Hot Tip – Creating a Rule with Regular Expression

When creating a rule in OM 2007 the drop down does not allow you to create a regular expression for Event ID. This can be done by doing it in MOM 2005 and then export and import but that is a hassle. MVP Rory McCaw showed how to do it in the OM 2007 GUI at his session at the MMS.

What you need to do is change the parameter name from Event ID to Event Source and you get to chose Regular Expression from the drop down list. Create your Regular Expression as normal and then change the Parameter Name back to Event Id and the expression stays and works.

Great tip. Thanks Rory.

Scripting, PowerShell and PowerGUI

First there was batch files then there were scripts and now there is PowerShell.

I had a comment from Dmitry (http://dmitrysotnikov.wordpress.com/2007/03/21/momscom-powershell/) who asks about MOM bloggers and PowerShell as there does not seem to be many.

Well there are more Exchange installations out there and it has been going longer than MOM and SCOM, which does use PowerShell and has just recently been released. Personally I do not get too involved in scripts and PowerShell as I am mostly involved in the analysis, design and implementation of MOM/SCOM systems. The use of PowerShell will be for admins who want to automate repetitive tasks. I am never usually at a site long enough to get to that repetitive state. Also I don’t want to be a Unix admin!

Dmitry did point out – http://powergui.org/ which he was involved in. This add a GUI to a command line which is supposed to replace a GUI! Mind boggling. I went to the Quest stand yesterday and had a look. It is fabulous. You have a nice front end which creates the queries and formats the output in a nice manner. You can then look at the other window and see what PowerShell command was used so you can cut and paste it for future use. Highly recommended – especially as it is free!

Stefan was also impressed with the product. http://www.weblog.stranger.nl/managing_systems_with_powershell

I have seen some bits from Stefan, Pete and others on PowerShell and systemcenterforum.org has a PowerShell section as well as a script area but for people interested in PowerShell here are some good places to start.

Dmitry’s Power Blog – http://dmitrysotnikov.wordpress.com/
The PowerShell Guy – http://ThePowerShellGuy.com (links to other blogs on his page)
PowerShell team – http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/default.aspx
System Center Operations Manager Command Shell -http://blogs.msdn.com/scshell/default.aspx  
MOM Resources – http://www.momresources.org/scripts-powershell.shtml
Stefan Stranger posts
http://weblog.stranger.nl/powershell_retrieve_available_cmdlet_from_snapin
http://weblog.stranger.nl/powershell_monitoring_scripts_for_exchange_2007_with_powergadgets
http://weblog.stranger.nl/list_installed_opsmgr_2007_mps_with_powershell
The Script Center Script Repository: Sample Windows PowerShell Scripts – http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/scripts/msh/default.mspx?mfr=true
Scripting with Windows PowerShell – http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx
PowerShell home – http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/powershell/default.mspx
The PowerShell Information Centre – http://www.reskit.net/powershell/index.htm
Channel 9 Wiki PowerShell quick start – http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel9.WindowsPowerShellQuickStart

PowerShell Newsgroup for Operations Manager – microsoft.public.opsmgr.powershell

And not forgetting scripts

Scripting for MOM – http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/mom.mspx
Script Center – http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/default.mspx
Gerald Mims (originally on GotDotNet) – http://geraldmims.spaces.live.com/
MOM Resources – http://www.momresources.org/downloads-scripts.shtml

And there is more but a lot of these have links that can lead you to other areas of interest. And I haven’t even mention WMI or the fact that you can download Services for Unix and run Perl scripts on Windows. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/scripts/default.mspx.

Looks like scripting may be fashionable again.

1E Birthday Party

The 1E party at MMS is getting to be legendary. This year is their 10th birthday so it was a BIG party with a few hundred people attending. I remember the first one I went to at Las Vegas 4 years ago and there was only about 30 people there. How it has grown. And 1E. I wish them all the best for the next 10 years.

Michelle and Sumir (CEO) with the birthday cake. (Notice how Sumir is having to hang on to the table!)

The 1E logo on the building.

In case you don’t know 1E specialise in SMS and MOM (and now System Center) and have done add-ons such as Wake on Lan, Night Watchman (switches PCs off safely to save power) and Nomad Branch Office amongst others. www.1e.com

PS I seem to be in social blogging mode as everyone else is blogging about all the announcements. I will get back to the technical stuff soon.

Interview at MMS

Today at MMS I met up with Stefan and Maarten in their orange shirts promoting the System Center User Group in the Netherlands. They did a short 4 minute video interview with me about my experience and thoughts on System Center. You can see it on their site when it goes live on 18th June. They will have videos from Program Managers and other System Center bloggers.

Ops Manager 2007 KBs

Well would you believe it! SCOM 2007 just  RTMs and Clive is already talking about a couple of KB’s for it. That’s fast.

