell. After all, it was similar requirement for MOM report packs which made Operations Manager so ubiquitous.
According to Jeffrey, there are currently 20 Microsoft teams working on PowerShell support in their products, and then there are VMware, and Citrix, and Quest, and /n Software, and PowerGadgets, and many more vendors adding PowerShell to their stuff.
The intent of this whitepaper is to provide a framework for the evaluation of System Center Configuration Manager 2007. System Center Configuration Manager—previously known as Systems Management Server—represents a tremendous advancement over its well-regarded predecessor, now providing the control necessary to more effectively manage change in today's dynamic IT infrastructures. Manage the full deployment and update lifecycle with streamlined, policy-based automation; with enhanced insight into, and control over, assets and systems compliance; and with optimization for Windows—particularly Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista—and extensibility to customized administration experiences and third-party applications.
This whitepaper isn't published yet on Microsoft Download, but you can crab it from the blog of
Daniel Lai.
Download the System Center Configuration Manager 2007 reviewers guide
When creating a monitor or a rule for a multi instance component you need to be very careful or else you may end up with wrong monitoring logic. The two important parts are:
1. Target the rule/monitor to the correct target type
2. Specify the correct performance object, counter, and instance name.
The main improvement in SP1 to help create properly configured rules and monitors is having the ability to tell the monitor or rule to use a particular property of the multi instanced component such as the Logical Disk name rather than hard coding it. This is possible in the with the RTM build but only by editing the MP xml or using the authoring console. Given that for each one of the components listed above the syntax is a little bit different I will provide examples for each one. (
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DPM 2007 System Requirements provides information that you use to ensure that the DPM server and the computers and applications it is going to protect meet network and security requirements. This topic also lists the DPM supported operating systems and the recommended hardware and software requirements.
Download the System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 System Requirements
Microsoft Forefront business security products help protect client machines, server applications, and the network edge. System Center is a family of IT management solutions that helps proactively plan, deploy, manage, and optimize your IT environment. See how Forefront and System Center products integrate with each other and with your infrastructure to put you in control of your environment.
Download the Microsoft Forefront and System Center Demonstration Toolkit
EMC Corporation, the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today announced that EMC's flagship backup and recovery solution -- EMC(R) NetWorker(R) -- will integrate with System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 to provide customers with a feature-packed and easy-to-use data protection solution capable of supporting both Windows and non-Windows environments. In addition, EMC further adds enterprise data protection capabilities by offering tested and documented best practices for using EMC CLARiiON(R) networked storage systems with DPM 2007. These new integrations advance EMC's solution-centric approach of hardware, software and services, offering customers of all sizes information management and storage solutions optimized for their Microsoft environments.
Through integration with Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Services, NetWorker will be able to provide backup and restore functions for System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 server with assured consistent, fast and effective recovery. Combined with current NetWorker backup support for other operating environments, this provides customers with a unified backup solution for any type of data residing on heterogeneous computing and application environments.
The Operations Manager team have released a command line tool similar to the GUI tool within the MOM 2005 reskit for Operations Manager 2007. Check out the details and download here
This MOMNetChkCMd.exe tool requires .Net Framework 2.0 but can be run independently of a Management Server.
The tool checks requirements for Agent push such as required discovery info via WMI, MSXML 6 requirement, Ports 445,139,137,135,5723 enabled, Windows Installer Service started, Remote Registry enabled, responds to ICMP ping.
Invoking MOMNetChkCMd.exe -Computername <nameofcomputer>
will perform a check against a single remote computer logging details to a .log file of the same name as the machine. The log header will contain a summary of the number of Errors, Warnings and Successes followed by details of each of the test performed and the results.
To be able to perform the check against large numbers of machines before agent deployment a text file and batch file are included. The text file to contain the list of computer NetBIOS names, and the batch file to read the list and call MOMNetChkCMd.exe against each. The log files can then be scanned for Errors as discussed in the Readme.txt file.
The release candidate of SCOM 2007 service pack 1 is available for download., This release candidate is FULLY SUPPORTED by Microsoft and is recommended to address a number of issues seen in the original release of SCOM. The release candidate is available for download at
http://connect.microsoft.com/systemcenter
Many ISA firewall admins who are currently running ISA Server 2000 or 2004 will want to know why they should upgrade to ISA Server 2006. While the upgrade from ISA Server 2000 to ISA 2004 was an easy one to understand because of the major improvements and changes made between ISA Server 2000 and ISA 2004, the changes included with ISA 2006 versus ISA 2004 are more incremental and provide a much smoother transition than the upgrade from 2000 to 2004.
Most of the new features and capabilities seen in ISA 2006 compared to 2004 are difficult for the average ISA firewall admin to see if only a superficial look at the product is taken. The user interface is the same, the networking model is same, there have been no changes in terms of how the ISA firewall performs outbound access control, and there have been no changes to the core networking and traditional firewall feature set.(
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The System Center Configuration Manager 2007 User Assistance team has created a set of quizzes to help you assess your understanding of the dependencies and requirements for key features of Configuration Manager. These quizzes are intended to raise your level of awareness of the some of the nuances of these features before you configure and use them. They can also be used to help train other Configuration Manager administrators within your organization. Each quiz consists of 10 questions that can be answered Yes or No. Regardless of your answer, the quiz will display the correct information, and include one or more links to the corresponding related content located in the Configuration Manager 2007 Documentation Library located on the Configuration Manager TechCenter. We are testing the usefulness of this format, and ask for your feedback on the format and the content contained in each quiz. Please send feedback to SMSDOCS@Microsoft.com.
The following quizzes are available:
Configuration Manager 2007 Client Installation Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Client Management Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Client Roaming Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Client Site Assignment Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Desired Configuration Management Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Internet-Based Client Management Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Native Mode Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Network Access Protection Quiz
Configuration Manager 2007 Wake On LAN Quiz
Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 is a server application that facilitates the centralized management of a large physical and virtual system infrastructure.
Virtual Machine Manager 2007 (VMM) consists of the VMM server, the VMM Administrator Console, the VMM library, the VMM Self-Service Portal, and virtual machine hosts.
Emulex Virtual HBA Technology is First Integrated Server Virtualization Solution With Industry-Standard NPIV Support for Windows Environments
Emulex Corporation (ELX) today announced its LightPulse(r) Virtual Host Bus Adapter (HBA) technology is now available for Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007. This marks the first integrated storage area network (SAN) connectivity solution with industry-standard N-Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) support for Microsoft Windows Server virtualization environments.
Emulex's LightPulse Virtual HBA technology, composed of Emulex 4Gb/s Fibre Channel HBAs supporting NPIV, enables customers to effectively 'virtualize' SAN connections so that each virtual machine has independent access to its own protected storage. In addition, Emulex LightPulse Virtual HBA technology enables administrators to leverage standard SAN management tools and best practices, such as fabric zoning and LUN mapping/masking, and, enhanced management and migration of virtual machines. It also provides the most efficient utilization of the HBAs in the server while ensuring the highest level of data protection available in the industry.
This content provides information about installing and configuring Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), with all VMM components installed on a single computer or with each VMM component installed on separate computers. This content also provides step-by-step instructions for uninstalling VMM and reinstalling VMM with a database retained from a previous installation.
Download Installing and Configuring Virtual Machine Manager 2007
This content provides the minimum and recommended system requirements for installing and running Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) in the following deployment scenarios:
• All VMM components installed on a single computer.
• Each VMM component installed on a separate computer.
Download System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 System Requirements
In the past, there is no HA solution for SMS database, the only thing you can do is backup for any disaster. The good news is, for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM 2007) now has an ability to support clustered SQL Server instance. Unfortunately, the documentation for how to install SCCM 2007 with clustered SQL Server is poor. Here is a walk through for how to install SCCM on clustered SQL server.
1. Install Windows 2003 Cluster
2. Install SQL 2000/2005 Cluster
3. By default, Windows will not register SQL Server virtual name in Active Directory, for successfully installing SCCM 2007 on Clustered SQL Server, you must register it. Go to step 4
4. Run setspn.exe (you can download it from Microsoft download center:
here) utility as below:
setspn MSSQLSvc/SQLSERVER1:1433
SQLSERVER1 is your SQL Server virtual name
setspn MSSQLSvc/SQLSERVER1.contoso.com:1433
SQLSERVER1.contoso.com is FQDN for SQL Server virtual name
5. Add computer account for installing SCCM 2007 to local administrators group on every SQL cluster node.
6. Add user account for installing SCCM 2007 to local administrators group on every SQL cluster node.
7. Restart computer for installing SCCM 2007, and logon with user account for setup
8. Launch SCCM 2007 installer, conduct a normal setup.
Stefan Schörling mentioned that SQL 2000 in combination with SCCM 2007 isn't supported see also
this link, keep that in mind, thanks Stefan.
On the last day of IT Forum there was a good session about some of the new features in Windows Server 2008. Stephanie Cheung presented the Session. Although a lot of the new features of Windows Server 2008 are now known like RODC, Fine grained password policies, new cluster functionality.. there is one that did not have much attention until now; it is called
SNAPSHOT EXPOSER.
The trouble that system administrators face when they need the restore a previous version of the active directory is that they don’t know which version contains the correct objects. It would be handy to look in the backup to see which version is the correct one.
With Windows server 2008 it is now possible to do this. Here how it works:
1. First of all you have to take snapshots of your Active Directory database. This can be done with the new NTDSUTIL. There is a function in NTDSUTIL which allows you to take snapshots of the Active directory database.
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DCM (Desired Configuration Manager) lets you compare you IT infrastructure configuration with standards (Compliance or Microsoft IT currently available). The compliance packs come from Brabeion (MS partnership).
