In the job details, we see a job called ‘PRO diagnostics’ started when we hit the Test PRO button. And from the details below, we can see it runs a cmdlet called Test-SCPROTip. This means we can test integration at any time using this cmdlet.

Testing from PowerShell

The Test-SCPROTip cmdlet tests integration between System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) and OpsMgr 2012. After creating a connection with Operations Manager and configuring PRO monitors, run Test-SCPROTip to validate that PRO integration is functioning correctly. Test-SCPROTip creates a new warning PRO alert in Operations Manager, invokes a remediation, and then implements the fix for the PRO tip.

To test this anytime from your admin workstation, open the VMM Command Shell and type Test-SCPROTip
Related Articles

Here are a few additional private cloud-related posts featuring System Center 2012 and related technologies that may be of interest

Configuring PRO integration between OpsMgr 2012 and VMM 2012

[Private Cloud]: Configuring anti-affinity between VMs on Hyper-V 2008 R2 SP1 and VMM 2012

Implementing rapid scale-out of a machine tier in VMM 2012 via PowerShell

Cloud: A quick note on accurately measuring Hyper-V host performance and utilization

What’s new in the Cloud Services Process Pack (CSPP) Release Candidate for System Center 2012?

Private Cloud in the real world: 5 lessons from the private cloud fabric

How to prepare for Orchestrator? Learn Opalis in a month of Friday afternoons! (free online resources)

PowerShell Scripts for System Center (Master Collection)

Ok, at this point I’m pretty sure that this isn’t going to be good. I can’t move this virtual in SCVMM when it’s shut down because the SCVMM database is on it. And most likely I couldn’t move it in the first place because it’s the database which is running the SCVMM environment I’m trying to move it with. So I’ve got myself nicely in a catch-22.

What’s the resolution? It’s time to go old-school virtual moving.

0) Identify a host with sufficient resources (disk and memory in this case) to be the new home for this server.

1) Shut down all virtuals which will be accessing the database (including the SCVMM console)

2) Log into the HyperV system which is running the virtual, connect to the virtual with Server Manager and shut down the SQL Server.

3) Find where the VHD files are associated with this system and copy them to the new location (break for a long lunch here depending on the size of the VHD’s and the network connectivity levels).

[For the geek trivial pursuit, this is what it looked like on one of my hosts during the transfer in terms of the impacts on network and disk. As a geek I admit I like stress testing the network like this once in a while. It makes me feel better for actually having upgraded from a 100 MB to a 1 GB switch.] [Screenshot failed to paste but available on http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2012/02/03/moving-the-scvmm-database-when-it’s-running-in-a-virtual-controlled-by-scvmm.aspx]

4) In HyperV on the original server, renamed it to indicate it was the old version of the virtual by adding _OLD to the name.

5) Logged into the new HyperV server and created a new virtual with the same configuration as the original virtual.

6) Configured the new virtual to use Dynamic Memory and to start with 4 gb of memory and to expand to up to 12 gb of memory.

7) Started the SQL virtual on the new host. Logged in and configured the network adapter to the IP address which had originally been hard-coded for the system (replacing the original network adapter IP address).

8) Validated the SQL services were running and the SQL instances would connect through SQL Server Management Studio.

9) Restarted the SCVMM server from saved state and re-opened the SCVMM console. In SCVMM the original SQL database server appeared as _OLD on the original host. A little while later, the new database server appeared on the new host.

10) Re-activated all of the servers which were saved to disk prior to the migration. Validated functionality of the servers which were accessing the database and that performance was increased in the new configuration.

11) After validating functionality, the original VHD files for the database server could now be removed.

12) The next step will be to rebalance by moving some of my processor intensive virtuals from the current host which also has the SQL database server to the now empty HyperV host but that will wait a little while.

Start to finish on this my migration of this SQL server took about three hours. Another option would potentially have been to have disabled dynamic memory on the SQL virtual, exported it from one system and imported it to the other system. This might have simplified the process but would not have changed the time required significantly.

Summary: Even if you mistakenly put your SCVMM database on a virtual which SCVMM controls and you are unable to migrate the database server from one host to another in SCVMM that doesn’t mean that you can’t go back to the old way of moving around virtuals. It’s just not as much fun.

The default value for this appears to be an interval of 30 minutes. To change this behavior I altered the autoSignOutInterval shown below from 30 to 0 and then did an IISreset on the site. The file controlling this behavior is stored (default location) is c:\program files\system center 2012\Operations Manager\WebConsole\WebHost\web.config.

