Microsoft has updated it's Infrastructure Planning and Design document on System Center Data Protection Manager to reflect the changes from SP1. Planning and design guides clarify and streamline the planning and design process for Microsoft® infrastructure technologies.
Download: the
Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 with SP1 IPD among with other IPD from the Microsoft Website
The VMM 2008 Management Pack monitors virtual machines running on Hyper-V, Microsoft Virtual Server, and VMware ESX Server hosts that VMM is managing, as well as the managed virtual machine hosts, library servers, and other VMM components.
Feature Summary
This management pack is tightly integrated with VMM 2008 to implement the following features:
* Comprehensive health monitoring of virtual machines
* Performance and Resource Optimization (PRO) in VMM
* VMM reports
* Diagram views available from the VMM Administrator Console
* Note: The Microsoft.SystemCenter.VirtualMachineManager.Pro.2008.Public class in the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 PRO Library management pack has been redefined as an abstract class.
Download:
System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Management Pack
Active Directory (AD) is one of the main repositories of users, groups, computers and printer information in enterprises. An AD Connector in Service Manager can bring all or some of this data in the CMDB. Once users, printers, and computers are synchronized into the CMDB they can be related to incidents, change requests, other CIs, etc.(
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Many companies do not currently have their own public key infrastructure (PKI) with an issuing Certification Authority (CA) but still want to benefit from native mode and Internet-based client management - which has a dependency on PKI certificates. So a natural follow-on question is whether native mode can use certificates from a public CA rather than using an internal CA.
The technical answer is yes. Native mode is PKI-agnostic, supporting industry standard certificates (version 3 of the x.509 certificate format) and has no dependencies on the issuing CAs. This is in contrast to the out of band management feature, introduced in Configuration Manager SP1, which has a dependency on a Microsoft enterprise CA and certificate templates for the certificates issued to the AMT-based computers.(
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Hi. I’m Bill Anderson, a technical writer for System Center Service Manager. I’ve been working with PM Vladimir Bakhmetyev to put this blog post together to show you a little about how you can use change management features found in Service Manager to help model process frameworks such as MOF.(
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Hi Everyone, my name is Prakash and I recently worked an interesting case that I wanted to share with you here. The issue was that the ConfigMgr 2007 database had suddenly grown quite large and threatened to consume all available disk space. This turned out to be caused by excessive status messages and I thought it might be helpful to blog this with the complete troubleshooting steps you can follow just in case you happen to face a similar issue.
Issue: The SCCM database size may grow to a very large size and disk space may begin to run out.(
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System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 is the next-generation release of Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003. Leverage deep integration with the 2007 Microsoft Office system, the Windows Vista operating system, Windows Server 2008, and Exchange Server 2007 to promote your systems-management solutions. And generate new sales revenue by extending of one of the most secure, well-managed, and cost-effective platforms in the industry.
Download Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2 VHD
Carol Bailey: I see a lot of confusion about how and when native mode clients use a server locator point, so let's take a look at this for clarification. The product documentation tells you when and how to configure native mode clients for a server locator point, but this post includes the why element, which might help you to understand it better and therefore remember it.
Before we dive into this, let's recap what the server locator point is: The server locator point is an intranet-based site system and is used to locate site information to complete site assignment, and to find management points on the intranet. (
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Bhaskar Krishnan: Prior to Configuration Manager 2007 R2, the reporting solution provided out of the box was a custom ASP-based solution that included around 384 reports that got installed as part of the site server installation. Running any of the reports required the user to install a role called "Reporting Point" using the site role wizard. The site role wizard would basically create an ASP web site hosted under IIS and would allow users to run any of the reports from the ASP web site. However customers frequently ran into timeout issues with the web page timing out while attempting to render "expensive" reports - by expensive I mean reports returning large amount of rows from the Configuration Manager database.(
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Michael Murgolo: In a
previous post I shamelessly promoted my Elevation PowerToys for Windows Vista. I recently was contacted by one of our support engineers about installing these tools. The customer wanted to install most of them in their Windows Server 2008 reference image build using MDT. The command shell script that I had provided in the download was meant to be used manually by a person logged on with UAC enabled. The script would "re-launch" itself elevated and would pause at the end to allow the user to see the results of the commands. This is obviously not suitable for automated installation. So I provided the engineer with a modified version that could be used in MDT.(
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Daniele Grandini: One question I’ve been asked from customers of mine is how to run specific monitors only during business hours. Let’s say I want to check CPU performance only from 7:00 to 19:00 Monday to Friday. This was easy with MOM 2005, but has been lost with OpsMgr 2007. Actually it’s not lost but needs some manual work to be done for your own rules or monitors and a lot of work for rules and monitors exported in sealed MPs. First of all, this post won’t talk about rules since this topic has been covered by Boris Yanushpolsky in this post “Configuring rules to run during business hours only“.(
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Subscription Tool is a simple GUI based tool that lets you enable and disable all notification subscriptions. This tool is useful if you need to do some major maintenance such as patches, upgrading hardware, redoing AD integration roles, or fixing a major problem.
The real power of the tool is when you want to re-enable the subscriptions. The tool will automatically re-enable all subscriptions using “Send notifications for alerts Generated after the subscription is enabled”. This will save you from sending out huge alert storms your notification subscriptions.
Download Subscription Tool
Microsoft has released a website on the topic Microsoft Deployment. Take a regular look to see what's new concerning Microsoft Deployment.
Microsoft Deployment is the fourth generation deployment accelerator from Microsoft and the next version of Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) 2007. It is the recommended process and toolset to automate desktop and server deployment. Microsoft Deployment provides detailed guidance and job aids for every organizational role involved with large-scale deployment projects.