To read more about DCM go here: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/configmgr/evaluation/configmgmt.mspx
Additionally there is now ConfigMgr2007toolikit available (this was a must-have tool in the times of SMS 2003): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=948e477e-fd3b-4a09-9015-141683c7ad5f&displaylang=en&tm
Here is a list of packs my friend Tomek pointed me to. You can find them all (+any updates + links to other then MS vendor DCM packs) in the new System Center Pack catalog: https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/scp/configmgr07.aspx?SCPProdID=6
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Microsoft has released the SCCM 2007 Toolkit
we reported about this week.
The following list provides specific information about each tool in the toolkit.
Client Spy - A tool to help troubleshoot issues related to software distribution, inventory, and software metering on Configuration Manager 2007 clients.
Policy Spy - A policy viewer to help review and troubleshoot the policy system on Configuration Manager 2007 clients.
Trace32 - A log viewer that provides a way to easily view and monitor log files created and updated by Configuration Manager 2007 clients and servers.
Security Configuration Wizard Template for Configuration Manager 2007 - An attack-surface reduction tool for the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system with Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2 (SP1 and SP2) that determines the minimum functionality required for a server's role or roles, and disables functionality that is not required.
DCM Model Verification - A tool used by desired configuration management content administrators for the validation and testing of configuration items and baselines authored externally from the Configuration Manager console.
DCM Digest Conversion - A tool used by desired configuration management content administrators to convert existing SMS 2003 Desired Configuration Management Solution templates to Desired Configuration Management 2007 configuration items.
DCM Substitution Variables - A tool used by desired configuration management content administrators for authoring desired configuration management configuration items that use chained setting and object discovery.
Andrew Dugdell writes: I missed this in all the excitement. Microsoft updated their Virtual Server Support KB articles earlier this month, on November 2.
KB897613 - Microsoft Virtual Server support policy, last updated ~April 07
KB867572 - Supported operating systems in Virtual Server 2005 R2
For VMware or XEN users,
KB 897615, Support policy for Microsoft software running in non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software has not been updated, and is still at version 2.0, July 2007.
Clive Eastwood writes: Finally it released, see my previous post
http://blogs.technet.com/cliveeastwood/archive/ 2007/11/05/operations-manager-2007-service-pack-1-release-candidate-released.aspx
KB94443 list the issues documented in released KB articles which are corrected in the SP1 Release Candidate. Note: The KB are does not currently reference some of the articles awaiting release which I covered in the posting above. The "to be released" articles are taking waaay to long to get through the publication process. As they appears I'll have them added to KB944443.
Here's the link
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/944443
Pete Zerger has some important information when using SP1 (RC) for OpsMgr:
After you upgrade your Ops Mgr infrastructure to SP1, ALL previous RMS key backups will NOT work, if you subsequently need it. Everyone should know to BACKUP the RMS key after you finish the upgrade to SP1. An Ops Mgr 2007 admin at a title company in Texas reports he lost everything when his RMS failed and he tried to recover on a new Management Server with the backup of the RTM keys.
After opening a CSS case, he reports the support engineers agreed, the errors they were receiving when trying to promote a SP1 Management Server to the RMS (after they lost their RMS server), using the Pre-SP1 backups, were indicative of a corrupt key. My understanding is that the final build will launch a wizard prompting you to backup the keys on the spot.
Were you aware that Microsoft offers many forums for System Center Configuration Manager, System Center Operations Manager, System Center Essentials as well as many others? If not you really should check them out. Ask a question, post a question, or just read about what's going on. There's a wealth of information out there.
System Center Configuration Manager
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=488&SiteID=17
System Center Online Services
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=506&SiteID=17
System Center Essentials
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=92&SiteID=17
System Center Operations Manager
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/opsmgr/bb839593.aspx
Techlog joined a session on TechEd IT Forum presented by Bryon Surace and Mike Sterling about "Virtualization and High Availability". They gave some figures on the time it takes for Virtual Machines to failover from one to another host.
| VM Memory | 1 GbE iSCSI | 2 Gb FC | 4 Gb FC |
| 512 MB | ~8 seconds | ~ 4 seconds | ~2 seconds |
| 1 GB | ~16 seconds | ~8 second | ~ 4 seconds |
| 2 GB | ~32 seconds | ~16 seconds | ~8 seconds |
| 4 GB | ~64 seconds | ~32 seconds | ~16 seconds |
| 8 GB | ~2 minutes | ~64 seconds | ~32 seconds |
Keep in mind though that because you are using clustering, when you migrate a single Virtual Machine using Quick Migration, you have to make the Virtual Harddisk of that Virtual Machine available to the other node within the cluster. This means that within the cluster the Shared hard disk needs to fail-over to the other node. This means that all Virtual Harddisks on that shared disk will start to Quick Migrate too.
During the session we were pointed to 3rd party solutions which can solve this problems. They also mentioned to use a disk per Virtual Harddisk and use mount points to make the VHD's available.
In order to use Quick Migration with the new Windows Server 2008
Hyper-V functionality, you have to make a cluster. Therefore Quick Migration in the Windows Server 2008 standard edition
(and probably the standalone Hyper-V server) is
not possible. You have to use Enterprise or Datacenter edition in order to implement Quick Migration.
Our sources at Microsoft mentioned that there is also a feature available which can migrate a WWPN from one machine to another, called NPIV. Why this technology wasn't mentioned is unclear. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that you need 3rd party support for that?
Hello. My name is Paul Ross and I’m a Senior Product Marketing Manager in the System Center team. I recently joined Microsoft from Business Objects and one of the key things I’ve been working on in the past few months is the launch of the new System Center products. It’s clearly been a busy week for us at IT Forum in Barcelona with the launch of three great new products (Configuration Manager 2007, Virtual Machine Manager 2007 and Data Protection Manager 2007) and the announcement of a new way to license the products you need to manage the complete server lifecycle with the Server Management Suite Enterprise. And it’s the combination of all of these that I’m most excited about.
As a new member of team it’s been tough to get up to speed with everything that System Center offers, but I’m currently most interested in the impact these new products can have for those who are taking a look at how they can best manage their datacenters. One of the key requirements we are hearing from customers is the need to manage the complete lifecycle of their datacenters. This means providing the ability to better plan updates or upgrades to servers, all the way through deployment or patching of operating systems or application software, to managing and optimizing servers on an ongoing basis. It means doing it with integrated tools. And it means providing this no matter if we are talking about physical or virtual servers. That is exactly what this launch is all about.
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Targeting a computer group in Operations Manager 2007 produces unexpected results because the computer group target (that is, the class of objects that are computer groups), only exists on the root Management Server. Therefore, any rule that you target to this object class attempts to collect event information from the root Management Server.
In some cases, the root Management Server might not have the instrumentation that the rule depends on. For example, a rule that depends on IIS metrics will not be able to collect any information on a root Management Server that has no IIS server on the computer. In other cases, you might collect information that is not what you expect because the rule is intended to collect data on a machine other than the root Management Server.
The only way to send rules to specific computers is to target the rule to an object that exists on the computer, such as a SQL Server object or an IIS Web site object. You can then use overrides to specify the places where the rule works.
For example, consider the scenario where you want to target a rule to all Windows Server 2003 servers that are in a particular computer group. To do this, complete the following steps:
1. Create a rule that is targeted to the Windows Server 2003 class.
2. Set the rule so it is not enabled by default.
3. Create an override that will enable the rule only for objects that are members of the desired group.
The Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 (ConfigMgr) Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007. This Management Pack helps administrators manage and administer Configuration Manager 2007 servers.
The Microsoft Configuration Manager 2007 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 provides proactive monitoring of your Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 environment. This management pack includes:
Detection and monitoring of all Configuration Manager servers and dependent services
The alert driven state
The site hierarchy diagram,
Performance and backlog monitoring and configuration
Performance and availability reports.
Before you install the Configuration Manager 2007 Management Pack, read the Configuration Manager 2007 User's Guide. The guide includes the instructions you need to correctly deploy, configure and use the management pack.
NOTE: If SCCM is installed on a 64-bit OS (32-bit app on 64-bit OS) you will be required to install the Operations Manager 32-bit agent (manually) in order to be able to monitor SCCM with OpsMgr07. See the SCCM 2007 MP release notes for further information. A KB article will be available shortly to also cover this topic.
Configuration Manager 2007 MP for SCOM 2007
Microsoft has released a new whitepaper and set of worksheets entitled: "
Migrating Windows Small Business Server 2003 to New Hardware"
The whitepaper outlines the following steps for migrating from an existing computer running Windows SBS 2003 to new hardware:
1. Evaluate the current status of the source server.
2. Install Windows SBS 2003 and join the domain.
3. Transfer Exchange Server 2003 settings and folders.
4. Migrate shared folders and data folders.
5. Install and configure the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP).
6. Configure Windows SBS 2003 settings.
7. Migrate Internet Information Services (IIS) Web sites.
8. Install and migrate Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).
9. Migrate Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server settings.
10. Migrate Microsoft SQL Server databases.
11. Remove the source server from the network.
This whitepaper is currently only available in HTML format, but a .DOC version will be made available.
Brian Kelly recently put together a SoftGrid operations guide that covers day-to-day procedures for managing and operating the SoftGrid infrastructure.
This document is a draft for a SoftGrid Operations Guide for the Microsoft Virtual Application infrastructure. It provides day-to-day procedures for managing and operating the SoftGrid infrastructure.
Softgrid Operations Guide Part 1
Softgrid Operations Guide Part 2
Making headway with the development of the first service pack for Windows Vista, Microsoft has made available for download a new testing milestone of the refresh. On November 14, 2007, the upcoming service pack for Vista evolved into the Release Candidate phase. However, as the label of the testing build indicates, the fully fledged RC is yet to come, as Microsoft is offering just a taste of the Vista SP1 Release Candidate. While initial reports related to the development of Vista SP1 pointed to the availability of a public version concomitantly with the first Release Candidate stage, this is not the case. But Microsoft did expand the testing pool in comparison to the beta launched in the last week of September.
