Our RMS is on windows 2008 Enterprise sp2 64 bit.

Our issue is that we start up the Exchange Correlation Engine and it will eventually cause the MonitoringtHost.exe process to consume all memory.  We know this stems from the Correlation engine.  we are working with MS on this but we have a counter part with the same management pack but on 2003 for their RMS and this does not happen to them.

We have not disabled any exchange 2010 rules which is a "known" issue if you use the 2010 MP.

anyone seeing this?

Based upon the expression found for the rule this would not catch the event #55 we are seeing.

As a workaround to resolve this we created a new rule which matched the condition we are looking for (event #55 from source of NTFS in the System log).

We configured the alerting level to medium priority, warning severity and suppressed duplicates based upon the logging computer. For highly critical systems we created an override to set it to high priority, critical severity.

Summary: Event #55 disk corruption checks do not appear to be caught in the current version of the Operating System management pack (6.0.6794.0). This functionality should be added either to the existing rule which matches event #41 or should have a new rule created to catch this condition as well.

Where it’s states “Your site or client package has been upgraded. The currently published version of the client package is not the most recent version.” And it will not upgrade or you keep seeing the same error when you re-open it. Before you make any changes simply re-boot your server then try again, this works in 99% of cases.

Simon Skinner ]]> Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:21:11 GMT http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/79806/Default.aspx What I had to do was creating a group for domainmembers of domain XY and additionally I had to get rid of all MS, RMS, MX, DC Servers in that group.

And this is how it works:

Basically the expression is:

 
 
   $MPElement[Name="Windows!Microsoft.Windows.Computer"]/DomainDnsName$
 
  Equal
 
   mydomain.com
 
 

But, I needed an additional expression that excludes members of the Exchange Servers so I had to add an and operator + my second expression:

 
 
  
    $MPElement[Name="Windows!Microsoft.Windows.Computer"]/DomainDnsName$
  
   Equal
  
    mydomain.com
  
 
 
 
 
   $MPElement[Name="MicrosoftExchange2010!Microsoft.Exchange.2010.AllServers.ComputerGroup"]$
 
 

That's pretty much it, pretty simple once you know how to do it.

It looks like kb2251419 is breaking the ability to edit company knowledge per the thread below:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/operationsmanagerauthoring/thread/b2c679f3-d971-4fc9-b07a-983bf95e8c7b

Just posting this in case others are running into it!

Sample Script

SYNTAX: MptoXml.ps1

Example: .\MpToXml.ps1 C:\Software\MPs\sealed C:\Software\MPs\unsealed

param($mpFilePath,$outputDirectory)

$MPs = Get-ChildItem $mpFilePath -recurse -include *.mp

$assembly = [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.OperationsManager")| out-null

foreach ($mp in $MPs){

    $mgmtpack = new-object Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Configuration.ManagementPack($mp)

    $mpWriter = new-object Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Configuration.IO.ManagementPackXmlWriter($outputDirectory)

    $mpWriter.WriteManagementPack($mgmtpack)

}

More PowerShell Resources for System Center

We have a growing collection of PowerShell samples for System Center and general administration. You can find them in the Downloads section and many on this page - PowerShell Scripts for System Center (Master Collection)

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Needless to say, on this server something is causing issues with reporting the WER information. To configure this setting for the server  open the server manager on the system and choose the “Configure Windows Error Reporting” as shown below.

My recommendation is to enable Windows Error Reporting in environments where it functions correctly so my preference was to leave this enabled, but as our setting currently was “Yes, automatically send reports” and we were having this issue we changed it to the “I don’t want to participate” option as shown below.

Summary: If you are seeing a lot of werfault*32 errors backing up in task manager you may want to disable Windows Error Reporting on the server as shown in this blog entry.

Comments 0

Just an FYI on a new Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) Knowledge Base article we published today.  If you're having trouble running virtualized apps on your clients and getting something along the lines of Error Code: xxxxxxx-xxxxxx2A-00002AF9 then you'll want to check this one out:

Symptoms

An application on an App-V client fails to launch with the following error:

The Application Virtualization Client could not launch application name.
No such host is known.
Error Code: xxxxxxx-xxxxxx2A-00002AF9

Cause

This issue can occur if the server name specified in the HREF attribute in the application .osd file is incorrect.

