Free PowerShell Book

If you wanted to know more about PowerShell then there is a free PDF you can download from http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/ebook/. It is called “Mastering PowerShell” and it is 567 pages long. It is written by Dr. Tobias Weltner.

It is useful to know PowerShell for OpsMgr as there are areas where it is very easy to do a one liner in PowerShell that is impossible in the console. However you may want to read this article about whether you should learn scripting. http://4sysops.com/archives/a-different-network-why-administrators-should-avoid-scripting/

My view is that I do not want to learn to be a scripting guru but having a stock of PowerShell scripts that I have gleaned from blog posts over the years is very useful. Once I have a line or script that I find useful I put it in a text file so that I can use it at multiple customer sites. Of course in order to use these correctly and modify them you do need to know a bit about PowerShell. This is a case where a little knowledge is a useful thing.

Good Stuff for Your Toolkit

Here is a collection of recent additions that I think are useful to have.

 

Matt Goedtel has done an update on his Extended AP MP.

http://blogs.technet.com/mgoedtel/archive/2009/01/25/updated-improved-extended-active-directory-management-pack.aspx

 

This management pack augments the existing Active Directory management pack by monitoring the following specific components and subsystems that Active Directory relies on, which are not captured in the current version:

• Monitor the Windows Time Service (W32Time) for time synchronization issues with authoritative time source.
• Monitor for clients not authenticating against a local domain controller, indicating site boundaries are not properly defined or scoped.
• Monitor for expensive or inefficient LDAP queries performed against a DC
• Monitor for FRS related events that affect the health and availability of the SYSVOL shared directory and its replication on a domain controller.
• Monitor for specific performance characteristics of a domain controller with respect to Free System Page Table Entries and Database Name Cache hit rate.
• Includes two Tasks to remotely shutdown and reboot a domain controller from within the Operations Console.

I am currently working on the next version which will verify that the AD Helper Object (OOMADS) is installed, is the latest version, and is running on the domain controller, as this can impact certain workflows from running successfully on a DC.   This is something that we do not monitor by default today, and the only way you know there is a problem is if a script fails and the error refers to an “ActiveX component cannot create the object.”

 

Lincoln has created a great PowerShell script to do some diagnostic and troubleshooting on the certificates used in OpsMgr. Very good script to have in your toolbag.

 

http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/archive/2009/01/23/troubleshooting-ops-mgr-certificate-issues-with-powershell.aspx

 

The steps for configuring certificates in Operations Manager are numerous and one can easily get them confused.  I see posts to the newsgroups and discussion lists regularly trying to troubleshoot why certificate auth is not working, perhaps for a workgroup machine or gateway.  Sometimes it takes 3 or 4 messages back and forth before I or anyone else can diagnose what the problem actually is.  Once this is finally done we can suggest how to fix the problem.

 In an attempt to make this diagnosis stage eaiser, I put together a Powershell script which automatically checks installed certificates for the needed properties and configuration.  If you think everything is set up correctly but the machines just won’t communicate, try running this script on each computer and it will hopefully point you to the issue.  I have tried to provide useful knowledge for fixing the problems.

 This is for stand-alone Powershell 1.0 – it does not require the Ops Mgr Powershell snapins.

Please leave a comment if you find bugs or the script gives a faulty verdict for you – either it says your setup is fine but actually it’s not working OR it says your setup is busted but the machines communicate anyways.  I appreciate this feedback and will use it to improve and update the script.

 

I did a post last month (http://ianblythmanagement.wordpress.com/2008/12/17/resolve-rule-alerts-with-powershell/) on how to resolve rule alerts older than a certain number of days with a PowerShell script. I am using that on a daily basis to clear lots of old alerts. Cleaning up health monitor alerts is harder as if you delete the alert it does not make health explorer go green and teh alert will not reappear. You need to reset the health monitor. For the odd one that is fine but to do it for a large number is a pain. Juts like a bus you wait for a while then multiple come at once. Here are 2 different approches to bulk clear heath monitors.

Tim Helton has created a command line tool for resetting health monitors

http://blogs.technet.com/timhe/archive/2009/01/15/announcing-the-greenmachine-utility-for-operationsmanager-rtm-sp1-and-r2.aspx

 

And the very clever Marius Sutara provides another way to reset health explorer states but from within OpsMgr using a web view.

http://blogs.msdn.com/mariussutara/archive/2009/01/19/how-to-restart-monitoring-of-my-environment-another-version-update.aspx

 
Good for a whole group of servers. While it is nice and I usually prefer GUIs I think Tim’s Green Machine is the one that I would tend to use. But you can have both!