Visit the Microsoft Deployment Website
Questions about when and how to virtualize server roles in Operations Manager 2007 is something that comes up more-and-more all the time. Certainly there is some guidance for this already in the product documentation (like the OpsMgr IPD Solution Accelerator), and on the product team blog and other blogs. But nowhere do you see thorough best practices guidance at the nuts-and-bolts level when virtualizing Operations Manager 2007 on Hyper-V or VMware VI3.x platforms.(
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Steve Rachui: A common method of identifying machines for deploying overrides, etc is to place unique registry keys on them that can be discovered by Opsmgr. While this is workable it does require introducing manual config onto individual managed systems.
Folks have asked for a while for a better method - one that would allow discovery of AD Security Group membership for agent systems so that this information could be used to build these override targets.
I've finally finished putting together a sample MP (with the help of Joel from the Product Group - thanks Joel!) that will do just that.(
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J.C. Hornbeck: Have you ever downloaded an OpsMgr 2007 Management Pack but had trouble figuring out what's new, what's changed or even how to use it? If so then what you'll want to do is check out the MP's corresponding Management Pack Guide. Out on our TechNet site we have a bunch of cool Management Pack Guides available for both OS and server products so if you haven't seen this then it's definitely something you'll want to add to your Favorites. So what's a Management Pack guide anyway? Well, as I'm sure you already know, a Management Pack contains predefined monitoring settings that enable agents to monitor a specific service or application. A Management Pack Guide provides installation, configuration, operations, and troubleshooting information for a specific Management Pack. Kinda like a user manual for each different Management Pack we offer if you want to think of it that way.
Management Packs are available in the Management Pack Catalog and for more information on the available Management Pack Guides see:
Operating Systems and Technologies:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc540358(TechNet.10).aspx
Server Products:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc540357(TechNet.10).aspx
First of all, Log Smith can be only of use for you when you have an Operations Manager 2007 installation in your environment.
Log Smith connects to your Root Management Server (SDK Service) to gather and display events in a much more flexible way than the original Operations Console.
Log Smith is currently a very rough prototype and will be freely available soon. Depending on your needs and feedback, Log Smith can be much more. Please visit our
forums to post your suggestions and feedback.
Log Smith for Operations Manager
Anders Bengtsson: System Center Service Manager has a connector to System Center Configuration Manager that synchronizes hardware information and other relevant information to Service Manager. When creating a change request it is possible to pick/select objects syncronized from Configuration Manager. For example if you want to create a change request, regarding a security group in Active Directory, then you can select the group from the list. You can also open the object direct from the change request form, that is a convenient method when you need to verify some information.(
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The Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) is a set of tools and documentation that support the configuration and deployment of Microsoft® Windows® operating systems.. By using Windows AIK, you can automate Windows installations, capture Windows images with ImageX, configure and modify images using Deployment Imaging Servicing and Management (DISM), create Windows PE images, and migrate user profiles and data with the User State Migration Tool (USMT).
Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows 7 Beta)
Deploy Windows 7 beta with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010. Join the beat and download MDT 2010 now at
http://connect.microsoft.com.
MDT 2010 is the next version of Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, a solution accelerator for operating system and application deployment. New features like flexible driver management, optimized transaction processing, and access to distribution shares from any location simplify deployment and make your job easier. Deploy faster and easier with MDT 2010. Join the beta now
To join the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Beta, follow these steps:
1. Visit the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit Beta at
http://connect.microsoft.com.
2. Sign in using a valid Windows Live ID to continue to the Invitations page.
3. Scroll down to Microsoft Deployment Connection.
The Infrastructure Planning and Design team has released a new guide, Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 SP1.
Looking to protect your organization's data but not quite sure how to do this? This guide leads the reader through the process of planning a Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2007 SP1 infrastructure. Work through the infrastructure design process in a logical, sequential order. This guide enables the reader to quickly identify what types of data will be protected, what the recovery goals are, and the protection strategy to achieve those goals. Other benefits of using this guide include best practice design guidance from the product group and an optimized infrastructure to best meet the business requirements.
Download the guide by visiting http://www.microsoft.com/ipd and selecting "Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 SP1" under the Guidance section, toward the top of the page.
Jim Wightman: Systems Center Configuration Manager 2007 (SCCM or, if you work in my office, affectionately known as scum because it's easier to say out loud) is a pretty important piece of technology from Microsoft. Important from an infrastucture perspective, that is. Wikipedia suggests: "System Center Configuration Manager, formerly Systems Management Server (SMS), is a systems management software product by Microsoft for managing large groups of Windows-based computer systems. Configuration Manager provides remote control, patch management, software distribution, operating system deployment, and hardware and software inventory."
Yeah, I'd go with that description, however in my opinion there are two big problems on the horizon for SCCM 2007.(
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Matt Goedtel has posted an updated version of the custom Configuration Manager 2007 OS Deployment Management Pack:
Changes:
* Updated the Task Sequence status message alert description by removing the reference to the
task execution date/time as it was formatted in DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM:SS with UTC offset (which is
the default in SQL Server) and not local time.
* Updated the query for Task Sequence Status Messages script, which monitors specific SCCM status messages from the Task Sequence Engine, to get 11170 and 11171 from a different table - ClientOfferStatus. (Thanks to a colleague - Denis Rougeau for catching that bug).
* Updated the interval for the System Schedule data source for the Hung Computer Monitor Script and Task Sequence Engine Script from 5 minutes to 15 minutes to minimize impact on SCCM Site Servers. I also corrected the Knowledge Article for the Hung Computer Alert Rule.
Download the custom ConfigMgr2007 OSD Management Pack
