Now at version 6.0.7600.0, the IIS 7 management pack provides proactive monitoring of incidents that could affect the performance and availability of the different services provided through IIS, which include:

• Web Sites
• Application Pools
• FTP Servers
• NNTP Servers
• SMTP Servers

To help troubleshoot common issues the management pack contains helpful product knowledge and inline management tasks.  Operations Manager also provides the ability to extend this knowledge through adding your own company or organization information.

The updated management pack can be downloaded immediately, and will shortly be available to customers running Operations Manager 2007 R2 via the online catalog.  Customers running Operations Manager 2007 SP1 should review KB article 971541 and apply the Operations Manager Service Pack 1 update before installing this updated management pack.

Sacha Dawes, CISSP
Sr. Technical Product Manager
System Center Solutions for Dynamic Datacenters

Published 08 February 10 09:31 by sdawes]]> Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:15:48 GMT /BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexId/59259/Default.aspx Just saw this on Twitter

IIS management pack for Server 2008 SP2 & Server 2008 R2 has been released. Available now in the in-product R2 catalog. Pinpoint ETA 24hrs 5 minutes ago from web

An updated version for the ReSearch This management pack has been created for the R2 version of the management pack and has been updated to work for MOM 2005 as well. There had been issues with this management pack and how it integrated with the new systemcentercentral.com website which should be addressed with the updated version. This management pack provides an easy way to investigate alerts in Operations Manager (and System Center Essentials, and MOM) and search for resolutions which the community has found when the alert occurs. The updated version of this management pack is available at: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/PackCatalog/PackCatalogDetails/tabid/145/IndexID/21716/Default.aspx.

I am working on a version which will work on OpsMgr 2007 RTM – hopefully later in the week.

How to Install the TMG MP

1. Download the TMG management pack from the management pack catalog. The TMG Management Pack Guide is available on the same URL as the download and is labeled “OM2007_MP_TMG.DOC”
2. Review the Management Pack Guide – cover to cover. This document spells out some important pieces of information you will need to know.
3. Import the TMG MP (using either the Operations console or PowerShell).
4. Deploy the OpsMgr agent to all TMG servers. Agent-less monitoring for TMG servers is not supported.
5. Enable Agent Proxy configuration on all TMG servers. This is in the Administration node, under Administration -> Device Management -> Agent Managed. Right-click each TMG server, select Properties, click the Security tab, then check the box labeled “Allow this agent to act as a proxy and discover managed objects on other computers.” (If you have a large number of agents to enable this setting for, the TMG MP guide contains a script to automate this task.)
6. Create a TMG_Overrides management pack to contain any overrides required for the MP.

How to Configure the TMG MP

After installing the TMG management pack, there is additional configuration and tuning to adjust management pack settings to your particular environment. Here is a list of configuration tasks for the TMG management pack:

Create groups needed for overriding targets with common requirements in your environment

As with other management packs, the groups needed for management pack tuning depend on the specifics of your deployment and the support model for your organization.

In the case of management groups monitoring TMG firewalls as well as SQL 2008 databases, there are two SQL 2008 database monitors, enabled by default, which should not be running on TMG firewalls. Resolve this issue by creating a group such as “TMG ISARS Databases”. Populate this group with the ISARS SQL database objects discovered on each TMG server. Then create overrides in each of these SQL 2008 database monitors to disable monitoring for the group you created:

• SQL Server Full Text Search Service Monitor
• Blocking SPIDs

Install TMG console, stage utilities, and configure security to support tasks

If the TMG console is collocated with an installation of the Operations Manager 2007 Operations console, the OpsMgr console will be able to launch the TMG console. To support this feature, add the OpsMgr operator to one of the following Forefront TMG roles:

• Forefront TMG Administrator (Array or Enterprise Administrator in Enterprise Edition)—Allows full access to Forefront TMG monitoring and configuration.
• Forefront TMG Auditor (Array or Enterprise Auditor in Enterprise Edition)—Allows full access to Forefront TMG monitoring, able to view Forefront TMG configuration, and able to configure logging and alerting.
• Forefront TMG Monitoring Auditor (Array or Enterprise Monitoring Auditor in Enterprise Edition)—Allows full access to Forefront TMG monitoring only.