Resolve Rule Alerts with PowerShell

I was working last week on a little PowerShell script to help me clear off old rule alerts but did not get around to posting about it. Then I saw that Scott Moss has just done a post on the same subject. http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/smoss/archive/2008/12/12/om07-powershell-close-all-open-alerts-generated-by-a-rule.aspx

Well as I have done the work and mine is more of a script with parameters I thought that I would post it anyway. His one line is neat if you want to clear all rule alerts.

get-alert -criteria ‘ResolutionState = ”0” AND IsMonitorAlert = ”False”’| resolve-alert -comment “Closing rule generated alerts” | out-null

Note that these are all single apostrophes done 2 (or 3) times rather than double apostrophes. I have read that criteria is better/faster way to do a large number of objects in PowerShell but my script uses the more popularly used where-object.

Like Scott I found that one of the alert properties is IsMonitorAlert with a value of True or False. This value is not available as a column in the console which is a shame as it would be useful. I have been using Type but I have found that certain MPs put rules into Types that I would associate with monitors so it is not 100% reliable way of sorting alerts from rules and monitors. I am finding more and more uses for PowerShell but this is mainly due to the fact that the console is limited in many areas which need to be fixed.

Monitors should auto resolve when the problem is fixed unless it is a monitor with a manual reset! A parameter for that would also be useful. If the problem is not fixed and you clear the alert it does not generate another alert as Health Explorer is still showing the problem. You have to clear Health Explorer to remove the alert and then if the problem still exists then the alert will be generated again. But in general if a monitor alert is in the console it shows an underlying problem that needs fixed, or the monitor needs to be overridden or the monitor alert has not auto resolved correctly and needs investigation. In any case alerts from monitors are best done through the console.

Rules, on the other hand, always need to be manually resolved. One alert that keeps on coming up is script failures. The first thing I do is change that from Warning to Information. You can get a lot of these but if it is a one off then it is likely that it was trying to run when the server was busy. If it keeps on repeating then the problem needs looking at.

Normally in the console I would sort by last modified date (and group by Type to help) and look for rules that have not incremented their counters for a few days. Not too bad if you are at the customer site each day but if I am away for a while and come back I need to quickly clear the console and so I came up with this script. You can chose how many days and whether or not you want to close the alerts, count them or list them. The number of days is the number of days of alerts to keep.  If you put in 3 then the last 3 days will be kept and everything older will be closed. Note that this gets the date AND time so if you run it at 10 am then it keeps alerts from 10 am 3 days ago. In order to close alerts you must have close as the second parameter to avoid someone accidentally running the script and clearing alerts that they should not have done. Mind you with rules the alert just reappears if there is still a problem.

I prefer just deleting resolution state of 0 as I use different resolution states for different actions but if you want all change that to ($_.ResolutionState -lt 255) in the script and that covers all alerts that are not already closed.

Give the script a name like resolverules.ps1 and cut and paste the following text into it.

#START
#Resolve alerts from rules only – not monitors
# 2 parameters – number of days and close or count
#use 0 for all alerts
#if close or count is not used as the 2nd parameter then alerts will be shown only
#to use close or count then there MUST be a valid number as the first parameter
#if no parameters are used then show all is done i.e. days = 0

param ($noofdays, $action)

$targetdate = (get-date).AddDays(-$noofdays)

If ($action -match “close”)
 {
 get-alert | where-object { ($_.LastModified -lt $targetdate) -and ($_.ResolutionState -eq 0) -and ($_.IsMonitorAlert -match “False”)} | resolve-alert -comment “Resolve-Alert by PowerShell”
 }
ElseIf ($action -match “count”)
 {
 get-alert | where-object { ($_.LastModified -lt $targetdate) -and ($_.ResolutionState -eq 0) -and ($_.IsMonitorAlert -match “false”)} | ForEach-Object {$totalno++}
 $totalno
 }
Else
 {
 get-alert | where-object { ($_.LastModified -lt $targetdate) -and ($_.ResolutionState -eq 0) -and ($_.IsMonitorAlert -match “false”)} | select-object Name, MonitoringObjectDisplayName, IsMonitorAlert, LastModified
 }
#END

Strange Things With The Script

Although Scott’s line uses IsMonitorAlert = ”False” which correctly gives the rules when I tried something similar in my script it gave monitors and so I have had to use ($_.IsMonitorAlert -ne “False”) which seems wrong but gives the correct results. On further investigation it transpires that –ne always gives False regardless of whether you put it equal to true or false and if you use –eq it always returns true regardless of whether you check it against true or false.