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Release Candidate is build 6001.17042. Vista SP1 RC is up for grabs for over 15,000 testers. The first beta for the service pack was dropped into the laps of in excess of 12,000 testers, on September 24. Vista SP1 Beta Build 6001.16659 shipped only to participants in the testing process of the development milestones of Windows Server 2008 and Windows XP Service Pack 3. Vista SP1 RC can also be accessed exclusively via Microsoft Connect, although the Redmond company did slip up and produced signs indicating that the build would be opened to all MSDN subscribers.
(more)
Maxime Bombardier writes: I've worked a bit on the Visio Stencils I'm using for documenting Site Structures and I fixed the way "text" works with the Site Structure stencil. You can now simply double-click on it and the text will be correctly modified (not added over it) (note: The icon "Text Block Tool" in Visio is your friend there and very customizable and easier to use).
Also, the connectors will work better since it's only detecting the "rounded" icon and I included some of the built-in Visio annotations & connectors that are essential to a good documentation. Last, I removed the "duplicates" in the original stencil and called it "MISC" as I see that I use it less than the others.
Visio Stencils for Sharepoint 2007 Site Structures
Microsoft System Center Capacity Planner 2007 helps size and plan deployments of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. It provides you with the tools and guidance to deploy efficiently, while planning for the future by allowing for "what-if" analyses.
Download Capacity Planner 2007 Release Candidate
This solution accelerator contains two new models for WSS and MOSS on Windows 2003 for System Center Capacity Planner (SCCP).
This tool requires a prior installation of SCCP and adds two new models to the existing models for Exchange and Systems Center Operations Manager.
The Beta bits will become available before the end of the year. Once the Beta bits are uploaded, all registred users will be notified.
Download SharePoint Beta Models (Register)
The software can be used to automatically download and distribute signature and engine updates. Microsoft used its TechEd IT Forum conference here to announce the general availability of its new Forefront Server Security Management Console, a centralized, Web-based management solution for onsite or remote administration of its messaging and collaboration security solutions.
"Customers can use the console to centrally manage and configure servers remotely, automatically download and distribute signature and engine updates, generate comprehensive reports and receive outbreak alerts from across their environment," Steve Brown, Microsoft's director of security and access product management, said at a press briefing Nov. 13.
The console, a Web-based tool, helps businesses centrally manage, configure, report on and update multiple deployments of Forefront Security for Exchange Server and Forefront Security for SharePoint, as well as Microsoft Antigen products, Brown said. It also supports Exchange 2007 Cluster Continuous Replication and integrates with Windows Server 2003 and SQL 2005.
(more)
One of the new tasks and scripts in the Microsoft Deployment Lite Touch Task sequence is called Windows Update. This task is disabled in the default task sequence for the Client Template. The task runs a script called ztiwindowsupdate.wsf. One item to note is that the current version of this script requires client access to the Internet and also does not support proxy authentication. However if you meet those requirements, there are some really nice advantages of using this action. Here is a brief description of what actions this script performs.
This script will install and download updates from Windows Update and Microsoft Update over the Internet using the
Windows Update Agent API. By default this feature is disabled in each Task Sequence, it must be manually enabled to run, and each computer must have a connection via proxy to the Internet. This script was designed to run on Windows XP, 2003, Vista, and should be compatible with Windows Server 2008 when released.(
continue at source)
The following flowchart shows the process used by Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 computers to locate a management point for content location requests as described in
Configuration Manager and Service Location (Site Information and Management Points). This flowchart does not include processes for locating other services.
To continue reading click here.
Today on the third day of IT forum there was an interesting session on Windows Deployment Services (WDS). Patrick Azzarello and Johan Arwidmark presented the session.
The session was about installing, configuring, managing and troubleshooting WDS. Johan who deploys WDS at many companies had some interesting tips and notes from the field.
Patrick gave a preview of the new features of Windows Deployment Services in Windows server 2008. These are:
Ability to transmit data and images using multicast
Standalone Server Support
Enhanced TFTP
Network boot x64-based computers with EFI
Metric reporting for installations (more)
Tim Mitner, Senior Product Developer for the Microsoft Deployment team, gave some more insight in the upcoming release of Microsoft Deployment (formerly BDD) this morning:
Release 1 – November 12 (TechEd: IT Forum)
ConfigMgr 2007 integration
Server Manager support for AD role
Release 2 – March/April 2008
Vista SP1 support
More server features, more roles
Release 3 – Early H2CY08
ConfigMgr 2007 integration for Windows Server 2008 support
Although they are not limited to installation in branch offices, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 branch distribution points are specifically designed to support branch offices, which typically have fewer clients and use a slow network connection. Configure a distribution point as a branch distribution point if any of the following conditions apply:
You have a remote location connected to the main Configuration Manager 2007 site location by a slow connection and want to optimize software distribution to clients in that location without creating a primary or secondary site for that location.
You do not have a computer running Windows Server 2003 that can function as a distribution point in a branch location, but you want to allow clients in that office to access content from a local distribution point.
You want to use a client operating system to provide the distribution point function and do not need more than 10 concurrent connections
You want the package to be copied to the distribution point only when a client actually requests to install the package. For more information, see About On-Demand Package Distribution.
To continue reading
click here.
As many of you know we released an OpsMgr 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP) Release Candidate (RC) a couple of weeks ago. The product team fully supports inplace upgrades from this release candidate to the RTM version of the Service Pack.
Another important upgrade we are supporting which we have encourages more first time users to deploy OpsMgr 2007 is the SP1 RC Eval to SP1 RTM Select inplace upgrade. With the support of inplace upgrades all you will need to do is run the upgrade CD image. You will not need to backup and restore your DB's or rebuild your environment.
Jalasoft announced at TechEd IT Forum 2007 in Barcelona-Spain the RTM of Xian Network Manager Io for System Center Essentials. This will enable Jalasoft to offer the benefits of the combination of Xian Network Manager Io and System Center Essentials to small and medium size companies:
The official Press Release can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/emea/presscentre/teched07/partner.mspx
The trail version will soon be available at the Jalasoft website, if you want immediate access to the trial version you may contact Jalasoft Sales at:
http://www.jalasoft.com/Web/Contact/SalesContact.aspx
Download the Standalone product tour for Essentials 2007. Instructions: Click the Download button to start the download. Do one of the following:
1. To start the installation immediately, click Open.
2. To copy the download to your computer for installation at a later time, click Save.
3. To cancel the installation, click Cancel.
After installing, Open shell.html in your browser to view the Product Tour. Adobe Shockwave player is required.
System Center Essentials 2007 Product Tour
System Center Configuration Manager 2007 does not ship with any server roles based on x64. So what is the consideration on running that software on x64 architecture?
Sccm2007 runs basically the same (performance wise) on 32 bit OS or 64 bit OS, and even you could see slight worse performance because of so-called "thunking" when running 32 bit SCCM on x64 OS (in WOW mode).
However, on x64 remote SQL we do see some performance improvement (assuming you have a DEDICATED, high bandwidth direct net connection between your central site server and the DB server) so the most performant configuration you will see will be with remote SQL on x64 and x86 for the rest of the site roles. Such design is usually only recommended for larger deployments, over 5000 clients.
Currently there are no plans to develop the server side infrastructure for x64, but this might change.
(more)
eWeek is reporting an interesting story:
Microsoft has gotten religion on hosting, and in a big way.
Windows Server 2008, to be released Feb. 27, 2008, includes tools and features intended to make Microsoft partners better hosts.
It includes tools to ease the deployment and provisioning of Web sites during a data migration, said Michael van Dijken, lead marketing manager for Microsoft's hosting business.
During the company's road show here for partners, van Dijken said Microsoft has even partnered with virtualization vendor SWsoft to provide virtualization tools in WS2008 that can be used during a migration...
Read the whole
article at the source.
I recently had a chance to give one of the components of MDOP - the Microsoft Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset (DaRT) 6.0 - a try. DaRT is an excellent set of tools for IT Professionals to troubleshoot unresponsive PCs and removing viruses and malware off infected PCs in their environment. DaRT 6.0 also now has the ability for IT Professionals to conduct offline removal of malware and viruses from infected PCs.
The first thing I noticed when I started using DaRT is that it provides two options to the IT Professional: a way to analyze crash files from unresponsive PCs through the Crash Analysis Wizard, and a way to create a startup disc with the necessary tools in fixing an unresponsive PC that is unable to boot into Windows called ERD Commander.
Data Protection Manager (hereafter DPM) is an awesome addition to the System Center suite of management products. While DPM 2006 worked well for backing up file servers, DPM 2007 now handles:
* Blending continuous data protection with traditional tape backup
* Protection for Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 2005 and even 2008-previews
* Protection for Exchange Server 2003 and 2007
* Protection for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 & WSS 3.0
* Protection for Virtualized Environments hosted on Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2
* Protection for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 files and shares
* Windows XP Professional (sp2) and Windows Vista Business edition or better
* System State protection
* Command-line control through Windows PowerShell
* Document-level restore for SharePoint
* Bare Metal Recovery
This post walks through installing Data Protection Manager 2007 step by step (
continue at source)
With Windows still managing to find its way to over 95 percent of the desktop computers sold each year, it's not surprising that one can find plenty of people interested in giving their feedback about what future versions of Windows should be able to do. A few years ago, before Windows Vista had even shipped, Microsoft sent out a wish list form asking people what features they would like to see in the next version of Windows, currently code-named Windows 7.
The top wished-for features in this list were recently leaked to the public and have popped up at various sites (e.g., Neowin). While anonymous sources at Microsoft tell us that they bear no relationship to the actual feature set Microsoft is currently writing for Windows 7, the list does provide interesting insight into what the Windows-using public most wants from Windows.
Continue to read on "Windows 7 top feature request list"..
In the technical overview session of Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 given by Jeff Wettlaufer and Brian Kauer the Configuration Manager 2007 Toolkit was also announced. The Toolkit will be released end of this week or begin next week.