Resolution

To resolve this issue, perform the following steps:

1. On the App-V Management Server, open the application .osd file and scroll down to the following line:

2. Verify that the server name specified in the HREF attribute is correct.

Example: If the App-V Management Server name is Appv-Svr, the HREF attribute should look like the example below:

3. Once the sever name is corrected in the application .osd file, open the Application Virtualization Client MMC snap-in on the App-V client and refresh the Publishing Server.

4. Launch the application on the App-V client.

For the latest version of this information please see the following new Knowledge Base article:

KB2271253 - A virtualized application on a Microsoft App-V client fails to launch with Error Code: 2A-00002AF9

J.C. Hornbeck | System Center Knowledge Engineer]]> Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:52:25 GMT http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/79462/Default.aspx

The sixth winner in our post-of-the-week contest (week ending Aug 21th) is Kelly Hansen (aka BadKitty) for her on-target answers to a battery of ConfigMgr 2007 questions in this forum thread. The questions Bryan asked included:

1. How can I ensure laptops that seldom come on the network are patched?

2. How do patches get downloaded?

3. What if I had some servers where I wanted to install patches immediately but never reboot?

Good questions that are important to understand BEFORE you start deploying patches in a production environment.

Kelly says

1. If you had a monthly deployment with a deadline set, you could catch clients anytime the come online.and check for machine policy updates - at which point they'd see the deployment with a deadline

2. The metadata and binaries are separate. Client agents perform a scan to identify applicable updates, and then download binaries for applicable updates only. 

3. For servers, you would do something similar to option 1, but simply set a maintenance Window on the target collection of servers to restrict reboot and never select the option to allow reboot outside maintenance window.

ConfigMgr MVP Jason Sandys had some great suggestions as well. See the original thread HERE. You may also want to read Jason's tips for optimal patch management from ConfigMgr in Ask the Expert - SCCM (featuring MVP Jason Sandys)

Well done Kelly! You're name goes into the hat for the next Post-of-the-Week prize drawing at TechEd Europe in Berlin.

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS

We want to give a special shout out to proud Gold Sponsor Quest Software, who helps make all of this possible. As we've said in the past..great company with great people we've enjoyed working with over the years. Quest is now offering VMware ESX and VSphere monitoring for FREE!

Click the banner below to check out Quest Management Xtensions (QMX) Solutions for System Center, including how to get started monitoring your VMware infrastructure

Previous Installments of POST OF THE WEEK (2nd edition)

• WEEK 5: (Cameron Fuller) How can I quantify changes in OpsMgr data warehouse retention?
• WEEK 4: (Raphael Burri) Dynamic Web Monitoring with OpsMgr and PowerShell
• WEEK 3:  Include the value of an overridable parameter in the alert description (Stefan Koell
• WEEK 2:  Workaround for Performance Hourly Table (Craig Pero)
• WEEK 1: Export Management Pack Icons with PowerShell (Andreas Zuckerhut)

Details on the POST OF THE WEEK

Want to know how your contributions can be considered for the post of the week? Read more HERE.

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]]> Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:41:02 GMT http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/79349/Default.aspx Swiped this from Kevin Holman’s blog which has a pointer to Jimmy Harper’s Operations Manager Blog, so I’ll just give a direct link to Jimmy’s blog.

There is a very recently discovered issue in the current ADMP (Version 6.0.7065.0).  The Event log rules in the Microsoft.Windows.Server.AD.2008.Monitoring.mp don’t generate alerts as expected. 

Jimmy Harper has created an “Addendum” MP which contains overrides to disable all of these, and then recreated each rule with a fixed version.  You’ll just need to import this MP into your environment and leave the original one in place.

This problem should be fixed with the next release of the ADMP.

