Updated SCOM docs

Since I looked the other day at the SCOM docs Microsoft has posted another doc. This is the SDK with samples. Thanks to Pete for pointing that one out.

Also Stefan mentioned about a draft security doc. This has been added to the RC2 doc package but can be downloaded separately. Thanks Stefan. Although it is a bit sneaky for MS to put it in there and not update the date or put it as a separate doc so it is visible.

It is good to have the start of a security doc as I have been trying to work it out. I did find that during install you need to create 4 accounts. And I did not get reporting to run correctly until I made the Data Reader Account a local admin.

So the SCOM downloads are:

Date	Title	Description
19/12/2006	OpsMgr 2007 RC2 – SDK docs and samples	This package contains the OpsMgr 2007 RC2 SDK documentation chm. It also includes samples that show a number of scenarios around using the SDK apis to insert data into OpsMgr 2007 and also using the Operations Manager connector framework.
14/12/2006	Management Pack Building Resources for RC2	This package contains everything you will need to build a management pack on OpsMgr 2007 RC2.  It includes the following: -Authoring guide (PDF) -Sample MPs -Application MPs (XML files) -Schema XSD and MAML schema files -Authoring Console -System Management packs
13/12/2006	OpsMgr Management Pack Guides	Management Packs have been updated for RC2.  As additional documentation for the MPs becomes available we will add it here.  This package contains two of our most popular – AD and Exchange guides.
12/12/2006	OpsMgr 2007 RC2 Software	Operations Manager 2007 Release Candidate 2 software.  This package is a self-extracting ZIP file.  When running the EXE it will automatically launch the setup bootstrapper.  NOTE: be sure to read the all the materials in the RC2 Documentation package including the Release Notes to avoid the known issues with this release.
12/12/2006	OpsMgr 2007 RC2 Documentation	This package contains information critical to the success of your testing and deploying the RC2 build of Operations Manager 2007.  Please take the time to familiarize yourself with this information to avoid known issues.  Specific documents included are:·  RelNotes: details on known issues with this specific release ·  RC2 Scenarios: step-by-step details on how to explore key features ·  Help File (CHM):  What’s new and help for Deploying, Security, etc… ·  Supported Configurations: Details on hardware/software requirements ·  RC1 Uninstall Steps: If you have RC1 installed -this is a must read to successfully deploy RC2 ·  Security Considerations (Beta): This pre-release document consolidates most of the security related content into one doc.
12/12/2006	ACS Audit Reports	These reports apply to the Audit Collection Service that is part of OpsMgr 2007.  Reports include: Access Violation, Account Management, Forensic, Planning, Integrity and Usage perspectives.  Please refer to the RC2 Scenarios Document for instructions on how to import these reports.
12/12/2006	Exchange MP Configuration Wizard	This archive contains the Exchange MP Configuration Wizard version 06.05.7828.0. This version of the Wizard adds support to detect the System Center Essentials/Operations Manager 2007 agent correctly.  This is in addition to detecting the MOM 2000 and MOM 2005 agent.
31/10/2006	RunAsExecutionSampleMP	In the Scenario Doc, there is a reference in the Run As scenario to a sample MP.  This is the download it is referring to.

Build SCOM MPs

Released on the Connect web site a couple of days after RC2 released is the material to help build MPs. You may have missed this if you downloaded RC2 on release. (Live login to the SCOM beta required)

This package contains everything you will need to build a management pack on OpsMgr 2007 RC2.  It includes the following:
-Authoring guide (PDF)
-Sample MPs
-Application MPs (XML files)
-Schema XSD and MAML schema files
-Authoring Console
-System Management packs

2 GB Console – Really?

When doing the pre requisite checker on the management server for SCOM 2007 RC2 it gave a warning as the machine did not have 2 GB of memory! When I looked at the components even the console requires 2 GB. That can’t be right.

 

HP OpenView Gone!

I read today that HP is killing off it’s OpenView brand.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39285139,00.htm

That is surprising as it is a strong brand name and well known. It is going to be replaced by HP Software. Not exactly inspiring! This is due to their purchase of Mercury and push towards IT Governance. The new names of the products can be seen here – http://h20229.www2.hp.com/news/press/pr/2006/pr_0123.html

Feeling the heat from System Center, I wonder?

DOS 4, Office 95 and SCOM 2007

DOS 4? Office 95? What are you talking about? Having installed SCOM 2007 RC2 (with a painful process to uninstall RC1 first) I was struck again, as although there is much of OM 07 that seems familiar to MOM 2005 users, there is a lot that is different. In talking with some other people that have been installing and using SCOM one thing is becoming clearer. This is a major rewrite and it is almost like having to learn a new product. But because it has familiarity with MOM 05 it tricks you into thinking you know what you are doing!