Original text:

Modified text: (adding the autoSignOutInterval attribute (highlighted below) and then reset IIS the feature should be turned off)

I own a huge thank you to the Microsoft product team (you know who you are) for such incredibly helpful and quick response to my question on this one!

40 seats is a HARD limit because that is the number of computers.  Payments are collected via Paypal.  Please register below.  I hope to see you there!

http://www.eventbrite.ca/event/2892520607

Regards,

Brad Bird

President OWSUG

Steps to clear the agent cache.

1. Logon to agent machine with admin rights (or enough rights to stop a service and delete files off the file system)

2. Open DOS box, click start run CMD, if Windows 2008 R2 start CMD with Admin Rights.

3. Type “net stop healthservice” to stop the Operations Manager Service.

4. open explorer and delete the folder ‘Health Service State’ that can be found here: C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\Health Service State

5. Go back to the dos box and type “net start healthservice” to start the Operations Manager Agent.

Download at http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27218

Related Articles

First Look: System Center integration and centralized administration in DPM 2012 Beta

Inside the Partnership is your link to happenings, events and news between the EMC and Microsoft Partnership.

Inside The Partnership (EMC/MSFT) - ITP19 - 2012 Overview and Getting Ready for MMS 2012

EMC has a series of videos around their MS partnership on Youtube. Visit their Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/sammarraccini

$Groups = Get-MonitoringObjectGroup
$Group = $Groups | where {$_.DisplayName -eq "Group Name"}
$Members = $Group.GetRelatedMonitoringObjects()
$Members | Sort DisplayName | FT DisplayName | out-file C:\GroupName.txt

Props to Andreas Zuckerhut, as I copied some of his code… ]]> Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:12:55 GMT http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/91458/Default.aspx Sometimes, virtual machines that should not reside on the same virtualization host. This comes into play with virtualized Exchange server roles, VMs that are part of a failover cluster, virtualized Active Directory domain controllers or sometimes a VMs in a web farm. In a private cloud environment, this is likely to come up occasionally, it helps to know how it works and how to configure this behavior.

In VMware, you would configure this in their management UI. Hyper-V works differently, as you don't configure this setting in VMM 2012. Highly available VMs in Hyper-V are based in failover clustering, this is where anti-affinity would be configured, using the AntiAffinityClassNames property.

How anti-affinity works in Hyper-V and Failover Clustering

A cluster resource will group's AntiAffinityClassNames property consists of a user-defined string. If the AntiAffinityClassNames properties of two or more groups contain at least one identical string, the groups are said to be anti-affined. By default, all groups are affined (because their AntiAffinityClassNames property is NULL).

When a group is moved during failover, anti-affinity affects the algorithm used to determine the destination node as follows:

1. Using the preferred owner list of the group being moved, the Cluster service finds the next preferred node.

2. If the node is not hosting any group anti-affined with the group being moved, it is selected as the destination node.

3. If the next preferred available node is currently hosting a group anti-affined with the group being moved, the Cluster service moves to the next preferred available node in the preferred owner list.

4. If the only available nodes are hosting anti-affined groups, the Cluster service ignores anti-affinity and selects the next preferred available node as the destination node.

Use this property to identify groups that should not be hosted on the same node. Come up with a unique string value (MS docs suggest a GUID, but I like descriptive string) and add it to the AntiAffinityClassNames property of each group that should be anti-affined.

What will it NOT do?

As mentioned in point 4 above, sometimes you don't have enough hosts to avoid placing too VM's on the same host. With this reality in mind, anti-affinity does not guarantee that groups will never be hosted by the same node. If you have an application that cannot support more than one instance per node under any circumstances, you need to create a resource DLL to enforce that limitation.

How to configure anti-affinity

To configure anti-affinity between VM's, you basically assign each of the VM you'd like to keep separated, the same AntiAffinityClassNames value using the cluster command-line administration tool. This could be two virtual machines are more than two. The name of the resource group basically maps to the name of the VM as appears in the Failover Cluster Management tool. Syntax is shown here:

cluster group "" /prop AntiAffinityClassNames="SQLClusterNode"

After you configure these values, failover clustering will do its best to honor the settings based on the points listed above. You can also configure different preferred owners for each anti-affined VM guest in the Failover Cluster Management interface as well if you wish to ensure these hosts remain separate. With him

What about VMM and Dynamic Optimization?

In VMM 2012, where dynamic optimization re-evaluates and optimizes distribution of the VM load every 10 minutes, there is no built-in process to make sure two cluster groups (virtual servers in this case) that are anti-affined are running on different hosts.