In addition, you should add the OpsMgr operator’s computer to either the Remote Management Computers or Enterprise Remote Management Computers Forefront TMG computer sets.

Here are two other utilities that need to be staged on the managed TMG server to be launched correctly by tasks in the console:

• AdamSites.exe (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=168771) - Install in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Forefront TMG folder of the Forefront TMG computer hosting the configuration storage server (CSS) role.
• Dnstools.exe (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=168772) - Install in the %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Forefront TMG folder of the Forefront TMG computer hosting the Firewall role.

Create a Firewall Access Rule on the TMG firewall configuration

You must configure an access rule in Forefront TMG to allow the Forefront TMG computer to communicate with the management servers. This will be from the Local Host network to an “SCOM Set” computer set that contains all management or gateway servers on TCP port 5723. The access rule is per-array for Forefront TMG Enterprise Edition and per-server for Forefront TMG Standard Edition and TMG Medium Business Edition.

TIP: Steps to create a firewall access rule that supports monitoring, but not automatic agent install, are included in the TMG MP guide. The TMG MP guide covers only manual agent install. If you have a large number of firewalls that require installing the OpsMgr agent, consider allowing automatic agent install as follows:

• Extend the rule created according to the TMG MP guide to include the protocols needed for automatic agent installation, and disable strict RPC checking in the rule properties.
• Exclude the “SCOM Set” computer set from the built-in system policy for Active Directory communications.

Figure 1 illustrates an Enterprise-level rule that permits the necessary access (remember to disable strict RPC checking on this rule), as well as the edited system policy for an array that excludes the “SCOM Set” from the system policy rule.

Figure 1 – Firewall rule and system policy exceptions to support automatic OpsMgr agent installation

Install the Network Load Balancing management pack if using TMG NLB

If your TMG 2010 Enterprise Edition firewalls will be running in array configuration with NLB enabled, import the Windows Server 2008 Network Load Balancing Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 as well as the TMG MP. While TMG does control all NLB functions on a TMG array member, the NLB MP provides a useful performance view to help you confirm that all members of an NLB team are about equally loaded.

Figure 2 charts the load distribution across nodes (received and sent packets per second) on the Internet interfaces of a three-node TMG enterprise array.

Figure 2 - Leverage the NLB management pack to confirm equal load distribution across TMG array nodes

Perform general health and configuration monitoring

General health monitoring for TMG firewall computers is implemented by watching these thirteen TMG server components, each of which has their own state view folder, as well as being exposed in columns of the top-level Firewall state view:

Cache State View	Publishing-Enabled TMG Servers State
E-Mail Protection State	Reporting State
HTTPS Inspection State	SIP State
ISP Redundancy State	URL Filtering State
Malware Inspection State	VPN State
Network Inspection System State	Web Proxy State
Network Load Balancing State

Performance views in the TMG MP are simplified, with the primary view being a single dashboard view named Server: Core Performance Data. This view is optimized to compare the overall CPU time and firewall service CPU time across TMG array members or individual servers.

The TMG enterprise health topology diagram validates the ADAM (Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services) instance supporting the organization’s firewall arrays, and is represented by the health of each CSS component (known in TMG as the Enterprise Management Server, or EMS) and the health of each managed firewall array. The health of each multi-node array is represented by the NLB-redundant services running on each firewall node.

Figure 3 shows the health model of a TMG enterprise with two CSS (EMS) servers and two multi-node arrays. The NLB service of the first array is expanded to the node level.

Figure 3 - Firewall services running on multiple NLB nodes are the focus of TMG enterprise monitoring

The TMG MP adds eight reports to the OpsMgr Reporting space. Two report on top alerts and events, two target TMG performance counters, and four reports on TMG configuration data from the CSS, enterprise, array, and server perspectives. The array report, when targeted at multiple arrays in the enterprise, is a useful way to audit which TMG enterprise policy is applied to each TMG array, Figure 4 is an example of this report, invoked from the Tasks area in the Monitoring space.

Figure 4 - TMG reports assist with security configuration auditing

Tuning / Alerts to look for in the TMG MP

The rules and monitors generating false (or otherwise non-actionable) alerts will vary from one environment to another. For the alert rules mentioned here, the issues do not appear immediately after importing the management pack, rather over time during normal product use.