For those that remember DOS then you will know that DOS 3 was a solid if unspectacular version. It just got on and did the job. DOS 4 came along with the ability to manage larger hard disks and other things but it took up significantly more memory. Which was crucial in those days. We used to remove DOS 4 from new computers and install DOS 3.3 instead. It was worth it. With DOS 4 not doing well and DR DOS taking market share then Microsoft brought out DOS 5 – and it was very good.

Office was doing really well but was 16 bit. Office 95 was done as a fully 32 bit version to match Windows 95. In reality it was the old Office recompiled but had a few new features like the red and green squiggly underlines. It was not that popular as it did not offer much in the way of new features or performance and most people waited until Office 97 which was more polished and is in fact still in use for a large number of organisations today.

So what has this to do with SCOM 2007? Well to me this is an interim release with good ideas but not well executed along the lines of DOS 4 and Office 95. It has some neat features and I like the fact that they are looking at the infrastructure as a service and not just servers. But like DOS 4 it seems clumsy. It is now at RC2 and although a lot more is working now it is still not 100%. Which is worrying for RC2 and why was RC2 released so soon after RC1? I still think it is a great advancement but I think we will be seeing the “real SCOM” in the next version. Office 97 and DOS 5. They were great releases. I hope by the time SCOM 2007 is released they have polished it up. At the moment my expectations is that it won’t be.

SQL Versions

One of the issues I have is trying to find out which version of SQL is installed. Usually the client knows but getting the exact version and whether it is Standard or Enterprise version is trickier.

One of my pet peeves about most Microsoft software is the Help About screen. Sure it tells you what it is but sometimes it is the name and sometimes it is the version number. Why can’t all product groups put in both?

I was installing SQL 2005 so I thought I would look at what it was telling me as I installed the layers. Well Add/Remove Programs told me I had SQL Server 2005 installed but not which version. I am hoping that as it was Standard then the Enterprise version would say Enterprise but I have not checked that. After installing I went to Help About and it said it was 9.0.1399. Interestingly if I clicked on New Query in one of the boxes at the bottom it said 9.0 RTM. So it knows. Why can’t the Help About say:
     SQL Server 2005
     Standard (or Enterprise etc) Edition
     RTM (or No Service Pack)
     9.0.1399
Would that be so hard to do?

After installing SP1 it does not show up in the Add/Remove programs unless you tick the Show Updates box. In SQL Server Management Studio in the Help About it says 9.00.2047.00. Actually you don’t have to do that as it shops that number on the DB server that SSMS is pointing to. But that says 9.0.2047. Not consistent. With New Query it shows 9.0 SP1. At this stage I found the reports on the Summary tab that will give you most of the info. The Server Dashboard report shows the product version (but not that it is SP1) and that it is the Standard Edition. Another place to get the info but still not 100% what I am looking for.-

After that I did the post SP1 roll-up (KB 918222) which then took it to 9.00.2153. When doing New Query it still says 9.0 SP1. (Annoyingly this update has to be done in a number of installs and in the right order! Read the document first. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918222.)

A good web page on this is http://sqlserver2000.databases.aspfaq.com/how-do-i-know-which-version-of-sql-server-i-m-running.html which goes into a lot of detail to find out specific versions from 7.0 upwards.

A summary for 2005 can be found at http://www.aspfaq.com/sql2005/show.asp?id=20 but I should not need to look up a web site to find this information. This is the info from RTM onwards.

9.00.1399.06	RTM
9.00.1500	HotFix described in the following KB articles: KB #910375 KB #910376 KB #910414 KB #910416 KB #910418 KB #910419
9.00.1502	HotFix described in KB #915793
9.00.1514	HotFix described in KB #912471
9.00.1518	HotFix described in the following KB articles: KB #912322 KB #912423 KB #912439 KB #912472 KB #913371
9.00.2029	SP1 Beta
9.00.2040	Service Pack 1 CTP (March 2006)
9.00.2047	Service Pack 1 See KB #913090 for a fix list.
9.00.2153	Cumulative HotFix available in the following KB article: KB #918222

In summary, the Server Dashboard report along with looking at this web site to correlate the number should give me all the information. But I still think that the Help About should have all that info.

Speed up MS Event DVD Sessions

One of the nice things about Microsoft is that they create DVDs of the major events so you can see sessions that you may have missed if you went to another session. One of the things I like about Media Player is the ability to speed talks up so that you can get through it faster. Time is money!

I was watching sessions from the MMS 2006 DVD and I was annoyed that there was not a control to speed things up even though it uses WMP as the engine. What I found was that on the index session on the left chose a section that has a demo. Once it switches away from PPT slides to a screen demo you can right click on the demo and chose the speed. If you then click on the first title in the index list it starts the session but now at the faster speed for the whole session.