In the script I also tried it as
($_.IsMonitorAlert -ne “zzz”)  – this returns False
($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq “zzz”) – this returns True.

But when I used –match instead using True and False work correctly. If  I had used ($_.IsMonitorAlert -ne “True”) it would have worked and I would not have discovered this bug but I started with ($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq “False”) as the logical way to do it but as I have found –eq will always return true.

Just to check I also tried
get-Childitem “C:\Program Files\outlook express”  | where {$_.extension -eq “.exe”}
This works correctly using –eq and –ne.

Mystifying. I changed them all to -match in the script as that looks better.

ExBPA Useful View for PowerShell Script

I was wanting to get a list of the Exchange BPA alerts to the Exchange team doing 2007. I did not like the idea of copying and pasting lots of individual alerts. I knew that with a PowerShell get-alert I could export a list of alerts to Excel but how to get only the ExBAP ones. I knew there was an alert view for ExBPA alerts in the Exchange 2007 MP views and when I looked at the properties it was a Eureka moment.

As you can see these rules all use Custom Field 6 which makes it easy to do a PowerShell one liner. That is a good piece of forward thinking by the team that created these rules.

get-alert | where-object {($_.ResolutionState -ne 255) -and ($_.CustomField6 -eq “MSExchange ExBPA”)} | export-csv c:\ExBPA.csv

Although I found that when looking at the spreadsheet most of the columns were irrelevant so I just amended the PowerShell to do the three fields that I wanted.

get-alert | where-object {($_.ResolutionState -ne 255) -and ($_.CustomField6 -eq “MSExchange ExBPA”)} | select-object Name, NetbiosComputerName, Description | export-csv c:\ExBPA.csv

And then I had a nice little spreadsheet to send to the guys so they could have a quick look at what was alerting. I must teach them how to use the console.

Get SP Info from AD

One of the things that is required when you roll out agents is to know that the minimum service pack has been installed. Of course you can find out by trying to deploy the agent. The install failing will tell you but that is not a great strategy. If the customer is really good then they can provide that information but quite often I have to find it out. Or they ask me! There are some ADSI scripts that I looked at in the Script Center which helped but did not give quite what I wanted plus I knew that PowerShell has a nice export to CSV option so pulling it into Excel would be a breeze.

I started with PowerGui as it is an easier way to find out the command line but to use the AD extensions you need to download and install Quest Active Roles (available in 32 and 64 bit).
http://powergui.org/downloads.jspa
http://www.quest.com/powershell/activeroles-server.aspx

I hoped that I could get all the computers that were servers in PowerGui and output that to a text file. And I did get part of the way there but it seemed to choke getting all the computer information for the number of servers. But as it has a tab to show the PowerShell command I was able to take those and build on it.

I did this on the RMS as it had PowerShell installed (no need to run this on a DC) and I used the normal PowerShell console rather than the OpsMgr one. You need to tell it to use the Quest Add-in.

Add-PSSnapin Quest.ActiveRoles.ADManagement

Then using the command that PowerGui built I found all servers that were servers and had no SP (useful if all servers are 2003).

Get-QADComputer -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -SizeLimit 0 | where { $_.OSName  -like  ‘*Server*’ } | where { $_.OSServicePack  -eq  $null } | Select-Object -property “Name”,”Type”,”DN”

Instead of displaying the list I wanted it as a CSV file.

Get-QADComputer -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -SizeLimit 0 | where { $_.OSName  -like  ‘*Server*’ } | where { $_.OSServicePack  -eq  $null } | export-csv c:\servers_nosp.csv

Now for all servers

Get-QADComputer -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -SizeLimit 0 | where { $_.OSName  -like  ‘*Server*’ } | export-csv c:\servers.csv

There was too much information in the CSV although you can delete the columns. A quick look at the PDF for Active Roles and I found the fields that I wanted. The next line does all computers so if you need to do SCCM as well this is useful.

Get-QADComputer -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -SizeLimit 0 | Select-Object -property “Name”,”OSName”,”OSVersion”,”OSServicePack”,”DN”} | export-csv c:\allcomputers.csv

I imported that into Excel and with a quick pivot table I had all the information I needed and as I included the Distinguished Name I could see which OUs these servers were in.

Note that this just provides the information from a single domain.

Now someone will tell me why didn’t I use x, y or z as they have been around for ages to do this. Well I either didn’t know or couldn’t find them and I wanted to extend my PowerShell knowledge.