Alert: The SQL Server Service Broker or Database Mirroring transport is disabled or not configured.

Issue: The SQL Server MP does this check on all SQL servers. Any alert generated by this rule does not apply to TMG computers.

Resolution: Created an override that disables this rule for the class Microsoft Forefront TMG Computers.

Alert: Forefront TMG Server: Web Proxy – Current Direct Fetches Avg Ms Per Request Performance Monitor

Issue: Busy TMG servers can be noisy with this rule. The default threshold of 20 seconds per request can be modified to a higher setting to reduce alert volume.

Resolution: Disabled due to false alerts which were generated from the management pack.

Alert: Forefront TMG Server: Cache – Current Cache Fetches Avg Ms Per Request Performance Monitor

Issue: Busy TMG servers can be noisy with this rule. The default threshold of 0.3 seconds per request can be modified to a higher setting to reduce alert volume.

Resolution: Disabled due to false alerts that were generated from the management pack.

Monitor: Forefront TMG Server: Configuration State Monitor

Issue: This monitor can be a source of ‘configuration churn’ in very large OpsMgr environments that are also managing large numbers of TMG servers. Each new version of the enterprise configuration triggers a new discovery for each TMG server. This is only an issue in very large environments, and is only indicated when symptoms of configuration churn are detected.

Resolution: Disabled due to high number of object discoveries that were generated from the management pack.

Just confirmed that #DPM2010 RC is baked !!! (uploading now) Watch for #DPM blogs & tweets on the download details over the next few days.

This article contents is Microsoft Copyrighted material.
©2005-©2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Trademarks

Article ID: 941943 - Last Review: February 20, 2008 - Revision: 1.1

Hotfix Download Available
View and request hotfix downloads

View products that this article applies to.

SYMPTOMS

The HealthServiceStore.edb file size grows to several gigabytes over time in an agent that is running Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007.
Note The HealthServiceStore.edb file is located in the following folder:

Program Files/System Center Operations Manager 2007/Health Service State/ Health Service Store

CAUSE

This problem occurs when lots of optimized performance counters are collected.

RESOLUTION

Hotfix information

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support (http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/?ws=support)

Note The "Hotfix download available" form displays the languages for which the hotfix is available. If you do not see your language, it is because a hotfix is not available for that language.

Prerequisites

Restart requirement

Hotfix replacement information

Hotfix installation instructions

1. Copy the following file to a local folder or to a shared network folder:

   SYSTEMCENTEROPERATIONS2007-RTM-KB941943-X86-X64-ENU.msi

2. Run this file locally on every computer that hosts System Center Operations Manager 2007 Management Server or an agent.
   Notes
   • You can run this file from Windows Explorer or at a command prompt.
   • The Operations Manager Service is restarted when you apply the hotfix.

1. Manually update each System Center Operations Manager server and gateway server in all the management groups.
   Note You can view a list of agents that can be updated automatically by using the Operations Manager Administration console. To view this list, follow these steps:
   1. Start the Operations Manager Administration console.
   2. Expand Administration, expand Device Management, and then click Pending Management.
2. Update the agents that were manually installed after you applied the hotfix to the server. To do this by using Operations Manager 2007 Management Server, follow these steps:
   1. Start the Operations Manager Administration console.
   2. Expand Administration, expand Device Management, and then click Pending Management.
   3. View the Pending Management folder to make sure that the manual installation is approved.
   4. Open the Agent-managed Computers folder. Right-click the agent that you want, and then run the Update Agent Settings task.

File information

System Center Operations Manager 2007, x86-based versions

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

]]> Mon, 08 Feb 2010 19:53:33 GMT /BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexId/59232/Default.aspx One the irritants of update management in Essentials 2007 was the lack of any means to remove unneeded updates (superseded, declined, etc) without resorting to command line utilities (see SCE 2007 Tip: How to remove unwanted updates to reclaim disk space May 2009). This is actually been resolved in System Center Essentials 2010, with a new screen in Global Settings that allows administrators to schedule cleanup and maintenance of the WSUS database and update repository on disk. Maintenance tasks include:

• Database Maintenance – Reindexing and defragmentation of the Updates database
• Decline Unneeded updates (this is a good one!)
• Remove updates Essentials is no longer using
• Update cancelled or renewed subscriptions

And the piece that ties it all together is the Scheduled Maintenance checkbox, that allows administrators to schedule this recurring maintenance. As Ron Popeil (Ronco) says, "set it and forget it". It's on auto-pilot and SCE 2010 is keeping it clean without your intervention.