One suggestion is to write a PowerShell script that queries the cluster service for all anti-affinity groups periodical, and then checks VMM to ensure the VMs in the anti-affinity groups are not the same physical host. You’d want to run the script every few minutes ensure that redistribution of resources didn't cause the virtual servers in a resource pool to end up on the same host. (dynamic optimization evaluates load distribution every ten minutes by default)

Another option would be to exclude guests from dynamic optimization that have anti-affinity settings defined.

Additional Resources

Here are a few additional private cloud-related posts featuring System Center 2012 and related technologies that may be of interest

Implementing rapid scale-out of a machine tier in VMM 2012 via PowerShell

Cloud: A quick note on accurately measuring Hyper-V host performance and utilization

What’s new in the Cloud Services Process Pack (CSPP) Release Candidate for System Center 2012?

Private Cloud in the real world: 5 lessons from the private cloud fabric

How to prepare for Orchestrator? Learn Opalis in a month of Friday afternoons! (free online resources)

PowerShell Scripts for System Center (Master Collection)

The new templates are:

Monitors

• UNIX/Linux Shell Command Three State Monitor
• UNIX/Linux Shell Command Two State Monitor

Rules

• UNIX/Linux Shell Command (Alert)
• UNIX/Linux Shell Command (Performance)

Tasks

• Run a UNIX/Linux Shell Command

Great step-by-step tutorial at http://operatingquadrant.com/2012/01/30/opsmgr-2012-unixlinux-authoring-templates-shell-command/

(This is important because you generally do not want to close alerts which are generated by a monitor – see this article for details)

In both OpsMgr 2007 and 2012 in the Alerts view the only way to determine this is by highlighting an alert and checking this below:

[The graphics did not upload correctly on this post - please see http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2012/01/30/quicktrick-find-alerts-from-a-monitor-or-rule-in-opsmgr-2012-scom.aspx for the missing graphics]

This shows an individual alert and whether it was created by an alert or monitor. This does not however give us a field that we can use to sort a list by or a way to tell for a large number of alerts which are from a rule versus a monitor.

Dashboards to the rescue in Operations Manager 2012!

I just saw this today. In OpsMgr 2012 (RC version) you can great a dashboard and add a widget to the dashboard. One of the fields available in the Alert widget is the field “Is Monitor Alert”.

If you add this field you can see the following:

[The graphics did not upload correctly on this post - please see http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2012/01/30/quicktrick-find-alerts-from-a-monitor-or-rule-in-opsmgr-2012-scom.aspx for the missing graphics]

You can also click on the “Is Monitor Alert” heading at the top and sort according to whether it is an alert created by a monitor or not (so you can see all alerts which are from rules as an example at the top of the list).

Summary: Want a quick way to see what alerts you have that are from a rule or a monitor? Use a dashboard view in OpsMgr 2012 with the Alerts widget and add the “Is Monitor Alert” field!

The service template can exist in one or more machine tiers (like web, app and data as you would see in a typical 3-tier web application), it can consist a little as one tier. Even with a service template that contains only a single VM, you can benefit from the benefits of service templates, including

With the advent of private cloud comes the perception of continuous availability as well as the perception of infinite capacity. These customer expectations raise the bar in terms of provisioning, as users may expect that application infrastructure can be scaled out almost instantly. How can we scale this rapidly? For example , what we need to do to double capacity of the web tier very quickly?

Enter Rapid Scale-out via PowerShell

Along with many features added to VMM 2012, there is also a major update to the PowerShell management interface. This makes it easy to provision multiple new machines in parallel without ever opening the VMM 2012 Admin console. The sample script below demonstrates how you can easily scale out the machine tier within the service template given a list of names in a text file. In the real world the input may more likely come from a service request in Service Manager or be triggered in response to capacity alerts via Operations Manager and Orchestrator, but this sample demonstrates the concept that would facilitate scaling out multiple VM instances provisioned in parallel.

Sample Script

Here’s a sample script to demonstrate this concept simply. As it is a sample, I assume you know 1) that no existing VMs of the same name have already been deployed and 2) the machine tier within the service template has scale out limits that allows the number of VMs you are attempting to create.