The toolkit contains 6 tools and 1 security template
Core Admin Tools:
- Trace 32 - Log viewer application
- PolicySpy - Policy viewer that assist in troubleshooting ConfigMgr 2007 Clients
- Client Spy - Troubleshooting common client tasks including software dist, inventory and metering
DCM Content Admin Tools:
- Model Verification Tool: Validate and test DCM configuration items and baselines authored outside of ConfigMgr
- Digest Conversion Tool: Converts existing SMS 2003 DCM solution templates into ConfigMgr 2007 DCM configuration items
- Substitution Variables Tool - Used to author configuration items which specifically use chained setting and object discovery
Also a updated security template for all new ConfigMgr site systems in 2007 will be introduced.
Screenshot:
Configuration Manager 2007 Toolkit
Today at IT Forum I had an interesting session about System Center Configuration manager
Brian Kauer and Jeff Wettlaufer gave the session. They gave an overview of some cool new features of the successor of SMS 2003.
Here is a short overview of the key items:
• Driver library which gives you the option to separate driver management from your images.
• Task sequencer, a new way handy way of controlling the Os deployment in your organization. Also deployment of complex software is possible with the task sequencer.
• The reporting functionalities haven been enhanced and improved.
• Support for Network Access Protection which will come with Windows server 2008.
• Asset Intelligence software metering: with this you can get a grip of all the software which is used in your organization.
• Desired configuration management: one of the features with this option is to monitor your servers for compliancy and regularity. Microsoft offers Configuration Packs, as mentioned in
this post.
Screenshot:
System Center Configuration Manager available configuration packs
In case you've been looking, the Desired Configuration Manager (DCM) packs for System Center Configuration Manager 2007 are now posted. Check out the entire catalog at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/scp/configmgr07.aspx.
Desired Configuration Management (DCM) is a feature in System Center Configuration Manager. With DCM, utilize Microsoft and third party best practice configuration knowledge to improve configuration definition and maintenance. Find the software you need to define configurations for your Microsoft and third party applications with Configuration Manager 2007.
Information about Configuration Packs from Microsoft and Partners
Download Configuration Packs from Microsoft
With Configuration Manager Desired Configuration Management, organizations can better ensure that IT systems comply with desired configuration states to improve systems availability, security and performance network wide. DCM allows you to define and assess the compliance of your IT systems with regard to a set of established configurations.
Ed Bott writes: Patch Tuesday isn’t just for security fixes. Microsoft’s Nick White has details on a
series of updates for Windows Vista due to be delivered tomorrow:
An update on system compatibility, reliability and stability: extends the battery life for mobile devices, improves stability of wireless network services, and shortens recovery time after Windows Vista experiences a period of inactivity, among other fixes.
An update to USB core components: mainly affects systems returning from sleep or hibernation, fixing problems causing 1-2% of all crashes reported.
An update to Windows Media Center: among other things, affects interaction issues occurring between Media Center PC and Microsoft Xbox 360 when Xbox 360 is used as a Media Center Extender.
Meanwhile, I’m seeing proof that the steady release of updates from Microsoft and from third parties is paying off. Here’s the Reliability Monitor report for my main system from September 5:
Rakesh writes: The engineering team here in Redmond is hard at work on the next release of SCVMM slated for next year. In V1 we had a lot of 'plumbing' code to write including a task infrastructure, the Powershell integration model, WS-Man etc. etc. I feel really good about the product we delivered and the early customer feedback has been tremendous. One of the things we didn't have a lot of time in the schedule for is what I would characterize as "polish" and we're gonna spend a few more cycles on that in this release. As some new screens come to life in the product, I'll post screenshots here on the blog.....keep in mind none of the screens are final and are subject to change (or being cut completely).
This is a screenshot of what our next autorun screen might look like.....internally we call the next release "Carmine VNext" (Carmine was the codename for V1). In case you're curious, we chose
Carmine because it's a complimentary color to
Viridian which is the codename for our new hypervisor.
The marketing people will ultimately slap the proper branding and name on the product. They tend to change their minds often so we just throw placeholders into the UI. Personally I think 'Carmine' sounds better than "Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007".
Design example:
SCVMM v.Next
In what will be his first job in the commercial sector, veteran supercomputer research Daniel Reed, former director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, chief architect of the National Science Foundation's TeraGrid, a national distributed computing system for researchers, and chair of the Computing Research Association, will be joining Microsoft Research as director of Scalable and Multicore Computing, the company has revealed. Reed will collaborate with Burton Smith, another parallel computing guru who joined Microsoft in 2005 to help spearhead work on multicore issues. In addition, he plans to take a "green field" approach to spiraling power and reliability requirements for large data centers.
"There is a sea change in computing coming at the intersection of multicore and large data centers, and working on this is one of the most exciting things I can imagine doing," said Reed who most recently served as director of the Renaissance Computing Institute at the University of North Carolina. (more)
Tony Soper writes: Is it just me, or is it getting crowded in here? According to
this story:
"Customers can download "Oracle VM" for free starting on Wednesday, the company said. Oracle will sell service contracts for the product ranging from $499 to $999 per year."
According to
www.oracle.com/virtualization: "Oracle is the only software vendor that combines the benefits of server clustering and server virtualization technologies to deliver integrated clustering, virtualization, storage, and management for Grid Computing."
Do you have email systems? Do you use desktop applications like Microsoft Office? We all do right? Collaboration tools are an essential part of our working life today. Unfortunately the bad guys know this as well so they are regularly targeting organizations that use these collaboration tools. As a result IT Pro's are concerned about users opening back doors to attackers by simply opening an email attachment, running a macro or using add-ins that contain viruses or other malicious software.
The
2007 Microsoft Office release is the most secure version of Office we have released to date and comes with many new security features. To help customers deploy these features quickly and easily we have released the
2007 Microsoft Office Security Guide. The guide is based on real-world experience from key customers, government agencies and Microsoft security experts. We also include a
GPO Accelerator tool as part of the guide that will allow you to deploy Office security settings in minutes not days!
The keynote has kicked off with an amazing display of technologies and one that jumped out straight at me was our very own Application Virtualization product! If you go to connect you can download the open beta of Microsoft update to the SoftGrid product, " Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5" Beta
Please visit the Microsoft Connect site at
http://connect.microsoft.com to gain access to the 4.5 Beta. Sign in with your Microsoft Windows Live ID and then click on "Available Connections" in the left pane. You will see "Application Virtualization 4.5 Public Beta" in the list. Click "Apply" to arrive at the Microsoft Application Virtualization welcome page. At this point, click on the "Downloads" link in the left pane and you will see the Public Beta download.
During the
IT Forum Keynote, Bill Anderson showed the native integration between the Dell PowerEdge Server Configuration tool and Configuration Manager to configure a Dell-based server. This will be available next year. Here's a screenshot:
Screenshot:
SCCM Task Sequence integration with Dell
Today Microsoft also launched the System Center Alliance program, which establishes an online community to help technology partners more easily collaborate on and create offerings that extend the management capabilities of System Center solutions to Microsoft and non-Microsoft applications and platforms. It also provides customers with a diverse directory of offerings that can help them reduce their overall IT management costs, improve application availability and enhance service delivery.
The list of partners delivering offerings for System Center today continues to expand rapidly, with more than 40 partners’ software and hardware solutions available, including those from 1E, Advanced Micro Devices Inc
(more)
Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, formerly known as SoftGrid Application Virtualization, is the first Microsoft-branded release of the product. It includes several key features for the enterprise, including the addition of Dynamic Virtualization, extended enterprise scalability, enhanced security and globalization features.
Microsoft Application Virtualization is available as a public beta on Microsoft Connect and will become available through MDOP and Microsoft Application Virtualization for Terminal Services in the second half of calendar year 2008.
Microsoft just announced Hyper-V (
here and
here) and SCVMM v.Next (
here and
here).
The official name of the server virtualization technology within Windows Server 2008 will be Hyper-V. The codename was Microsoft viridian. Here are the first screenshots from the
IT Forum Keynote:
Hyper-V: screenshot #1
Hyper-V: screenshot #2
Hyper-V: screenshot #3
Hyper-V: screenshot #4
Hyper-V: screenshot #5
Hyper-V: screenshot #6
Hyper-V: screenshot #7
Bob Kelly brought us the IT Forum keynote this year, called "The Next Wave: Bringing Dynamic IT To Life". He talked about how Microsoft looks at Dynamic IT and the four core innovation areas; Unified & Virtualized, Process-Led / Model-Driven, Service-Enabled and User-Focused.
He noted that on February 27th 2008, Microsoft will do a joint launch wave;
Windows Server 2008, SQL 2008 and Visual Studio 2008. More than 50 million people will be reach with over 300 launch events worldwide.
Visual Studio 2008 will be released before this year's end, Windows Server 2008 will RTM in Q1 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 will RTM in H1 2008.
Bob spoke about the upcoming Windows Server 2008 and talked about the True Hypervisor, Terminal Services Remote App, IIS7, NAP, Read-only DC, Powershell and Server Core.
Microsoft announced Microsoft
Hyper-V Server and that Viridian will be called Hyper-V. Windows Server 2008 will have 8 different SKU's including the Hyper-V functionality. Bob called Ward Ralston to stage to deliver a Hyper-V demo.
(more)
From the Keynote:
Bob asked Bryon Surace to stage, a program manager on System Center virtualization. He demo'd thenew Hyper-V with the MMC3 Hyper-V manager. It supports up to 64 Gb RAM per VM with 4 core CPU and the ability to run Linux-based virtual machines. Bryon showed the new snapshot technology that lets you roll back or forward to states in time. Bryon had an early build running of System Center Virtual Machine Manager, which was managing VS 2005, Hyper-V and ESX on stage!
(more)
BARCELONA, Spain — Nov. 12, 2007 — At Microsoft TechEd IT Forum 2007, Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of Infrastructure Server Marketing at Microsoft Corp., updated an audience of more than 5,000 IT professionals on the development of Windows Server 2008 and a new virtualization offering.