Where to find it

Goto Administration Space –> Settings and look in the Update Management category)

Conclusion

For mid-market IT support folks without time to sweat the small stuff, this is one of many great additions in Essentials 2010. Give Essentials 2010 a try – download from the product homepage at http://www.microsoft.com/sce

Hi everyone, recently we recorded a look into the new scale and performance improvements we will ship in ConfigMgr 2007 R3.  There are 3 main areas of enhancement being made to the core capabilities of ConfigMgr.  Full article click here

Simon Skinner

This also applies when focusing on an area of specialization. I am a Microsoft Operations Manager geek. I am at the point in my life where from a technical perspective I am living and breathing this particular technology on a daily basis. However, I am well aware that even within a specific technology there are people who truly alpha-geeks in an area within that technology. Within Operations Manager there are guys who know a lot more about management pack development, targeting, scripting in OpsMgr, ACS and other topics.

So what the heck does that have to do with community written books?

Over the last year a group of us who had written on System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed (www.tinyurl.com/27mqnm) came to the conclusion that there was enough new stuff within Operations Manager 2007 R2 to justify writing a book on what is new in the R2 release. We originally were going to take our four core authors, map out what was new in R2 and divide and hopefully conquer. We didn’t think it made sense to revise the current book to cover the content because the original book was comprehensive for the original product so we decided to write a supplement to the original book which would cover R2.

So what the heck does that have to do with community written books?

I’m getting there I promise. As a group we decided to try something different on this book. Instead of just writing on what was new in R2 we decided to also delve into where the community had evolved the product since the original book had been written. To make this happen, we went into the community and sought out the best of the best in their specific areas of subject matter expertise. We brought in SME’s in targeting, management pack authoring, ACS and other areas. In total this book was directly written by almost a dozen different authors or contributors who physically spanned the globe. We also received technical input and reference technical blogs which also span the globe. What I eventually realized is what should be readily apparent by now – this book was written by the community for the community.

Technology adapts quickly, and people who focus on a specific aspect of technology can quickly become the go-to-SME in that technology. With blogging people are sharing new developments more quickly and others can build on those advancements. A community written book (shepherded by a lead author for coordination) may make a lot of sense as a model for the technical book industry.

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Unleashed is currently (and unofficially) estimated to be available in mid-March so about 40 days from now we’ll see what the feedback is on this concept. Regardless of how it goes, it’s been an incredible experience being part of this technical community and to have the opportunity to work with such incredibly talented people who are part of it.

Hyper-V does not include command line management tools “in the box”, yet it provides a set of WMI interfaces which allow developers to write their own management tools. PowerShell provides a great environment for implementing command line tools and interacting with WMI. A PowerShell module is available to download from Codeplex, providing over 100 commands to manage Virtual Machines, Virtual Hard Disks, Hyper-V hosts and Clustering. This 15 minute video is a guide to the module showing all the main features.[Click to read the full post ]

Master List of Hyper-V Videos

http://www.systemcentercentral.com/WIKI/WIKIDetails/tabid/146/IndexID/36322/Default.aspx

Overview:

Microsoft System Center helps you get the most from your mission-critical messaging infrastructure with management solutions that enhance the availability features built into Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. In this webcast, we look at how System Center can improve the health and availability of your servers running Exchange with the Exchange Server 2010 Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2007 and Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007. System Center has application awareness built into its management solutions to help deliver guidance and best practices to Exchange administrators, ensuring service level agreements (SLAs) are met and saving organizations money.

Registration:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032437151&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US

Look forward to seeing you there ;-)

David Allen MVP System Center Operations Manager http://www.scdpmonline.org

SNMP Management Pack Example: NetApp Management Pack for SCOM 2007 R2 part 4 

and the finished product - NetApp Management Pack for SCOM 2007 R2

Oskar's name goes into the hat (a third time!) for the grand prize drawing at MMS 2010 in Las Vegas!