#import list of VMs 

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

#Loop through each and deploy a new VM instance 

ForEach ($entry in $list){ 

$Service = $($entry.Service)

$Tier = $($entry.Tier)

$Guest= $($entry.Guest) 

#retrieve the target service instance 

$serviceInstance = Get-SCService -Name "$Service"

#retrieve the target computer tier 

$computerTier = Get-SCComputerTier -Service $serviceInstance | where { $_.Name -eq "$Tier" }

#create the new VM in the target computer tier 

New-SCVirtualMachine -ComputerTier $computerTier -Name "$Guest" -Description "" -ReturnImmediately -ComputerName "$Guest" `

 -StartAction "NeverAutoTurnOnVM" -StopAction "SaveVM"

}

#end of sample script

Note: You may be tempted to call this rapid scale-out method of a machine tier “cloud bursting” (many I have talked to use ‘cloud bursting’ in this way), but it’s not the same really. Click the cloud bursting link for the proper definition.

Additional Resources

Here are a few additional 'private cloud-related posts featuring System Center 2012 and related technologies that may be of interest

Cloud: A quick note on accurately measuring Hyper-V host performance and utilization

What’s new in the Cloud Services Process Pack (CSPP) Release Candidate for System Center 2012?

Private Cloud in the real world: 5 lessons from the private cloud fabric

How to prepare for Orchestrator? Learn Opalis in a month of Friday afternoons! (free online resources)

PowerShell Scripts for System Center (Master Collection)

Why? For purposes of measuring processor utilization, the host operating system is logically viewed as just another guest operating system. Therefore, the “\Processor(*)\% Processor Time” monitor counter measures the processor utilization of the host operating system only. To measure total physical processor utilization of the host operating system and all guest operating systems, use the “\Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor(_Total)\% Total Run Time” performance monitor counter. This counter measures the total percentage of time spent by the processor running the both the host operating system and all guest operating systems.

Which counters are most important?

When it comes to Hyper-V performance, Tony Voellm (Microsoft) is the master and he has compiled a great explanation of how to dig deep into Hyper-V performance using the Hyper-V related performance objects and counters in PerfMon.

Tony’s top performance counters are

Here are the top level performance counters to monitor and I’ll go into more detail on each;

• Overall health:
  • Hyper-V Virtual Machine Health Summary
  • Hyper-V Hypervisor
• Processor:
  • Processor
  • Hyper-V Hypervisor Logical Processor
  • Hyper-V Hypervisor Root Virtual Processor
  • Hyper-V Hypervisor Virtual Processor
• Memory:
  • Memory
  • Hyper-V Hypervisor Partition
  • Hyper-V Root Partition
  • Hyper-V VM Vid Partition
• Networking:
  • Network Interface
  • Hyper-V Virtual Switch
  • Hyper-V Legacy Network Adapter
  • Hyper-V Virtual Network Adapter
• Storage:
• Physical Disk
• Hyper-V Virtual Storage Device
• Hyper-V Virtual IDE Controller

What thresholds are appropriate?

Visit Tony’s blog directly and settle in for a great read on analyzing Hyper-V performance.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tvoellm/archive/2009/04/23/monitoring-hyper-v-performance.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tvoellm/archive/2008/05/12/hyper-v-performance-counters-part-four-of-many-hyper-v-hypervisor-virtual-processor-and-hyper-v-hypervisor-root-virtual-processor-counter-set.aspx

Ok, back to MMS. I have seen some of the sessions that were accepted and they look incredible! Microsoft has a limited set of slots for presenters and presentations and can only choose so many as a result. (I will post a link to the sessions once they become available). As an example, last year my session on “Operations Manager Evolution” was declined but ended up accepted up at the last minute so there is a potential that a session could still be accepted but the likelihood is small at this point in time.

The following are abstracts which I am aware of that were declined for MMS 2012 (the session submitter intentionally removed to keep this focused on the topic not the presenter):

Title: Monitoring SharePoint code with APM

Abstract: Hosting a private cloud today is the future but what do we really understand in making this a reality? Microsoft technologies offer Private cloud solution but how do we use them to create an effective Private Cloud? In this session we will examine our options how we can use all the System Center products with Hyper-V to ensure our private cloud is not only a success but a simpler and easy way forward within budget.

Title: Advanced SharePoint Monitoring with System Center

Abstract: SharePoint administration of large hosted and internal sites. With the main goal of getting users to interact with SharePoint 2010 we must be able to monitor in a proactive method ensuring our investment stays operational. As 24/7 no longer has a meaning but always on is the new SLA Operations Manager is an important component to ensure this reality. With Patching and Backup’s we also need to ensure that effective use of ConfigMgr & DPM perform the tracks with Service Manager

Title: Dashboard Palooza

Abstract: In the world of monitoring, it is not only about the information you gather but how to visualize it. In this session presented by experienced consultants from across the globe, we demonstrate different techniques to build the dashboards that you need using the new built-in Operations Manager 2012 functionality combined with solutions such as the Service Level Dashboard, Visio Integration and the Service Manager dashboard to create custom dashboards for a NOC, C-Level, LOB application and more!