Create Events

Something that is handy for demos and testing systems is to create events in order to check that rules and monitors work and create alerts to order. Usually if you want an event to happen in the event log it never will. As soon as you turn your back thousands happen.

I was confronted with this recently as a customer wanted to do a functional test after installation and want to create events from some of the key MPs to ensure that they worked. Using MP Viewer I can look into the MPs, look at the rules and find out which event numbers with source and event log are in an MP and enabled. Normally for demos I use eventcreate.exe as it is part of the OS. Unfortunately this only does events up to 1000. So I looked around to see what I could find. It was difficult to search for as most searches tend to respond with tools to monitor and manipulate event logs. So there may be other tools out there.

1 Eventcreate.exe

Pros – included in Windows 2003, 2008, XP and Vista; can do remote to another server; can be used in a batch file.

Cons – only up to ID 1000, only Application and System logs

2 Logevent.exe

Pros – can be included in a batch file; can do all event IDs; can do remote.

Cons – Can only do Application log; was part of Windows 2000 Resource Kit but no longer shown in that download area.

3 VBScript

Pros – run from anything that can do VBscript

Cons – Incredibly limited; only one source – WSH; only Application log; event ID equals type of event (0 for info, 1 for warning etc).

4 PowerShell

Pros – Clever use of interactive PowerShell script from Stefan Strange with additions from Ken

Cons – interactive (would need extra work to take parameters to be used in a batch file); can only do local server (but could be extended with more code) and so needs PowerShell installed

5 Event Create (MOM 2005 Resource Kit)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/opsmgr/bb498240.aspx
http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/4/b/d4bfc32c-d8d2-4541-8356-4c6359eecbb4/MOM2005ResKit.msi

Pros – GUI front end that can do remote; any event logs; all IDs

Cons – can not be used in batch file; msi needs .Net v1 to extract its files

6 OpsMgr Script

Pros – simple to create a timed script to run as at a regular interval; can use OpsMgr targeting; could be created as a VB script to run as batch file

Cons – can only log to Operations Manager log; can only use Health Service Script as a source; needs OpsMgr agent in order to work

Example showing how to ping.

Summary

If you need to create events and are happy with the limitations then eventcreate.exe is easy and is included in all the latest OSes. For a demo the Event Create GUI from the MOM 2005 Resource Kit is great. If you can get hold of it logevent can automate event creation (as long as it is the Application event log). Highly recommended is the PowerShell script from Stefan and Ken. With some more work it would be able to do everything.

Updated 26/8/08 – Changed references to logevent.exe as it is not included in MOM Resource Kit as I originally thought. It was in my 2005 VM but when I did a new install only the GUI version is there.

It would be nice to have a single tool like eventcreate.exe but without the limitation on event logs and event IDs. Anyone want to create a tool like that?

Subscription Issues

The organisation I am currently working with has used Alert rules in MOM 2005 to create an event on the management servers when a new alert comes in. There is an agent from their framework package that picks up these events. This is an old trick from the MOM 2000 days but works remarkably well if you just want a one way connection. You have to remember to clear the alert when the incident is fixed otherwise if it happens again it will increment the repeat count and not fire the alert rule.

They want to carry on doing that with 2007 but there are no Alert rules. The obvious place to start is with subscriptions. As their old script created an event then the command notification is the pace to start. Using the command notification channel has been posted by Steve Rachui and using it with eventcreate has been posted by Stefan Stranger and

I used a number of parameters that went into the description field and the framework could pull those out and put them into the fields they wanted. However a few rules got the Alert Source parameter the wrong way around so the computer name and the object were swapped around. Therefore the Managed Entity (aka computer name) is wrong. Not great when you are automating these especially as the 2 main culprits are for agent heartbeat.

The Agent Source parameter is $Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityPath$\$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityDisplayName$ which normally turns into something like w2k302.domain.co.uk\Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Server 2003 Standard x64 Edition

But for “Health Service Heartbeat Failure”  and “Failed to Connect to Computer” you get it the wrong way around Microsoft.SystemCenter.AgentWatchersGroup\w2k301.domain.co.uk

And in SQL 2005 Percentage Change in DB % Used Space part of the object is tagged to the ManagedEntityPath so you get w2k301.domain.co.uk;MSSQLSERVER returned.

This can be verified by creating a console view with Path and Source as the columns.

