2007 Prereq Checker

MOMNetCheck was a tool shipped with the MOM 2005 Resource Kit. It was a nice GUI tool but limited to pointing at one server at a time. I have been working on a MOM 2005 project where a multiple server tool would have been very handy.

Satya has released a command line version of a new tool for OpsMgr 2007 and it works from the command line and can do multiple servers. Hurrah!

It checks for the new prereqs like MSXML v6.

Read about it and download it at http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2007/11/20/remote-agent-prerequisite-checker-tool-for-opsmgr-2007.aspx

SCCP Released Candidate

There is a release candidate for SCCP but the OpsMgr bit does not exist at the moment which is disappointing. On the plus side it looks like they have extended the product to SharePoint.

Thank you for signing up for the System Center Capacity Planner 2007 Beta. We’re pleased to announce the availability of SCCP 2007 Release Candidate. To download this new release simply go to http://connect.microsoft.com and Sign In with your Live Id and then select the System Center Capacity Planner 2007 program listed under the “My Participation” link.
This Release Candidate ships ONLY with the Exchange Server 2007 model. A model for Operations Manager 2007 will be available early next year. If you already have installed SCCP 2007 beta, you have to uninstall it first before installing RC. See instructions below to uninstall the beta.

In addition to the Exchange Model which is included with the RC, you can also download two SharePoint models for SCCP 2007 (Windows SharePoint Server 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007) from the following links:
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7660773
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=93030

New Stuff

As well as the release candidate for SCOM SP1 there is a lot of new management stuff.

WSUS SP1 RC is also available on Connect.
http://blogs.technet.com/smsandmom/archive/2007/11/06/wsus-3-0-service-pack-1-release-candidate-now-available.aspx

PowerShell 2 community technology preview.
http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2007/11/06/the-community-technology-preview-ctp-of-windows-powershell-2-0.aspx

Eric Berg talks about the new System Center Mobile Device Manager (SCMDM?) and how it differs from SCCM with the now embedded Device Management Feature Pack that was originally done for SMS. Something I was curious about so I am glad Eric cleared it up. http://blogs.technet.com/systemcenter/archive/2007/11/02/managing-mobile-devices-with-system-center.aspx 

SCVMM R2 BETA ships 45 days after Viridian. Also it may be this version or the next that is supposed to able to manage VMware and XEN as well. That would be good news.

SCCM is now available on https://licensing.microsoft.com if you have the rights to download it and the tip for finding it is to search for “Config Mgr Svr 2007″.
http://blogs.technet.com/smsandmom/archive/2007/11/06/configuration-manager-2007-rtm-is-now-available-on-the-mvls-site.aspx

Insight for AD is from the Sysinternals guys and is about helping diagnose AD issues with real-time monitoring (think Sniffer for AD).
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/adinsight.mspx

The home page lists all the tools and utilities by date released. Lots of handy stuff here for managing and diagnosing servers.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx

SCOM 2007 SP1 Cluster Configurations

 I was looking through the supported configuration document that came with the SP1 release candidate and it said this about clusters:-

The OpsMgr DB, the RMS and the Data Warehouse can all individually sit on a single Active Passive cluster but other server roles must not be installed on the cluster or nodes of the cluster.

This is disappointing as it means you still need a cluster for the database and another cluster for the RMS if you want full fault tolerance.

It then says that the OpsMge DB and the DW can be installed on an Active-Active cluster where they are installed on separate nodes. OK but that means that when one node of the cluster fails then both roles will be on one node which is then NOT a supported configuration.

The Product Group really need to get a grip on this one before SP1 is officially released. You should be able to run the database and the RMS on one cluster and they need to take out nonsense scenarios that anyone above 5 years old could spot are logically flawed.

The good news is that the ACS database can be clustered.

RC1 for OM 2007 Service Pack 1

RC1 of SP1 has been released on the Connect web site. If you already participated in the Connect program your details should be there. Otherwise you need to sign up. You can download it as an SP1 upgrade or a slipstream package. The slipstream package is 120 day evaluation.

The build number is 6246.

http://connect.microsoft.com/

Details of what’s new at http://connect.microsoft.com/SystemCenter/content/content.aspx?ContentID=6859

Time to get testing.