Title: Top Ops Bloggers

Abstract: Meet the top SCOM bloggers in this session–Marnix Wolf & Kevin Holman! Marnix Wolf: SQL, the true foundation of SCOM/SCOM12. Learn how to provision a well performing SQL server for your SCOM environment without taking all available resources. Kevin Holman: Alert enrichment and forwarding: How can I connect OpsMgr to other Enterprise Management systems? Adding enrichment to alerts in SCOM & connecting SCOM12 to other systems using Orchestrator 2012

Title: Tips & tricks for monitoring your private cloud with OpsMgr 2012

Abstract: Monitoring a private cloud is unlike monitoring your physical environment. This session provides guidance & best practices on using OpsMgr 2012 to monitor your private cloud infrastructure. Topics include: - Key considerations in an effective private cloud infrastructure - Best practices for virtualizing your OpsMgr infrastructure - Effective monitoring of VM guest performance - Automating incident management and remediation - Extending VMM's dynamic optimization to hardware and applications

Title: Through the Looking Glass at all Hypervisors

Abstract: This session looks at how to use System Center Operations Manager to monitor Hyper-V, VMWare and Citrix Xen Server Hypervisors through a single console. We will dissect the Microsoft Hyper-V , Veeam VMWare and Comtrade XenServer Management Packs to look at what is useful and what can be extended. We will also look at how to build useful dashboards to look at information across the hypervisors

Title: Operations Manager Monitoring: The good, the bad and the ugly

Abstract: Ever want to quickly narrow down noise and keep your environment clean and healthy? Ever wonder why you databases are filling up and your console is getting sluggish? Industry experts, they will share their experiences from having tuned countless Operations Manager deployments since MOM 2005. They will show you how to quickly reduce noise, set overrides the easy way (fire and forget), maintain a healthy environment.

Title: Taking your IT business services to the next Level with System Center 2012

Abstract: Get ready to drive the management of your IT Business services beyond System Center 2012, taking full advantage of the System Center suite. This session will cover end-to-end IT business services by utilizing System Center Operations Manager 2012, System Center Service Manager 2012 and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012. Industry experts will show you how to fully leverage your IT business service and how to extend the service.

Title: 101 Management Pack authoring for Service Manager 2012

Abstract: Would you like more than out-of-the-box functionality from Service Manager 2012 but don’t know where to start? Join industry experts for a great session on extending and customizing System Center Service Manager 2012. This demo-packed session will show you the how to’s for extending Service Manager 2012 and the direct results you can achieve in a few easy steps. Learn from real world Service Manager 2012 authoring examples and be a hero to your helpdesk.

Title: Operations Manager Management Packs: Don’t be afraid! You don’t need to be a developer

Abstract: Join industry experts on a journey building management packs the easy way. No need for heavy authoring experience. These guys have been in the authoring world since MOM 2005 and have a vast experience in extending the product. During this session they will show real world examples and solutions on how to easily create a simple but effective management pack while at the same time discussing the do’s and don’ts.

Title: Looking after your Microsoft Virtualization environment

Abstract: This session looks at the various areas to look out for when implementing a Hyper-V virtualization environment. We will also show you how to use System Center Operations Manager to alert you of critical alerts that happen in your Virtualization environment, as well as how to integrate and use System Center Virtual Machine Manager to configure and tune the infrastructure. On top of this, we will also showcase how orchestration through System Center Orchestrator can assist in automating crucial workflows to ensure that your environment suffers minimal downtime.

Were your MMS sessions declined? If so, post them here and we’ll put together a more comprehensive list of sessions that currently will not be at MMS 2012.

Are there sessions listed here or in the comments which you think would be great to have at MMS? If so, post a comment on them and maybe we can draw some attention to them as a possible last minute addition!

And now a thought or two from my favorite green Avenger…

or if you prefer

Downloadable Datasheets

• System Center 2012 Licensing Datasheet
• System Center 2012 Licensing Frequently Asked Questions
• Windows Server, System Center, and Forefront Licensing Guide

Licensing Site

Microsoft has also updated the System Center 2012 Volume Licensing site with the new information at:

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/SystemCenter2012.aspx]]> Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:41:26 GMT http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/91346/Default.aspx A few weeks ago we posted a survey in response to a suggestion in the community that interest in private cloud was not a topic of interest in the System Center community (which sounded completely crazy to me). With the survey response now maxed out, the results are shown here.