Read more and get the MP workaround at Jimmy’s blog:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/jimmyharper/archive/2010/08/27/admp-for-windows-server-2008-alerts-not-generated-for-some-rules.aspx

Original Text from Kevin Holman’s blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2010/08/27/admp-for-windows-server-2008-alerts-not-generated-for-some-rules.aspx

Direct Link to Jimmy Harper’s blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/jimmyharper/archive/2010/08/27/admp-for-windows-server-2008-alerts-not-generated-for-some-rules.aspx

• Create Performance Rules from CSV: (added Aug 2010)
• Create Overrides in Bulk (added Aug 2010)
• Export Icons from Management Packs (added Aug 2010)
• List Management Pack Dependencies (added Aug 2010)
• Get-IsAlertMonitor and other one-liners for OpsMgr (added Aug 2010)
• OpsMgr: Exporting override details into a readable Overrides Report with PowerShell (added Aug 2010)
• New-OpsMgrRequest and Install-OpsMgrCertificate for SCOM 2007 (added Aug 2010)
• Reset Monitor in SCOM 2007 (added Aug 2010)
• Retrieve Instance of a Monitor in a Critical State (added Aug 2010)
• Dump Overrides to a CSV File (added Aug 2010)
• PowerShell Tip: How to pass multiple values from CSV file as inputs (added Aug 2010)

More PowerShell Samples on System Center Central

I update the “master list” regularly. Send me a link (tgunn09 [AT] gmail.com) or post a comment on the master collection blog post.

PowerShell Scripts for System Center (Master Collection)

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]]> Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:25:45 GMT http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/79306/Default.aspx  I was recently working on some System Center-related PowerShell scripting and needed to pass multiple values from comma-separated list as inputs for a PowerShell script in which I needed to pass values into a couple of PowerShell functions. There is an example or two on the net with the beginnings of what I needed (HERE). I wanted to post this example for my own reference and for anyone else who might benefit.

In my case, I wanted to take a comma-separated file containing 3 values on each line (line 1 being the header). My intent in this case was to

1. Loop through each record in the csv file

2. Assign each value to the appropriate variable

3. Call two PowerShell functions, passing the output of the first function into the second function. (this step is not actually core to the task of csv input, but just part of my requirements in this case)

Sample comma-separated list (with header and three values)

Parent,Child,WQLQuery
Value1,value2,value3
Value1,value2,value3
Value1,value2,value3

PowerShell Syntax (Sample) to Read Values as Inputs

#Pass in comma-separated list 

$List = Import-Csv C:\scripts\list.txt 

ForEach ($entry in $list){ 

$Parent = $($entry.Parent)

$Child = $($entry.Child)

$WQL = $($entry.WQLQuery) 

#Echo values to verify result (test purposes only)

Write-host $Parent 

Write-host $Child

Write-host $WQL 

#Call functions and pass values

$Value1= Function1 $Parent Server 1 0

Function2 Server $Child $Value1 $WQL 

#------------

# Functions

#------------

Function1 {

<function logic>

}

Function2 {

<function logic>

}

More PowerShell Resources for System Center

We have a growing collection of PowerShell samples for System Center and general administration. You can find them in the Downloads section and many on this page - PowerShell Scripts for System Center (Master Collection)

Follow System Center Central (via Twitter and RSS)

Read the details of Cameron's latest tip in the blog post below.

Changing the OpsMgr Data Warehouse retention periods & Using reports to assess impacts to Data Warehouse sizing

Well done Cameron! You're name goes into the hat for the next Post-of-the-Week prize drawing at TechEd Europe in Berlin.

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS

We want to give a special shout out to proud Gold Sponsor Quest Software, who helps make all of this possible. As we've said in the past..great company with great people we've enjoyed working with over the years. Quest is now offering VMware ESX and VSphere monitoring for FREE!

Click the banner below to check out Quest Management Xtensions (QMX) Solutions for System Center, including how to get started monitoring your VMware infrastructure

Previous Installments of POST OF THE WEEK (2nd edition)

• WEEK 4: (Raphael Burri) Dynamic Web Monitoring with OpsMgr and PowerShell
• WEEK 3:  Include the value of an overridable parameter in the alert description (Stefan Koell
• WEEK 2:  Workaround for Performance Hourly Table (Craig Pero)
• WEEK 1: Export Management Pack Icons with PowerShell (Andreas Zuckerhut)

Details on the POST OF THE WEEK

Want to know how your contributions can be considered for the post of the week? Read more HERE.

Follow System Center Central via Twitter and RSS

]]> Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:37:58 GMT http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/79187/Default.aspx  I have a root management server on the local domain. I have two untrust domains. I used the cert-authentication. The two gateway servers are now on the management server list on the SCOM console. 

If you really want something fun to do try uncompressing some 13-17 gb VHD files! I started off by grabbing a cup of coffee, and ended up going out for dinner. It may be possible to re-compress a virtual after the VHD has been attached but I’m not willing to spend the time to find out today (and I’m pretty sure it would be unsupported).