As Microsoft nears the final stages of Windows Server 2008 development and the Feb. 27, 2008, worldwide launch event, Kelly announced detailed packaging, pricing and licensing information for Windows Server 2008. This includes Microsoft’s server virtualization technology, Hyper-V, previously code-named “Viridian.” Kelly also announced the stand-alone virtualization server named Microsoft Hyper-V Server. Finally, Kelly outlined a complementary program, called the Server Virtualization Validation Program that allows virtual machine vendors to validate their solutions with Windows Server operating systems.
(more)
You can deploy Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) in an environment that has either a Fibre Channel or an iSCSI storage area network (SAN) and perform SAN transfers within VMM; however, your system must be properly configured as described in this topic in the SCVMM TechNet Library.
If you are using an iSCSI SAN, you must install the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator Version 2.02 on each computer that will serve as a source or a destination location for your SAN transfers. You can download this software from the Microsoft Download Center (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=88000).
When used with Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1, VMM supports Quick Migration. The migration wizard will also automatically detect SAN infrastructure and will enable the IT administrator to choose to migrate VMs over SAN. When used with a SAN infrastructure, the length of the service interruption using Quick migration will depend only on the size of the Virtual Machine's memory, as that will determine the time it takes to pause the Virtual Machine for migration.
Along with the news that
the official name of the server virtualization technology within Windows Server 2008 will be Hyper-V, Microsoft is giving us more insight into the future of Virtualization.
In September, Chris Stirrat
announced that in a next release of SCVMM Microsoft will be adding support for non-windows virtualization environments, specifically VMWare and Xen.
Today, Microsoft executives are confirming that
alongside with the availability of Hyper-V, 180 days after Windows Server 2008 RTM, the next version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager will also be available. While definitive naming is not yet disclosed, this release is already dubbed as
SCVMM 2007 R2. It will be able to manage Hyper-V and VMware environments from one management solution.
Today at the keynote of IT forum 2007 Microsoft will announce the availability of the following 3 new products:
System Center Configuration Manager 2007
This is the successor of Microsoft SMS 2003.
System Center Data protection Manager 2007
This product is the successor of DPM 2006, the backup and restore solution of Microsoft.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager
With this product customers will be able manage their entire enterprise virtual environment. This includes physical to virtual, virtual to virtual, etc..
With these 3 new products the System center family is extended to eight products which 5 of them are available. In the future we expect the release of System center Mobile Device Manager, System Center Service Manager and System Center Capacity Planner.
Today at IT Forum, Microsoft unveiled a Server Virtualization Validation Program that will enable vendors to test and validate virtualization software running Windows Server 2008 and prior versions.
This will enable Microsoft to offer cooperative technical support to customers running Windows Server on validated, non-Windows server virtualization software.
Microsoft will also announce the Hyper-V server. This will be a standalone hypervisor based server virtualization product that complements the Hyper-V technology in Windows server 2008 and allows customers to virtualizes workloads onto a single physical server.
This edition will be a major blow to the competition as its
target price is $28. This Hyper-V server is a new product, not like server core + virtualization, but a light-weight standalone hypervisor, much like its biggest competitor: ESX.
Today at the keynote of IT forum 2007 Microsoft will announce that the official name of the server virtualization technology within Windows Server 2008 will be Hyper-V. The codename was Microsoft viridian.
Microsoft will also announce the Hyper-V server. This will be a standalone hypervisor based server virtualization product that complements the Hyper-V technology in Windows server 2008 and allows customers to virtualizes workloads onto a single physical server. Windows Server 2008 will come out in 8 versions. 3 versions will have the Hyper-V capabilities, 5 versions will not.
The versions that will contain the Hyper-v capabilities are:
Windows server 2008 standard
Windows server 2008 Enterprise
Windows server 2008 datacenter
The versions that will NOT contain the Hyper-v capabilities are:
Windows server 2008 standard without Hyper-V
Windows server 2008 Enterprise without Hyper-V
Windows server 2008 datacenter without Hyper-V
Windows server 2008 Web without Hyper-V
Windows server 2008 itanium without Hyper-V
The hypervisor virtualization product for Windows Server 2008 will be released as beta in the RTM bits of Windows Server 2008 end of Januari. Using existing Windows Update capabilities, customers can update their virtualization bits to RTM within 180 days after Windows Server 2008 RTM's.
The new System Center Catalog is live for Ops Mgr and Config Mgr. Here are the URL’s:
All Packs for All Products
https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/scp/catalog.aspx
Operations Manager 2007
https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/scp/opsmgr07.aspx
Operations Manager 2005
https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/scp/opsmgr05.aspx
Operations Manager 2000
https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/scp/opsmgr00.aspx
Configuration Manager 2007
https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/scp/configmgr07.aspx
Jason Buffington has a nice preview of what the Keynote will bring at this year IT Forum at 14.00 CET:
Today is about staging demo's of DPM - yes, I am using VPC's everywhere, but it still takes time. And considering all of this work on the Sabbath - not sure if my set-ups will be blessed as error free or punished with extra Murphy's Law.
4500 seats, a very cool backdrop and a VP with his demo-minions.
A half-dozen product managers, 15-20 laptops and workstations, with multiple VPC's each, and a really nasty cabling setup into one KVM.
What makes a DPM demo complicated?
It takes 2 physical and 8 virtual servers to fully appreciate the uber-coolness of DPM 2007:
Host 1 - Windows Server 2003 sp2 with Virtual Server 2005 R2 sp1 - not in a domain (3Ghz / 2 GB RAM / fast disk)
Domain Controller for Contoso
the DPM 2007 server - with disk-based protection and a synthetic tape drive
Windows 2003 or Windows 2008 File Server
vSQL Server 2005 sp2
Host 2 - Windows Server 2003 sp2 with Virtual Server 2005 R2 sp1 - in the Contoso domain (same specs)
SQL Server 2008 (CTP-4 July)
Exchange 2007
SharePoint 2007
Linux app server
Continue reading this preview at Jason's blogpost..
This paper describes how Microsoft supports and extends the service life-cycle approach of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL).
Overview
The IT Infrastructure Library has evolved from focusing on functions in its first version, to processes in its second version, and now—with ITIL v3—to addressing the entire service management life cycle, from service conceptualization to continuous service improvement.
Through the integration of Microsoft Solutions Framework, Microsoft Operations Framework, and the recent addition of the Continuous Improvement Roadmap (CIR), Microsoft delivers guidance for managing IT services throughout the life cycle.
This white paper is intended for business and IT professionals who are tasked with ensuring the performance, efficiency, and effectiveness of IT infrastructure services.
Microsoft and ITIL v3
Hot off the presses, Microsoft IT (aka MSIT) has published a case study around their use of Network Access Protection (aka NAP) --enabled with Windows Server 2008 -- to improve security and host policy compliance on our huge network.
Microsoft Improves Security Policy Compliance with Network Access Protection
Here's a brief synopsis of the paper:
With 71,000 highly mobile users worldwide, Microsoft wanted a new way to measure and improve its 300,000+ client computers’ compliance with corporate security policies. The company deployed Network Access Protection (NAP), a feature of the Windows Server® 2008 operating system, to improve the security policy compliance of its desktop computers, roaming portable computers, visiting portable computers, and unmanaged home computers. Now Microsoft is increasing compliance with security policies and adding efficiency to its security management process. The company also benefits from the scalability of NAP and the flexibility to deploy it for a variety of access scenarios—including virtual private network connections, Internet Protocol security access, and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol address configurations—with varying levels of implementation.
In Exchange Server 2007 SP1, the configuration of Outlook Anywhere (formerly known as RPC over HTTP) has been changed to accommodate the different ways Exchange CAS servers are deployed on the Internet. This blog post provides an overview of these changes.
Exchange 2007 SP1
For Exchange 2007 SP1, instead of always enabling Basic and NTLM, Outlook Anywhere now provides the ability to choose the authentication methods that will be enabled on the /rpc virtual directory in IIS.
To specify the authentication method, the following parameters have been added in place of the ExternalAuthenticationMethod parameter:
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The importance of having a consistent configuration across all Citrix servers is paramount. So, if you have SCCM 2007 then the Citrix Presentation Server Configuration Pack For SCCM 2007is definitely worth trying.
The Citrix Presentation Server (CPS) Configuration Pack is a tool which you can use to evaluate each Presentation Server’s configuration against predefined security and best practice guidelines. The Configuration Pack is designed to be used in conjunction with the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Desired Configuration Management (DCM) 2.0 module The DCM 2.0 module automates configuration management audits.
The DCM reports contain detailed information about which Presentation Servers are out of compliance and how to correct each configuration setting. Using this information, Citrix administrators can rectify the configuration issues on each reported Presentation Server, thus bringing the entire CPS farm back into compliance with Citrix Best Practices.
Citrix Presentation Server Configuration Pack For SCCM 2007 (more)
IT Forum 2007 Europe is almost there and I will leave for Barcelona sunday morning. I will be at the ATE (Ask the experts) booth for System Center Remote Operations Manager (ROM), a solution combing SC Essentials and SC Operations Manager, next week to answer questions.
The booth number is 54 and during my shift and also between sessions you have a good chance spotting me there. It is at the edge of the Experts area as you can see on the floor plan below:
Below are the times I am scheduled for ATE "duty" and when you can be sure I will be there:
Tuesday 13 Nov 10:00 - 13:00
Wednesday 14 Nov 13:00 - 16:00
Thursday 15 Nov 13:00 - 16:00
When I am not around the booth, you can find my fellow MOM-MVP
Arie de Haan or
Dustin Jones, Program Manager for Remote Operations Manager. Looking forward to seeing you there!
Q: What is http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt and why is it in my proxy logs?!