In terms of interest by technology, not surprisingly ConfigMgr, OpsMgr and Orchestrator top the list in terms of interest. However, private cloud finished very respectably, showing up on the interest list of nearly 1 in 2 respondents (45%).

While VMware is still the leader, clearly Hyper-V is gaining a lot of ground in recent months.

Only 1 in 3 are primarily responsible for management of the virtualization layer, a testament to the management focus of MMS attendees.

People clearly see the value in MMS as a conference. One third report they will be paying for some or all of their trip….quite an investment.

Register for MMS 2012

MMS 2012 promises to be a groundbreaking conference, with System Center 2012 announcements no doubt coming in April. Register for MMS 2012 at http://www.mms-2012.com

Chris Nackers, David Jaffe, Marty List, Terry Taylor

Configuration Manager 2012:

Q: What changes have been made to patch management in Configuration Manager 2012 to simplify the process to deploy patches?

A: [Chris Nackers] The process has been simplified to search for updates, create a group, deploy that group of updates

A: [David Jaffe] Automatic Deployment rules. E.g. Endpoint Protection definitions can be automatically downloaded, synced with DPS, and deployed to clients. Can decrease deployment of items like security updates through reducing the clicks to approve and deploy patches.

Q: What changes have been made to the Remote Control Tools in Configuration Manager 2012?

A: [Chris Nackers] Golden key is back (CTR_ALT_DEL) when a user is not present, otherwise we use RDP and RA same as before. Additional reference:
http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2012/01/25/configmgr-2012-brings-back-ctrlaltdel-to-remote-control-other-things/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=configmgr-2012-brings-back-ctrlaltdel-to-remote-control-other-things&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

A: [Marty List]

· Remote control now supports sending the CTRL+ALT+DEL command to computers.

· You can apply different remote control settings to collections of computers by using client settings.

· You can lock the keyboard and mouse of the computer that is being administered during a remote control session.

· The copy and paste functionality between the host computer and the computer that is being administered has been improved.

· If the remote control network connection is disconnected, the desktop of the computer that is being administered will be locked.

· You can start the remote control viewer from the Windows Start menu.

· Remote control client settings can automatically configure the Windows Firewall on client computers to allow remote control to operate.

· Remote control supports connecting to computers with multiple monitors.

· A high visibility notification bar is visible on client computers to inform the user that a remote control session is active.

· By default, members of the local Administrators group are granted the Remote Control permission as a client setting.

· The account name of the administrative user who starts the remote control session is automatically displayed to users during the remote control session. This display helps users to verify who is connecting to their computer.

· If Kerberos authentication fails when you make a remote control connection to a computer, you are prompted to confirm that you want to continue before Configuration Manager falls back to using the less secure authentication method of NTLM.

· Only TCP port 2701 is required for remote control packets; ports TCP 2702 and TCP 135 are no longer used.

· Responsiveness for low-bandwidth connections supports the following improvements:

o Elimination of mouse trails by using single mouse cursor design.

o Full support for Windows Aero.

o Elimination of mirror driver.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg699359.aspx#WhatsNew_Client_Deployment

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg699366.aspx

Q: Does Configuration Manager 2012 have a web-based version of the Configuration Manager 2012 console?

A: [Chris Nackers] Not that I’m aware of

A: [Marty List] Not that I know of

A: [David Jaffe] No. However, they did add a portal for basic software requests and one level work flow approval.

Q: What is the difference between a secondary site and a distribution point and why would we want to use them?

A: [Chris Nackers] Secondary site allows for a proxy MP, with 2012, we can finally throttle on a standard DP

A: [David Jaffe] DPs do offer throttling and holds the PXE option. The only reason for a Secondary is to keep client traffic (policy check, heartbeat, and inventory) local and then throttle\compress client traffic upstream to Primary. Deciding between a DP and SS is a discussion based on WAN bandwidth and number of clients. For details see the links below.  As a side note. ConfigMgr 2012 will install and configure IIS and WDS when deploying remote DPs!

Decent link on changes below. Confirms DP throttling.

http://scug.be/blogs/nico/archive/2011/10/03/sccm-2012-the-new-infrastructure-specifics.aspx

Wally concurs on the DP throttling change.

http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2012/01/06/what-wally-said-configmgr-2012-and-low-bandwidth-situations/

Q: Is it true that reports can only be run from the CAS or can they be run in other locations (such as a European based primary site)

A: [David Jaffe] CAS is used for centrally managing patching and asset management reporting. You cannot push software or policy. You can assign the Reporting role on a primary and pull reports from just that Primary clients. Also, a CAS is required if you want more than two Primary sites to communicate. 