OpsMGr07 KB934757 – Error message when you click Record after you start the Web Application Editor in Operations Manager 2007: “The requested lookup key was not found in any activation context”

OpsMgr07 KB934756 – How to test notification settings after you configure e-mail notifications for a recipient or for a subscription in Operations Manager 2007

He also mentions that the deployment guide is available. Having attended some of the sessions at MMS now this is going to be interesting reading as there are a lot of new features and functions in 2007 apart from the fact that it is three products rolled into one package as I explained a while back on my architecture post.

 The System Center Operations Manager 2007 Deployment Guide document is now available for download via http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=d826b836-59e5-4628-939e-2b852ed79859&displaylang=en&tm

MMS 2007 in San Diego

I am in San Diego now at the conference. I arrived on Saturday after a long flight from the UK and had Sunday to relax and chill out before the conference started. It was a nice sunny day and I got a little sunburn as I spent most of the day at Balboa Park.I was going to post some of the stuff from the last 2 days at MMS but Stefan http://weblog.stranger.nl/ and Maarten http://www.techlog.org/ must be in a competition to post as much as they can as soon as they can. Neale and Rory are also posting stuff. I don’t think I will try and keep up but I will be looking at posting some thoughts that I have once I have had a chance to look around and talk to some people.

Some quick thoughts:-

The Distrubuted Application templates in SCOM are incredible once you get to know them.

Softgrid is a great tool.

SCCM (SMS) admin console is significantly better and looks good.

Learning overrides is essential for using SCOM.

But it has been good to meet up with lots of friends again.

SCOM 2007 RTM

According to Bink.nu the RTM code for Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 was signed off and is now gold code. It usually takes a few days to get it on the various web sites (Select and MSDN) as all RTM code has to go through a process at Microsoft. It can take a few weeks to get it onto the CD/DVD deliveries.

http://bink.nu/Article9752.bink

“Sources within Microsoft tell Techlog that the final code on System Center Operations Manager 2007 was signed off last night. The golden and final code, also known as RTM (Released to Manufacturing) will probably be available for RDP and TAP customers in the coming days. General availability should be in the coming weeks. Expect a big announcement at the upcoming Microsoft Management Summit! (Bink.nu will be there!)

Sources tell Techlog that the trial version will be available very very soon and that the VLK (volume license) media will contain a tool to convert the trial version to a full version with the correct key. Let’s hope that Microsoft will keep their word and support upgrading from RC2 to RTM.”

The news is on the Techlog site but has not made it to their blog yet.
http://www.techlog.nl/archive/2007/03/23/operations_manager_2007_is_rtm

MOMresources morphs to systemcenterforum

Pete has already blogged about it (obviously) and Anders and Stefan but in case you have not seen it  http://www.momresources.org has morphed into http://www.systemcenterforum.org/.

The original site will still be available for links etc but all the new stuff will be on the new site. The new site reflects the new System Center brand which is also why I chnaged my blog name a while back as that was the way it was all moving.

Downloads, white papers (how to articles), book reviews and a number of RSS feeds are on the site. Check it out. I am sure that there will be a lot more stuff going on it after next week with the MMS launching SCOM 2007.

MMS 2007

I am off to MMS 2007 this year held in my favourite city – San Diego. Pity I will not see much of it as I will be in dark rooms watching PowerPoints most of the week. But for all who will be there it would be good to meet up and have a drink.

This will be the launch on SCOM 2007 and the RTM code. That will be good and I am looking forward to getting into the details and hopefully tips and tricks about it.

F5 and Trend Micro OM News

Trend Micro have stated in a press release that the new version of their product Trend Micro™ ScanMail™ for Microsoft™ Exchange, version 8.0 will work with MOM. This is due for release in April.

http://uk.trendmicro-europe.com/enterprise/about_us/spresse.php?id=423

“The new version also integrates with Microsoft Operations Manager (MoM) and Microsoft Outlook junkmail folder for even easier management and administration.”

It does not say whether that will be an MP or if by integration they mean their tool will feed into MOM. And it is worrying that they use MoM instead of MOM as MOM has been used for at least the last 5 years as the acronym for Microsoft Operations Manager.

In another press release F5 are licensing SCOM 2007 as part of their management tools.

http://redmondmag.com/news/rss.asp?editorialsid=8319#4
http://www.f5.com/communication/press/2007/release20070313.html

Bernardo (Jalasoft) had already picked up on this.

F5 already had a solution for MOM 2005 – integration with it’s iControl product via SOAP.
http://www.f5.com/solutions/deployment/mom_bigip9_dg.html

But this time they are doing an OEM deal for SCOM 2007. It will be interesting to see what their ControlPoint product will look like. Whether they will put an interface on top of SCOM or just an integration layer like they did for 2005.

It is nice to see these suppliers getting onto the Operations Manager platform – especially for 2007.