A: Windows Vista includes a feature called Network Connectivity Status Indicator (NCSI). For more information see, "Appendix K Network Connectivity Status Indicator and Resulting Internet Communication in Windows" and a snippet is below:
NCSI might communicate with a Web site to determine whether a network has Internet connectivity. A page called ncsi.txt (http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt) containing the following line of text with no terminating new line or other non-printing characters: "Microsoft NCSI". NCSI can be disabled by changing a registry setting.
Server Manager is a new feature in Windows Server 2008 that guides administrators through the process of installing, configuring, and managing Windows Server 2008 roles and features. In addition to roles and features that are included with Windows Server 2008 by default, Server Manager enables integration of additional roles and features that are available on the Microsoft Download Center and Windows Update Web sites as optional updates to Windows Server 2008.
One role that will be available as an update is Windows Server Update Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 (WSUS 3.0 SP1). An update will also be released that enables full integration of WSUS 3.0 SP1 into Server Manager. This update allows installation, configuration, and management of WSUS 3.0 SP1 by using the Server Manager console and wizards.
To test the Server Manager update and obtain customer feedback, Microsoft offers a four-week Beta program for this update, starting November 2, 2007 on the Microsoft Connect site. By participating in the Beta program, you have the opportunity to try the new WSUS 3.0 SP1 role with full Server Manager integration, and provide feedback directly to the Server Manager teams.
If you are interested in participating, the download is available at
http://connect.microsoft.com/windows/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?DownloadID=9315.
To help control costs, improve business agility, and remain secure and in compliance, many IT organizations are taking steps to transition to a truly dynamic infrastructure. At the same time, many organizations are also planning to implement the next line of server products from Microsoft, yet are challenged to find the fastest, least disruptive way to deploy this technology across the organization. Microsoft® System Center is a family of leading IT management solutions that helps IT departments proactively plan, deploy, manage, and optimize an IT environment. And today, Microsoft has made available the Server Management Suite Enterprise—a license that brings together all of the capabilities needed to complete comprehensive, life-cycle management of IT infrastructure. This white paper outlines these new capabilties.
Whitepaper outlining benefits of using latest System Center products to optimize the datacenter
Optimizing Server Infrastructure with Microsoft System Center
This poster highlights the architecture and feature set of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Aside from showing the high-level architecture, this poster highlights the feature set of Exchange Server 2007. Sections include:
Management and Monitoring
High Availability
Client Access, Edge Transport, Hub Transport, Mailbox, and Unified Messaging server roles
Exchange Server 2007 Component Architecture Poster (PDF)
SystemCenterForum is proud to announce the creation of a shared repository for how to resolve alerts for Operations Manager 2007, System Center Essentials and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005.
This functionality is available through a management pack called "ReSearch This!" which was created through contributions from the team at SystemCenterForum and the MVP community members. ReSearch This provides a task which does a lookup based upon the alert information in the SystemCenterForum knowledgebase articles. We have currently uploaded over a hundred articles based upon work done by many individuals including Pete Zerger, Kerrie Meyler, and Cameron Fuller. The goal of this functionality however is to provide an easy to use method for users of OpsMgr, SCE and MOM to be able to share what they have found worked for their environment to resolve the variety of alerts which these products generate. After the management pack is imported, you can click on an alert and from the Alert Tasks choose "ReSearch This!" to search for the alert in the repository. To submit alert information to the shared repository right-click on the alert and from the Alert Tasks choose "Share This!".
ReSearch This! is a common repository for information on how to resolve alerts for Operations Manager 2007, System Center Essentials and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005. It provides a method to search a community repository for alert resolutions and to submit information to share how you have resolved alerts in your environment.
ReSearch This! Management Pack (Operations Manager 2007 and SCE)
ReSearch This! Management Pack (Operations Manager 2005)
When you try to open the Distributed Application Designer from a console installed on an x64 server you may see the console crashes with .NET error in the Application Log (something of type badimageformat).
This seems to be a bug in SP1 RC. To work around it use a console from an x86-32 (32 bit) machine to connect to the x64 server.
On OpsMgr 2007 RTM this issue does not exist.
Microsoft's new product, Home Server, promises to make mundane tasks like media sharing and backup simpler for Joe Six Pack to deal with, but we've been wondering--is this really just a product for geeks? XP Media Center Edition was embraced by at least a portion of the geek populace, but outside the ranks of the nerdy, it never really got much attention. The entertainment industry didn't see it as appliance-like enough, we suppose.
But
Home Server is different--it's the piece of software that should have existed before Media Center Edition was ever produced, because it provides some of the nuts and bolts that, if coupled with Media Center Edition, could've made the latter a truly great offering. Lest we digress, Home Server fans now have one more reason to get excited: the addition of video conferencing and video-mail using
Sightspeed.
First off, if you've never used Sightspeed, you should give it a shot. It's the most grandma-friendly video-conferencing app we've ever seen. With Home Server, Sightspeed will archive call recordings and video mail messages into the Home Server, making them reviewable from another PC, Mac, or even your XBox. The only thing that could top that would be video-conferencing on the XBox itself. Sightspeed says they have no plans to bring their client to Xbox, but we have a feeling it's coming.
Today we
announced Windows Essential Business Server as the official name for Windows Server codename "Centro," our upcoming IT solution designed for mid-sized organizations. We unveiled details about the product, available
here, as well as an initial set of hardware and software partners supporting the solution. If you are interested in applying for the private beta, go
here.
Microsoft has conducted a tremendous amount of research on how IT is done in mid-sized businesses (usually 75-250 PCs.) We visited hundreds of customers, brought them to Redmond, did focus groups, established customer and partner advisory boards, and more. We got great, detailed input on how this product can help our mid-market customers simplify processes, improve reliability and generally shift their role from "reactive firefighter" to a more strategic, proactive asset to the business. Some members of our technology adopter program comment in today's story in eWeek
here.
Essential Business Server combines Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, System Center Essentials, Forefront Security for Exchange, the next version of ISA and SQL Server 2008 (in Premium Edition) into an "all-in-one" solution.
But the product is truly more than the sum of its parts and delivers new technology above and beyond the component products. Essential Business Server provides a single point of management for all of the components and workloads, as well as third party software applications, and incorporates an incredible amount of best practices. We estimate set up will require 75% fewer steps than what is required today, for example. In addition, it has a single server license and a single client access license, as well as features to help IT track, manage and re-assign licenses.
Microsoft hardware partners that are already planning to support Essential Business Server include Fujitsu Siemens, HP, IBM and Intel. Software partners already developing or planning on creating "Add-Ins" for the Essential Business Server console include CA, Citrix, FullArmor, McAfee, Quest, Symantec and Trend Micro. Microsoft applications will add-in, too, of course.
We'll be demonstrating Windows Essential Business Server at TechEd: IT Forum next week in Barcelona. The product is targeted to ship in the second half of 2008.
Now that many people are applying SP1 (RC) to their Operations Manager environment, questions are popping up like "can I use my RTM UI console to access a SP1 RC management group?". Well, the answer is easy: you can! The SP1 UI can view RTM MG's and vice versa. However, you need to disabled version checking in the registry, otherwise you will get the following error: "You have attempted to connect to a server which is incompatible with your Operations Console".
To disable version checking:
1. Open the registry editor
2. Navigate to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager\3.0\Console
3. Create a new key called ManagementGroupSessionManager
4. Under that new key, create a DWORD called DisableVersionCheck and set the value to 1
ADInsight is an LDAP (Light-weight Directory Access Protocol) real-time monitoring tool aimed at troubleshooting Active Directory client applications. Use its detailed tracing of Active Directory client-server communications to solve Windows authentication, Exchange, DNS, and other problems.
ADInsight uses DLL injection techniques to intercept calls that applications make in the Wldap32.dll library, which is the standard library underlying Active Directory APIs such ldap and ADSI. Unlike network monitoring tools, ADInsight intercepts and interprets all client-side APIs, including those that do not result in transmission to a server. ADInsight monitors any process into which it can load it’s tracing DLL, which means that it does not require administrative permissions, however, if run with administrative rights, it will also monitor system processes, including windows services.
Download AdInsight (720 KB)
This information kit includes an IDC analyst white paper, VMware customer success stories and a flash overview on VMware desktop virtualization.
Download the VMware Desktop Virtualization Kit from Computerworld
Chris Wolf has come through with the goods again! He’s written a
script to back up running VMs via VSS. That’s right, back up your VMs whilst they are running, and without needing DPM. …You guys will remember his nifty script to
V2V from VHD to VMDK.
I haven’t had a chance to road test it yet, but you know you want too! So whilst you’re
downloading the script and firing up your VMs, read a snippet from his post is below:
The script will back up all files in the VM folders to the designated backup target folder. You could restore a VM to the time of the previous backup by copying the files in the VM’s associated backup folder to their original source folder. Alternatively, you could mount a VM’s virtual hard disk (VHD) file using
VHD Mount in order to recover a single file.
Data Protection Manager is a great tool for backing up Virtual Server VMs and provides an excellent alternative to my scripted solution. However, if you’re looking to integrate a scripted backup with your existing backup software or do not require the complete functionality of Data Protection Manager, then this script should provide just what you need.
Ever since the release of Windows XP, one of my favorite features as always been Remote Desktop. In case you're not familiar with Remote Desktop, it is a built-in Windows feature that allows you to connect to your computer remotely by using the RDP protocol. For example, if you are at home and you need to access something from your computer at the office, you could use a Remote Desktop session to remotely control your office PC from home. Remote Desktop is built on the same technology, and uses the same protocol as the Windows Terminal Services.