Q: Is there a power shell provider in ConfigMgr 2012

A: [Marty List] No, but almost everything can be accessed via WMI in PowerShell scripts

Q: Is there a way to integrate bar code information into the Configuration Manager database?

A: [Chris Nackers] I would never recommend adding ANYTHING to the configmgr DB, can you create a separate DB and then combine information, yes
A: [David Jaffe] I agree with Chris Nackers….almost. Do NOT change or modify the MS tables or columns. If you must add info to the Configmgr DB, the supported method is to create your own tables. MS still reserves the right to wipe the table so make sure to back up the DB before applying patches or service packs.

Q: Is there any information available on what level of SQL traffic to expect over the WAN with the new SQL Replication changes and is the traffic encrypted?

A: [David Jaffe] I have found no specifics on this so far. However, the MS reason for using SQL replication is to reduce data size and make replication more reliable.

Q: What UI improvements are there for OSD?

A: [Chris Nackers] For OSD we simplified the PXE service point, added the ability to patch the images offline, and added support for the new app model and UDA, otherwise no major changes to OSD…  there is no user interface as OSD is zero-touch by default, that hasn’t changed, unless you are using MDT 2012/UDI

Operations Manager 2012: (note, there are only two times they stumped me in OpsMgr versus the ConfigMgr beating above)

Q: Can Operations Manager monitor devices via UDP or only via TCP and ping?

A: [Terry Taylor] As for UDP… UDP is connectionless, no Ack – just send it and forgot about it.  So to monitor UDP, are we looking for OM to be the originator or the receiver? It sounds like the real question is “How can I make sure I can TFTP to my network devices?”

A: [Cameron Fuller] While I agree that UDP is connectionless and that would be a challenge to test, I see the worst case if the goal is to validate the ability to connect to something remotely via UDP a script can be written which performs the test and returns either a success or failure event which can then be captured by a monitor which alerts when the state changes

Q: Does Operations Manager network monitoring do gathering for information from network devices like device serial numbers?

A: [Terry Taylor] In OM 2007 (with xSNMP), it doesn’t appear that serial number is being discovered …(not sure how much this translates to OM 2012) I would guess that they might be looking for the serial number on the Chassis.  I did some quick searching and it looks like for CISCO devices there is an “SNMP get” that will return the serial number, but I don’t know how well that translates across vendors.

A: [Cameron Fuller] I have not seen any documentation which indicates that the serial number for network devices will be gathered in OpsMgr 2012 with the built-in network monitoring functionality. In OpsMgr 2012 the information looks similar as shown below: (subset of graphic from http://4sysops.com/archives/scom-2012-review-part-5-network-monitoring/)

That being said however, using an alteration to the xSNMP management pack example shown by Terry I expect that this could be added to OpsMgr. For most of the frequently asked questions by network administrators for OpsMgr functionality I recommend this article: http://derek858.blogspot.com/2011/05/sim354-systems-center-operations.html

I owe a huge thank you to all of the folks who contributed to answering these questions on ConfigMgr 2012 and OpsMgr 2012!

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28726&ocid=aff-n-we-loc--ITPRO40886&WT.mc_id=aff-n-we-loc—ITPRO40886

I wanted to put together a quick post on what's new in this release of the pack, and address the lingering question of chargeback reporting

Virtual Machine Report - The Virtual Machine Report allows the Service Provider, Project Administrator and Capacity Pool Users to be able to view the Virtual Machines along with VM Properties.

Chargeback Report Per VM - The Chargeback Report Per VM Report allows the Service Provider, Project Administrator and Capacity Pool Users to be able to view the chargeback report for the Virtual Machines which they manage.

Chargeback Report Per Project - The Chargeback Report Per Project report allows users to view chargeback costs per project.

Virtual Machines Daily Specs - The Virtual Machines Daily Specs report allows users to view properties of virtual machines.

VM Cost Settings Daily Report - The VM Cost Settings Daily Report specifies changes made to cost configurations.

Other chargeback reporting you may have missed…

I think many people miss the chargeback reporting is delivered in the VMM 2012 management pack for Operations Manager 2012. The Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Management Pack delivers reports for analyzing current capacity and resource utilization in the cloud fabric (storage, network, and compute) and VMs, as well as forecasting reports to help predict future needs. The Chargeback reports provides utilization data based on the dimensions of cloud capacity.