The eventcreate notification does the job except for monitors without alerts. Subscriptions are only triggered by alerts. There are some monitors that do not create alerts and worse they do not allow you to override that parameter. So if you are relying on notifications by e-mail, SMS or in this case events triggering the framework to create a ticket there will be some monitors that you will not get.

This is a problem that I discovered in the early betas and noted in my post about RC2 so it has been around a while. Some monitors do not create alerts but change the health of the state view. All rules create alerts but there is no way to have a column in the state view to show the effect they are having on the server so there is no one view that displays the total health of the estate. The only option that Microsoft could come up with is to use a Dashboard view with both views in it. Not great.

Stefan Stranger has confirmed this and the feedback from the Product Group is that this is “by design”. The trouble with that is that if you are not looking at the console you will not get the health state change as there is no alert. And as these are not documented that is not good. Even worse if you can not overrode them. In which case if you want that alert you need to disable the original monitor and recreate a new custom one (if you can).

Stefan sent these PS scripts to help which I amended as it is only unit monitors that are the issue. It does not matter that rollup or aggregate monitors do not alert.

get-monitor | where { ($_.AlertSettings -eq $null) -and ($_.xmltag -eq “UnitMonitor”) } | sort displayname

get-monitor | where { ($_.AlertSettings -eq $null) -and ($_.xmltag -eq “UnitMonitor”) } | export-csv c:\unitmonsno.csv

To get a list of monitors that do alert change the first -eq in the line to -ne.

get-monitor | where { ($_.AlertSettings -ne $null) -and ($_.xmltag -eq “UnitMonitor”) } | export-csv c:\unitmonsalerts.csv

When I run these on the management group there were 168 monitors without alerts (mainly from IIS 5 and 6 MPs) and 615 with alerts. That is why I switched  from display on screen to CSV.

You can also use MP Viewer to look at each MP. This has the ability to sort columns and you can see which ones are set not to alert. You can then make a decision on whether or not to do something about it.

I also have a problem with the way recipients and subscriptions are done but that is another post!

SCOM Webcasts and Podcasts

If you can not get to MMS perhaps these webcasts will help. List also at http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/technetmms.aspx?tab=webcasts&id=42365 which is slightly different to the search that I did.

Also when searching I came across these podcasts which do not require registration. You can get them in WMA or MP3 and listen to them on the way to work. It looks like the audio portion of the webcast but I will need to check that out. You can also get an RSS feed to see what ones are being released. Full list at
http://www.microsoft.com/events/podcasts/default.mspx
and under IP Professional, Management you can get the RSS for all the management podcasts.
MP3 feed for management  http://www.microsoft.com/seminar/en/BMO-PODCAST/TechNet_Management_MP3.xml
MP3 feed for scripting and PowerShell
http://www.microsoft.com/seminar/en/BMO-PODCAST/TechNet_Scripting_MP3.xml

On-Demand TechNet Webcasts

“For a richer experience, make sure you’ve first downloaded the Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 Replay Wrapper. It allows you to explore webcasts and complete the evaluations, and it’s something you only have to do once. ”

Fri, 7 Mar 2008
Installation and Management Pack Migration of Operations Manager 2007 (Level 200)

In this session, we discuss the installation and management pack migration of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. Join us to learn how to properly plan your deployment of Operations Manager 2007. We also look at common Operations Manager
Blain Barton

Fri, 29 Feb 2008
Client Monitoring with System Center Operations Manager 2007 (Level 200)

In this session, we show you some of the new features that we have built into Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. By the end of this session, you will  have a good understanding of what we are doing with client monitoring.
John Baker

Fri, 15 Feb 2008
System Center Operations Manager 2007 Technical Overview (Level 200)

In this session, we look at the next version of the Microsoft management product, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. There are a number of enhancements from Microsoft Operations Manager 2005; John Weston

Fri, 2 Nov 2007
System Center Operations Manager 2007 Installation and Management Pack Migration (Level 200)

In this session, we discuss the installation and management pack migration of Microsoft Systems Center Operations Manager 2007. We cover how to plan your deployment of Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 properly and explore common IT topologies
Blain Barton

Wed, 26 Sep 2007
Security and Enterprise Features of System Center Operations Manager 2007

In this session, we provide an overview of how the new features in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 can help satisfy key security and enterprise scenarios. Join us as we explore: Core infrastructure optimization (IO).
John Baker

Mon, 17 Sep 2007
Reporting with System Center Operations Manager 2007

In this session, we discuss the new features and benefits of reporting in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. We start with a look at the new functionality and features in Operations Manager 2007 Reporting.
John Weston