As handy as Remote Desktop is, it can sometimes be problematic. While the sessions are usually solid, there are a number of things that can go wrong during the connection and authentication process. (
continue at source)
The Print Server 2000-2003 MP has been updated:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=35d1fece-867b-4a0c-8642-57e84e327018&DisplayLang=en
This revision corrects the following issues:
Print Server discovery scripts not running correctly: some servers running Print Server with no shared printers are appearing in the Print Server State View, some servers running Print Service with shared printers are not appearing in the Print Server State View, some clients running Print Service with shared printers are appearing in the Print Server State View
Error connecting to data source: inability to connect to data source affects data submission and workflows
Jonobie Ford writes: I just put the finishing touches on the Key Concepts guide and it is posted on the download center, here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3a633532-1dde-49b6-930f-7df50b69b77b&displaylang=en
It includes the following topics:
Overview of model-based design
Service models and understanding relationships
Health models
How Operations Manager implements models
Discovery
Changes between 2005 and 2007
Customizing the out-of-the-box models
We typically post documents in the doc format, but we are trying out two additional formats (pdf and xps). Let us know if you prefer one of these formats; we'll eventually be making a decision about which of the formats to regularly ship. You can reach our documentation team at momdocs at microsoft.com.
There has been assorted posts now that SCVMM R2 (aka SCVMM vNext) will be able to manage multiple installations of Viridian/Windows Server virtualization. Chris Stirrat (from the SCVMM team) also made the
announcement back in September that SCVMM R2 (or ‘next set of releases‘) will manage VMware and XEN as well.
Anyway, in Jeff Wooley’s presentation today, the roadmap slide shows SCVMM vNext will beta within 45 days of the Windows Server Virtualization Beta. So if the WSv beta will be released with the RTM of Windows 2008 in ~February, I’m going to guess we should see a beta mid April 2008? Final SCVMM R2 will be released when Final WSV is released 180 days after Windows Server 2008 RTMs.
Microsoft Virtualization Roadmap
In the last couple of years, virtualization technology has become the “hot thing” in the IT management space because it is seen as reducing overall IT costs which is every CTO’s dream. And the fact that you create backups of your environments is a life saver for most organizations by itself. I thought I would take sometime today to talk about virtualization with relation to Operations Manager 2007 and share with you some of the thoughts Rob Scott (senior PM) and myself had on this topic .
The Operations Manager 2007 team officially supports the Database, Data Warehouse, Root Management Server, Management Server, Reporting Server, Gateway Servers and Agents on virtual machines in particular Virtual Server 2005. It should work on VMware but nobody I know has tried it so I cannot say for sure it works on VMware.
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If you have a Volume Licensing agreement then the final System Center Configuration Manager 2007 code is available on
https://licensing.microsoft.com.
It seems that a lot of people are having a hard time finding it so here's a tip: Search for "Config Mgr Svr 2007" under downloads and you should find it.
Today Microsoft released a new Search offering -
Search Server 2008 Express. This is on top of the recently announced
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
"Express? Does this mean, like in so many other products with that moniker, that this is free?"
Yep. Free.
"So.. it's scaled down, I bet. Probably some limit on the number of items you can index, right?"
Wrong. From what I've read, it's pretty much the same product as the Enterprise version
Search Server 2008 - only without the enterprise-class high availability and load balancing options that you get in
MOSS 2007 and
Search Server 2008. Check out
this comparison page for more details on the three main search offerings from Microsoft.
And here's the
press release that came out today, also.
Thanks to the hard work of
Matthijs there is a new build of VMRCPlus available for download. A brief summary of the changes is as follows:
The terminology of VMRCplus has been updated.
Configuration of scripts on both the Virtual Server and Virtual Machine level.
VMRCplus offers configuring promiscuous mode on the network so you can trace traffic in the virtual switch.
Minor enhancements like storage of Console Manager coordinates, conflict handling when a shortcut already exists
The COM and LPT port assignment logic fixes
The x86 installer package no longer installs on x64.
Error handling has been enhanced and several issues have been fixed.
Virtual Machine Remote Control Client Plus (VMRCplus)
The
VMM Scripting Guide is now available in the download center. The Virtual Machine Manager Scripting Guide explains how to create Microsoft Windows PowerShell scripts that execute Virtual Machine Manger 2007 commands, and provides more thatn 100 pages of useful sample scripts, including:
Sample Script for Upgrading Hosts and Library Servers
How to Convert an Existing Cmdlet Help Example to a Script
Sample Scripts for Managing Virtual Machines
AutomateNewVMCreation.ps1
InstallVMAdditions.ps1
ConfigureGuestCluster.ps1
How ConfigureGuestCluster.ps1
NewVMScriptFromWizard.ps1
Sample Scripts for Backing Up and Restoring the VMM Database
Sample Script for Integrating VMM with OpsMgr
For example, the SummarizeVMMInformation.ps1 script displays a summary or information about your VMM environment.
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Learn how to take advantage of the enhanced e-learning collection on enterprise capabilities provided by Office Communications Server 2007, and get a richer experience using virtual labs designed for the final product version.
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7667746
Note: You may also want to mention the free downloadable sample chapters from the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit:
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7675616
Along with my good friend
Stefan Stranger, I've been testing Live Maps for Operations Manager 2007 from Savision for some time now and I must say it's a killer app for OpsMgr 2007. With Live Maps you can create your own fully configurable Maps and place OpsMgr objects on those Maps. Turn your existing Visio diagram into a live monitoring map. How cool is that? And finally alerts and state view together in one view:
Create Live Maps from any imaginable background
Use existing diagrams, floor plans and run books to quickly add relevant maps to OpsMgr 2007.
Over 300 geographical maps included
Live maps comes with a complete set of geographical maps, including a world map, continents, countries and US states.
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Kurt Roggen writes: Server Message Block (SMB), also known as CIFS (Common Internet File System) is the file sharing protocol used by default on Windows based computers. Windows includes an SMB client component (Client for Microsoft Windows) and an SMB server component (File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Windows).
SMB in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista support the new SMB version 2.0 that has been redesigned for today's networking environments (wireless, possible high loss, timeouts, high latency, ...) and for the needs of the next generation of file servers (EFS over the wire, Offline Files and Folders enhancements, ...).
Machines running Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista support both SMB v1.0 and SMB v2.0. However SMB 2.0 can only be used if
both client and server support it!! So, the SMB protocol revision to be used for file operations is decided during the
negotiation phase.
A Vista client advertises to the server that it can understand the new SMB 2.0 protocol. If the server (Windows Server 2008 or otherwise) understands SMB 2.0, then SMB 2.0 is chosen for subsequent communication, otherwise they fall back to SMB 1.0.
This preserves "downwards" compatibility so that deploying Vista clients or Windows Server 2008 servers should be simple and straightforward. The following list below describes what protocol will be used when communicating between different types of client and servers.
Vista client <> Vista client or Windows Server 2008 – SMB 2.0
Non-Vista client <> Vista client or Windows Server 2008 – SMB 1.0
Vista client <> Non-Vista client or Non-Windows Server 2008 – SMB 1.0
Non-Vista client <> Non-Vista client or Non-Windows Server 2008 – SMB 1.0
For an overview of the impact on network throughput, have to look at the white paper of a third-party benchmark study done by The Tolly Group which compares network throughput and time-to-completion of several tasks when using Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 .
My sources within Microsoft sent me an email that Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 RC is available for download. Release Candidate details:
This will be publicly available release. Customers can download the Service Pack from MS Connect.
Signup for this is public and available at http://connect.microsoft.com/systemcenter
This release will be fully supported. Support options include:
- Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS) – you can use your standard support options!
- Newsgroups – there will be a dedicated SP1 newsgroup
- Hotfixes requests that are accepted will be incorporated into the final RTM version
This release is fully upgradable to the final RTM version of the Service Pack.
What's New in Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1
This topic describes some of the improvements and major changes in functionality that are included in Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1). Operations Manager 2007 SP1 is available in two ways. First, it is offered as a standalone executable file that you use to upgrade an existing Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 installation. Second, it has been "slipstreamed" into the Operations Manager 2007 installation media, which means that you can install Operations Manager 2007 from scratch and the final installed version will be Operations Manager 2007 SP1. Operations Manager 2007 SP1 is available for both x86-based and x64-based computers.
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Long Zheng writes: "It’s rare for a week to go by without a few interesting Microsoft job advertisements. One of which posted last week provides a pretty good idea at how the next version of Windows will improve the wireless networking experience."
Vista was about making Wi-Fi connections as seamless, manageable and secure as wired networks.
The next Windows version is really about taking Wireless networking to the next level by enabling new complete end to end scenarios and experiences that are going to change how windows PCs interact with each other and other devices and nodes over a wireless network.
As a part of the Windows Networking Ecosystem Technologies team, you will be working on scenarios around virtualizing Wireless to allow connections to multiple networks simultaneously. You will be working on enabling new windows to windows connectivity paths within a wireless network to improve wireless throughput and latency. You will be working on wireless-only office and mesh networking scenarios that will make setup and management of wireless networks quick and inexpensive with the goal to reduce TCO for centrally controlled and secured deployments by improving manageability, performance and reliability.
As a part of this work, you will be working closely on existing and in-works wireless standards such as IEEE 802.11s, 802.11k, 802.11r, 802.11w. This position will provide you the unique opportunity of working on core wireless areas as well as collaborating with several other key Windows technologies to deliver a complete functional end to end scenario. The work will be in both the Windows kernel and user space.
Whilst wireless meshing is an exciting feature to look forward to, I think the killer feature will be virtualizing wireless adapters. Currently, one wireless adapter can only connect to one wireless network. Connecting to many networks simultaneously could open up a range of opportunities beyond just performance enhancements.
For example, if you were to set up an ad-hoc computer-to-computer connection right now, you’d have to give up your current infrastructure (computer-to-router) connection. That means you’ll most likely lost internet connection as both users are only connected to each other. With virtualized adapters, you would be able to allocate one to your ad-hoc network, and another to keep your existing connection.
That together with wireless meshing technology, this could eliminate wireless dead-spots altogether. Because each wireless client could also become a repeater for the wireless signal (ad-hoc), like ripples in a pond the wireless signal will expand as long as users are within range of each other even if they’re well outside the original access point’s range.