Summary: While I’m sure that there was a good technical reason for it, don’t assume that you can use a compressed VHD file with Windows Server 2008 R2/Hyper-V. It’s a good idea to decompress all of your virtuals prior to trying to move them over.

Here are some more handy PowerShell one liners that will get a count, a report or resolve alerts that were generated by rules, or mointors in their various Severity states, informational, warning, and critical. The final examples closes all alerts generated by rules, or all alerts generated by monitors. Each line should be one line of text in notepad if your having problems pasting them directly into the Operations Manager PowerShell console.

Get a count of informational alerts created by a rule
(get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''0''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $false)}).count

Get a count of informational alerts created by a monitor

(get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''0''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $true)}).count

Report listing of Informational Alerts created by a rule
get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''0''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $False)} |Group-Object Name |Sort -desc Count | select-Object Count, Name |Format-Table –auto

Report listing of Informational Alerts created by a monitor
get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''0''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $True)} |Group-Object Name |Sort -desc Count | select-Object Count, Name |Format-Table -auto

Resolve-Alerts that are created by a rule on informational alerts
get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''0''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $False)}| resolve-alert -comment "CLOSE informational Alerts created by Rules" | out-null

Get a count of Warning alerts created by a rule
(get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''1''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $false)}).count

Report listing of Warning Alerts created by a rule
get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''1''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $False)} |Group-Object Name |Sort -desc Count | select-Object Count, Name |Format-Table -auto

Resolve-Alerts that are created by a rule on Warning alerts
get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''1''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $False)} | resolve-alert -comment "CLOSE Warning Alerts created by Rules" | out-null

Resolve-Alerts that are created by a monitor on Warning alerts
get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''1''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $True)} | resolve-alert -comment "CLOSE Warning Alerts created by Monitors" | out-null

Get a count of Critical alerts created by a rule
(get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''2''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $False)}).count

Report listing of Critical Alerts created by a rule
get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''2''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $False)} |Group-Object Name |Sort -desc Count | select-Object Count, Name |Format-Table –auto

Resolve-Alerts that are created by a rule on Critical alerts
get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0'' AND Severity = ''2''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $False)} | resolve-alert -comment "CLOSE Critical Alerts created by Rules" | out-null

Resolve all Alerts that are created by a rule
get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $False)}| resolve-alert -comment "CLOSE ALL Alerts created by Rules" | out-null

Resolve all Alerts that are created by a monitor
get-alert -criteria 'ResolutionState = ''0''' | where-object {($_.IsMonitorAlert -eq $True)}| resolve-alert -comment "CLOSE ALL Alerts created by Monitors" | out-null

Enjoy the examples!

This configuration pack contains configuration items intended to manage your Exchange Server 2007 server roles. The settings contained in this configuration pack are based on the results of service engagements by the IT Operational Excellence Organization, a part of the Microsoft Services division.

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Operational Configuration Pack is designed to be used for managing the configuration of Exchange 2007 servers. This configuration pack defines recommended configurations based on a limited number of settings affecting the configuration of Exchange 2007 servers, these settings should not be considered a complete list of what should be managed.
Once imported into Configuration Manager 2007, this configuration pack and its included configuration items can be targeted to collections of systems which are then audited for compliance with the recommended configurations. When settings are detected to be out of compliance, events will be generated and sent to the Configuration Manager server where the data is available for reporting. This enables early detection of potentially detrimental configuration changes and allows the administrator to correct the settings before they may cause downtime events.
Feature Summary
The Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Operational Configuration Pack includes configuration items for the following:

• Client Access Server (CAS)
• Exchange Core
• Gateway
• Hub Transport
• Mailbox
• Unified Messaging

Download

You can download this configuration pack HERE.

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]]> Fri, 27 Aug 2010 22:24:08 GMT http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/78913/Default.aspx Download this fully configured virtual machine of the latest release of System Center Configuration Manager v.Next Beta 1. For more information on System Center Configuration Manager R2, please visit the product homepage and the Configuration Manager Techcenter.