Mon, 10 Sep 2007
Client Monitoring with System Center Operations Manager 2007

In this session, we show you some of the new features that we have built into Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 so that you have a good understanding of what we are doing with client monitoring. Chris Avis

Wed, 8 Aug 2007
End-to-End Service Monitoring with System Center Operations Manager 2007

In this webcast, we discuss some common challenges that customers have in monitoring distributed applications, and we explain how Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 addresses those issues.
Matt Hester

Mon, 23 Jul 2007
System Center Operations Manager 2007 Technical Overview (Level 200)

In this webcast, we look at the next version of the Microsoft management product, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. There are a number of the enhancements from Microsoft Operations Manager 2005; we cover many of these, including a basic description of the installation process. We follow that up with a look at some of the new monitoring features. We also describe the new security and enterprise features, before exploring the new client monitoring and reporting functionalities. This session is designed to provide a high-level overview of each of the new functional areas and the enhanced feature set in System Center Operations Manager 2007. Our intent is not to dive into great depth for any one feature area, but rather to introduce each feature and refer you to a more in-depth presentation on each area.
John Baker

Mon, 16 Jul 2007
Security and Enterprise Features of System Center Operations Manager 2007 (Level 200)

“In this session, we provide an overview of the new features in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 and describe how they can help satisfy key security and enterprise scenarios. Join us as we explore the following topics in System Center Operations Manager 2007: Core infrastructure optimization (IO). Upfront, built-in security design. Your security monitoring tool. Advances in enterprise capabilities.”
John Baker

Mon, 9 Jul 2007
Monitoring with System Center Operations Manager 2007 (Level 200)

In this session, we discuss the new features and benefits of monitoring in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. We begin by reviewing how monitoring is done in Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, and then we look at some monitoring fundamentals in System Center Operations Manager 2007. We also explore the new diagnostic and recovery functionality included in System Center Operations Manager 2007. We conclude this session by describing how groups and overrides work in System Center Operations Manager 2007.
John Weston

Mon, 18 Jun 2007
Client Monitoring with System Center Operations Manager 2007 [200] [Released]

In this session we are going to show you some of the new features that we have built into Operations Manager 2007. By the end of this session you will have a good understanding of what we are doing with client monitoring. We will start off with a look at some customer challenges around client monitoring and then take a look at Microsoft?s short term and long term vision for client monitoring. Next we will discuss the approach that we have taken to make client monitoring as flexible as possible with features including. Agentless Exception Monitoring, Aggregated Client Monitoring and Critical Client Monitoring. We will wrap up this session with a look at the Management Packs we are delivering specifically for client monitoring.
Blain Barton

Mon, 11 Jun 2007
Operations Manager 2007 Technical Overview [200] [Released]

In this webcast, we look at the next version of the Microsoft management product, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007. We describe a number of the enhancements from Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, and give a basic description of the installation process. We also cover some of the new capabilities, such as monitoring, security, and enterprise features, before taking a look at the new client monitoring and reporting functionalities. This session is designed to provide a high-level overview of each of the new functional areas and the enhanced feature set in System Center Operations Manager 2007. Our intent is not to dive into great depth for any one feature area, but rather to introduce each feature and refer you to a more in-depth presentation on each area.
Chris Avis

Wed, 23 May 2007
Security and Enterprise Features of System Center Operations Manager 2007 [200]

” In this session, we provide an overview of how the new features in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 can help satisfy key security and enterprise scenarios. Join us as we explore the following topics in System Center Operations Manager 2007: Core infrastructure optimization (IO). Built-in security design. Your security monitoring tool. Advances in enterprise capabilities.”
John Weston

GUI Love

I am not against command line tools, scripts, shells etc. It is just that with a lot of the work I do I found the GUI easier as I tend to do one offs rather than lots of repeated actions. With the GUI you can flick up and down the menus until you find the right option. Rather than trying to remember the name of the command line and all the parameters. Although that has got easier with the Internet to do look ups.

First there was PowerGui for PowerShell making it easy to run PowerShell but with a GUI. Which is bizarre as PowerShell was meant to do away with the GUI. And now for Windows Server 2008 Core someone has come up with a little tool that gives you a GUI to configure Core. Marvelous. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Microsoft.

http://4sysops.com/archives/coreconfigurator-a-gui-for-server-core/

From Guy Teverovsky

Download from http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/files/folders/guyt/entry68860.aspx

More details and screenshots at http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/guyt/archive/2008/03/22/windows-server-core-coreconfigurator-to-the-rescue.aspx

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