Neowin has the scoop:
"Microsoft has posted download links to Windows Vista SP1 RC Preview on the MSDN homepage for MSDN subcribers. "Get the latest preview of Windows Vista SP1 on MSDN Subscriber Downloads. This new release of SP1 addresses reliability and performance issues, and provides support for new hardware and several emerging standards." Windows Vista SP1 is slated for an early 2008 release but beta testers can get their hands on early preview builds. Users have reported that the service pack not only includes many bug fixes but several performance enhancements as well."
Vista SP1 RC Preview (MSDN Subscription Required)
UPDATE: For reasons yet unknown, Microsoft has pulled the announcement at MSDN. Microsoft were unavailable for comment.
UPDATE: Microsoft has responded: "The MSDN notice about a Windows Vista SP1 RC Preview was posted mistakenly," Microsoft said in a statement provided to CNET News.com "No code was released today and the MSDN notice has since been removed from the MSDN site."
For those of you looking to try out Windows Home Server, but have been left out in the cold by it's exclusion from MSDN, now have an answer. The Windows Home Server 120-Day Evaluation is now live and ready to be ordered. Costs $5.99 for delivery in the US, and your order will be filled in 1-3 weeks.
It can also be ordered from these countries: (with direct order links)
United States
Canada
Europe, the Middle East, and Africa
Next week we'll be releasing a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of Windows PowerShell V2.0. This release will not be for everyone.
This morning I wrote 3 blog entries that set your expectation about the CTP. I decided to blog them BEFORE the CTP because when you see what is in the CTP – most of you will make a mad rush to download it and use it. It has some amazingly cool stuff in it (you'll hear more about that next week). You really need to read and understand my 3 blogs before making the decision to participate in the CTP:
CTP != Beta !
Platform Requirements
Versioning
One point is worth making again (and again): Things WILL change. If you are going to be disappointed or angry if we refactor our APIs or change our naming or tweak our semantics and break all your (CTP-specific) code/scripts – you should not use the CTP.
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Justin Incarnato from the Operations Manager product team,
announced on his blog that the newsgroup for Operations Manager 2007 SP1 is now live. This newsgroup will serve as the central point for discussion on the upcoming Service Pack. The address for the newsgroup is:
microsoft.public.opsmgr.sp1
Justin confirms Clive's announcement that the Service Pack 1 RC0 bits should be here very soon.
Jeff from Windows Connected reports: "FYI - Microsoft just announced the public availability of WSUS 3.0 SP1 Release Candidate 1. Improvements include support for Windows Server 2008 and product bug fixes. More information is available on
Microsoft Connect. Click the 'Available Connections' link and look for Windows Server Update Services 3.0 SP1 Release Candidate. Here's a brief overview of the WSUS page on Connect:"
"Thank you for joining the WSUS 3.0 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate Program and we welcome you to provide feedback on the Service Pack 1 through the channels listed below. By including you in our development process, we can ensure that our products meet the needs of our customers and are reliable.
WSUS 3.0 SP1 addresses a number of product fixes and includes the addition of support for forth coming Windows Server 2008 (code named Longhorn Server). The release notes on this release can be downloaded along with the build which provides more details on the installation."
Download Service Pack 1 and Documentation. The downloads link on the left hand menu will take you to the download page for the following SP1 builds and documentation:
WSUS 3.0 SP1 Beta x86 Build
WSUS 3.0 SP1 Beta x64 Build
WSUS 3.0 SP1 RC ReadMe
WSUS 3.0 SP1 RC Pre Release License
WSUS 3.0 Overview Document
WSUS 3.0 Operations Guide
WSUS 3.0 Step by Step Guide
The Registration for next years MMS event in Las Vegas is now open. Microsoft Management Summit 2008(MMS) will be at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dates are 28 April - 2 May. This is probalbly the best Microsoft Event if you are working with or interested in System Center products.
Register here.
Browing the
content overview page, it shows new information about future System Center releases. While OpsMgr 2007 SP1 was announced just
yesterday, the MMS website talks about
Configuration Manager 2007 R2:
In addition during the event there will be early looks at some releases due to ship during the coming year, including:
System Center Configuration Manager 2007 SP1
System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2
System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1
System Center Mobile Device Manager
System Center Service Manager
If you want more information on the System Center roadmap for "wave three" products, like Configuration Manager v5, check out our exclusive blog posting on the
System Center Roadmap.
With each new version of the Windows Server Operating System there are new possibilities for automation to help make the administrator’s job easier. Automation brings increased efficiencies but also brings the possibility of bigger mistakes. Additionally no amount of automation can protect us against human error. This is very true when working with Active Directory.
When working with Active Directory it is possible to include an extra account to delete or to get distracted and select the wrong account to delete for instance. Good administrators will double check everything and have procedures to ensure this sort of thing does not happen. Eventually a mistake is made and the wrong account is deleted. There is another scenario where the act is a deliberate and malicious action. This case is more difficult to guard against as if you do not trust your administrators, who can you trust ?
It would be better if the system prevented this sort of mistake in the first place. It is possible to use the delegation of permissions on the Active Directory to control who has permissions to delete accounts. However this is performed, at some point one or more administrators will have the permissions to perform a delete. There is a small but finite chance that at some stage a mistake will be made and an account will deleted that should not have been.(
continue at source)
We are pleased to announce that we have just published a whitepaper that provides guidance for customers transitioning from SMS 2003 Patch Management to System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Software Updates Management.
You can download the paper from here:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/8/6/d861e149-76f7-4348-89aa-7f3d9777f5ae/Configuration Manager Software Updates Management Guidance - Migration from ITMU.doc
While the release of System Center Configuration Manager 2007 has been accompanied by robust functional and procedural product documentation, the integration of WSUS introduced two additional challenges:
Successful migration of SMS 2003 environments to Configuration Manager while maintaining the existing software update levels of service.
Clarifying a dramatic shift in a fundamental process in the minds of experienced SMS 2003 administrators.
This whitepaper provides guidance on how to migrate software update management from SMS 2003 to Configuration Manager, how to operate in the transition period while maintaining ongoing software update deployments for both SMS 2003 and Configuration Manager clients, and best practices for managing software updates using Configuration Manager.
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We have had this information under NDA for some time now, but
Clive Eastwood is making it generally public:
System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1, release candidate, will be available next week.
There will be two hotfix KB articles being released in conjunction with the OpsMgr07 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate. This will be required if multihoming an SP1 RC (eventually SP1 RTM) agent to an Operations Manager 2007 original release management server. This fix needs to be installed on the Opsmgr original release management server.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941557
This hotfix will also be present on the SP1 Release candidate images for the 120-day Eval edition for SP1 RC (Slipstreamed), together with the SP1 RC upgrade image in the SupportTools/Hotfix/Release folder : SystemCenterOpsMgr07-RTM-KB941557-X86-AMD64-ENU.MSI.
This puts a big smile on my face:
The original picture is
here.
Boris Yanushpolsky, member of the OpsMgr product team, has some excellent info:
When creating a NT service unit monitor, you might want to include in the alert description the service information. Here are the expression that you can use in order to include the service information in the alert description:
Service Name - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='Name']$
Service Dependencies - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='Dependencies']$
Service Binary Path - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='BinaryPathName']$
Service Display Name - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='DisplayName']$
Service Description - $Data/Context/Property[@Name='Description']$
Although Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 and Operations Manager 2007 both have the concept of targeting, the way targeting works in Operations Manager 2007 has completely changed from the previous version. To effectively deploy new rules and monitors, it is critical to understand the difference. Consider the following scenario:
In Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, to monitor the three SQL Server databases shown in the preceding figure, you would create a computer group that includes Server 1 and Server 2. You then would create a specific rule, put it into a Processing Rule Group (PRG), and then target the rule to the computer group. However, this method has some shortcomings:
Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 does not make a distinction between SQL Server A and SQL Server B, so there is no way to deploy a rule that monitors SQL Server A while still monitoring SQL Server B unless you uninstall SQL Server B.
It is difficult when looking at a rule to know its target. For example, knowing that a rule goes to Server 2 does not tell you whether the rule is gathering monitoring data for the SQL Server object on that computer or for the Internet Information Services Web server object on the computer.
Continue to the rest of this article by Jonobie Ford..
Office Communications Server 2007, Quality of Experience (QoE) Monitoring Server enables you to perform near real-time monitoring and service assessment of unified communications media.
The QoE Monitoring Server (QMS) is a new server role for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition. It provides the information that you need in order to better understand the media quality that your users are experiencing in your Office Communications Server 2007 deployment. With QMS, you can do the following:
Gather statistics on media quality of locations or based on a grouping of subnets
Proactively monitor and troubleshoot media quality of experience issues
Perform diagnostics to diagnose VoIP user complaints
View trends which can help you with post-deployment growth and measure results against the service level agreement
The QMS collects quality metrics at the end of each VoIP call from the participant endpoints, including IP phones, Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, the Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 client, and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 A/V Conferencing Server and Mediation Server. These quality metrics are aggregated and stored in a SQL database. The data can then be used to alert you to abnormal media quality conditions and also to generate routine media quality reports. So what does this mean? You can now monitor your voice network along with the rest of your computing infrastructure!
Download it now:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=09115944-625f-460b-b09c-51e3c96e9f7e&displaylang=en
While we intuitively recognize character patterns within a string like IP addresses, dates, UNC paths, and zip codes, computers have to work a bit harder in order to "understand" complicated formats like these. That's where regular expressions come into play.
In the
November issue of TechNet Magazine, Don Jones explains how to
create well-written regular expressions for Windows PowerShell scripts that determine whether incoming data conforms to the format you've specified. This enables your scripts to accept only valid input and reject any invalid data, simplifying things for you.
| 28 Nov '07 - 09:07 | kenneth van surksum | 
no comments | news source ~ Advanced Windows Debugging and Troubleshooting 