Reports in the Virtual Machine Manager 2012 Management Pack

Environment prerequisites

You do have to get a few things in place to take advantage of the CSPP,which of course you can download from the Microsoft website

• System Center Service Manager 2012 RC
• System Center Orchestrator 2012 RC
• System Center Operations Manager 2012 RC
• System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 RC

Definitely the is definitely some time before we see the System Center 2012 suite as a whole released, so now is a great time to get started familiarizing yourself with the new technology.

Here are a few things you must get right before anything else matters.

Lesson 1: SAN copy is critical for a happy cloud (or more specifically, happy users of  a private cloud)

Let's face it,copying many gigabytes of data (in the form of a virtual machine in this case) is not fast enough. Go into this with your eyes open,understanding the requirements to deliver rapid virtual machine provisioning. Counting the time required to deploy virtual machine in minutes is anti-climactic and the end result less impressive in inverse proportion to the time required to deploy VMs. To paraphrase the TechNet article:

Before you begin, make sure that the following prerequisites are met:

• The storage array must support the new storage management features in VMM.
• The storage array must support cloning or snapshots, and have the feature enabled.

Note: Realize that this may require additional licensing from your storage vendor. (yes, some vendors license the right to clone and shapshot luns!)

• The storage pool that you want to use for rapid provisioning must be under VMM management. This involves adding the SMI-S provider for the array, discovering storage pools, classifying the storage, and setting the preferred allocation method for the storage array to either snapshot or cloning.

There’s more. See “Rapid Provisioning a Virtual Machine by Using SAN Copy Overview” at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg610594.aspx

Lesson 2: Configure your VMM Library share PROPERLY

Yes Virginia, there is a wrong way to configure VMM library…and this wrong way results in media being copied into your VM directories. And if you do it wrong, not only do VM copies take forever, so do ISO mounts.

as so eloquently stated by Michael Michael of Microsoft (that guy has a great name)  “First, you need to follow Jose Barreto's blog post on how to properly enable constrained delegation on the Hyper-V servers. You need to follow these steps for every Hyper-V host on which you want to create a Virtual Machine and attach a shared ISO. Additionally, these steps need to be followed for every library server that will host ISO files that are going to be linked from Virtual Machines.”

In the end, this allow you to use the “share image file instead of copying it “ option, avoiding slow and frustrating ISO mounts.

See “How to properly share ISO files in VMM with Hyper-V”

Lesson 3: With new technology comes new responsibility

Or as I like to say, “System Center won't teach itself to you”. If your VMware admin today, you will have to learn new tools and administrative tasks. In the end, I believe your total cost of ownership (TCO) will be lower, but there will be a transition period. By looking carefully at how you do things today, it is possible to minimize the impact of this change. The good news is, Microsoft offers loads of free training to get folks familiar with System Center 2012 and related private cloud technologies. VMware certainly can't make this claim  today.

Sign-up for the Microsoft System Center 2012 Private Cloud Jumpstart at http://mctreadiness.com/MicrosoftCareerConferenceRegistration.aspx?pid=298

Lesson 4: Configure which network adapter handles Live Migration

If you allow Hyper-V and Windows to do as they will, the network you intended for Live Migration may not be the network that is used for live migration and the result will be, well….disappointing. The perceptions of continuous availability and infinite capacity cannot be realized when live migration performs like quick migration…quick migration never seemed that quick to me.

You set this value in the Failover Cluster management interface. When you choose the Live migration network for one VM, It applies the setting globally to the cluster.  For Proper configuration steps And related considerations, see Windows Server 2008 R2 & Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 - Hyper-V Live Migration Overview & Architecture

Lesson 5:  Create VM templates in a few sizes, along with a few VHDs

This one isn't too complicated, but can save a lot of time building VMs after you get started. Once you begin deploying in the cloud, you want to deploy Web servers, app servers and database servers. These roles will come with their own virtual machine requirements. Build templates before you get started is to avoid interrupting the deployment process with template creation activities. This could be as simple as small, medium and large templates. No hard and fast right answer here, but something that is driven by needs in your environment. For example, if your DBAs require specific drive letters for databases and database log files, you could create a template with this configuration built-in.

Conclusion 

To build a stable home, you cannot build on sand. Likewise, you have to build a solid foundation of network, compute and storage for successful private cloud deployment. All of the promises of agility and economy require careful planning and execution. Next time, we’ll talk about considerations in a heterogeneous environment,  or whatever related lessons I have for you from the cloud fabric.