You can get it here - Download

Read more at the source below:

Performance Optimizations for Operations Manager 2007 R2

For reduced resource utilization on the RMS and SQL Server(s) hosting the OperationsManager and OperationsManagerDW databases caused by group calculation, Configuration Service polling, and data warehouse state change insertion, perform these changes on the Root Management Server in the management group:

Registry Path / Registry Value (DWORD)

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager\3.0\Config Service\Polling Interval Seconds

120

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager\3.0\GroupCalcPollingIntervalMilliseconds

900000

Note: These Registry keys do not exist by default and must be created manually.

I’ve always said “girls make the smartest IT people”….and so it goes again in today’s post. I was talking to my friend Lizzie the other day about an OpsMgr script I wrote, and she got a bit off topic…and had a great idea! With all the talk of green IT, let’s talk about saving some green by reusing work we’ve already done. I’ll replay a bit of our conversation for you here simply because Lizzie tends to speak her mind and is usually hilarious in the process.

Lizzie: “You know, these two-state monitor scripts would be perfect for ConfigMgr”

Pete: “Girl, what’re you talkin’ about?”

Lizzie: “You know…for DCM???”

Pete: “You mean to check CIs [configuration items] in a baseline?”

Lizzie: “Yeah, you could recycle these for ConfigMgr...You do recycle don’t you? That’s hot.” (she frequently quotes Paris Hilton [or other ridiculous celebrities] for a laugh or for effect)

Pete: “That’s a good idea. Gee, you’re pretty smart.”

Lizzie: “Duh! No $%*#$ I’m smart!”

States of Being: OpsMgr Two-States versus ConfigMgr Two-State

Let’s look at Lizzie’s point a little more closely.

• In OpsMgr, a two-state monitor script looks for two conditions….healthy or not healthy
• In ConfigMgr, a script-based CI in a DCM baseline is generally looking for two states, compliant or not compliant.

There are some differences, but nothing we can’t handle in a few minutes time.

Converting Scripts to “The Other Side” – A Simple Example

So really, the transition is moderately to very easy depending on the script. It mostly depends on how much of the OpsMgr scripting API you have mingled in your OpsMgr script. Let’s do a quick conversion of one of our most simple samples here on SCC… This is an OpsMgr script designed to check the startup configuration of a Windows service (to make sure its set to start automatically). Notice the purpose of the script is configuration monitoring….appropriate for this example and DCM in general

Note: In truth, we could do this particular check as a registry-based CI, but sometimes we use scripts anyway for flexibility when we want to check multiple registry values as part of a single CI or we really need to log an event, etc. Good enough for purposes of demonstration here…I’m sure you get the point.

Here’s the OpsMgr Version of the Script. I’ve highlighted in red the bits we’ll need to lose in the transition. In the end, the script will actually become even more simple…

‘----------Start of OpsMgr Two-State Monitor Script------------------

'Declare variables
Dim objMOMAPI, objBag, wshShell

'Instantiate (create an instance) of MOMScriptAPI
Set objMOMAPI = CreateObject("MOM.ScriptAPI")

'Instantiate MOMScriptAPI and Create PropertyBag
Set objAPI = CreateObject("MOM.ScriptAPI")
Set objBag = objMOMAPI.CreateTypedPropertyBag(StateDataType)

'Read Registry Value
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
ReadRegValue = WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Spooler\Start")

If ReadRegValue = 2 Then

    'Set state to GOOD
    Call objBag.AddValue("State","GOOD")
    Call objMOMAPI.Return(objBag)

Else

    'Set state to BAD
    Call objBag.AddValue("State","BAD")
    Call objMOMAPI.Return(objBag)
    Wscript.Quit()
End If

‘---------End of Script-------------

And now, the ConfigMgr version

You can see here, this resulting DCM script is dead simple and took about 60 seconds to convert. It checks the same value representing the service startup type and returns compliant or not compliant, 0 or a 1, true or false.

‘----------Start of ConfigMgr DCM Script------------------
'Declare variables
Dim wshShell

'Read Registry Value
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
ReadRegValue = WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Spooler\Start")

If ReadRegValue = 2 Then

    'Return COMPLIANT
    WScript.Echo "Compliant"

Else

    'Return Not Compliant
    WScript.Echo "NotCompliant"
End If

‘---------End of Script-------------

 Conclusion

There’s all kinds of green IT. In this case we’re just recycling and saving some $green. After all, time is money.

Next Up….DCM and Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

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