Oscar does some great blogging here at System Center Central (http://systemcentercentral.com/blogs/oskarl or RSS) and was recently the subject of on of our first Member Interviews. In case you missed, here are links to the first 3 installment of Oskar's MP authoring series:

• SNMP Management Pack Example: NetApp Management Pack for SCOM 2007 R2 part 3
• SNMP Management Pack Example: NetApp Management Pack for SCOM 2007 R2 part 2
• SNMP Management Pack example: NetApp Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 – Part 1

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. They're doing some truly amazing things in the System Center space, and not just with Operations Manager 2007. They have cross-platform solutions for ConfigMgr 2007 and even auto-provisioning solutions for  SCVMM and Hyper-V, and much more.

Click the banner below to check out Quest Management Xtensions (QMX) Solutions for System Center

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.

Previous Installments of POST OF THE WEEK

• WEEK 8: POST OF THE WEEK (Stefan H)
• WEEK 7: POST OF THE WEEK (Bob M)
• WEEK 6: POST OF THE WEEK (David Allen)
• WEEK 5: POST OF THE WEEK (Oskar Landman)
• WEEK 4: POST OF THE WEEK (Tommy Gunn)
• WEEK 3: POST OF THE WEEK (Oskar Landman)
• WEEK 2: POST OF THE WEEK (Stefan Koell)
• WEEK 1: POST OF THE WEEK (Andreas "Tenchuu" Zuckerhut)

• Agents Currently Down (grey agents)
• Total Database Size (OpsMgr and DW)
• Top Performance Data Insertions (per object / counter / instance)
• Number of Alerts Per Day
• Computers Generating Most Events

One thing all these queries have in common is that they are much more useful when used routinely as part of a daily process. And once you see a few of these in single click reports, I think you'll appreciate their convenience in maintaining a tidy OpsMgr environment.

Previous Installments

• OpsMgr Database Hygiene: Monitoring database insertions to keep your infrastructure tuned
• OpsMgr Database Hygiene Part 2: Table Size Reporting and what this information reveals...
• OpsMgr Database Hygiene Part 3: Identifying recently noisy unit monitors
• OpsMgr Database Hygiene Part 4: Identifying Rules and Instances Generating the Most Alerts

SQL Queries

Below are the queries with a brief description of their significance.

Agents Currently Down (grey agents)

Run this query for a list of agents are not reporting into their management server. Andreas Zuckerhut wrote a PowerShell query that does the same thing HERE.

SELECT bme.DisplayName,s.LastModified as 'LastModified (UTC)', 
dateadd(hh,-5,s.LastModified) as 'LastModified (Local Time)' 
FROM state AS s, BaseManagedEntity AS bme 
WHERE s.basemanagedentityid = bme.basemanagedentityid 
AND s.monitorid 
IN (SELECT MonitorId FROM Monitor WHERE MonitorName = 'Microsoft.SystemCenter.HealthService.ComputerDown') 
AND s.Healthstate = '3' AND bme.IsDeleted = '0' 
ORDER BY s.Lastmodified DESC

Total Database Size (OpsMgr and DW)

Operations Manager requires 40% free space in its databases for nightly maintenance to run successfully. Retrieving SQL database size AND free space takes some work. There is a brilliant query that provides everything you need to check your database size and free space. Get it at  http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1426

Top 100 Performance Data Insertions (per object / counter / instance)

Performance data generally the top consumer of space in the Operational database. It's a good practice to have a look at the big consumers of database space and consider disabling collection rules for counters of no interest to your support teams. A must to get some input from your team on these decisions.

select top 100 pcv.ObjectName, pcv.CounterName, count (pcv.countername) as Total 
from performancedataallview as pdv, performancecounterview as pcv 
where (pdv.performancesourceinternalid = pcv.performancesourceinternalid) 
group by pcv.objectname, pcv.countername 
order by count (pcv.countername) desc

Number of Alerts Per Day

This is a good indicator of how well-tuned your OpsMgr management packs are tuned. I believe 50 alerts per day per 1,000 agents was the goal I saw mentioned by someone from Microsoft. Bottom line is tune tune tune until you have alert traffic down to mostly actionable alerts.

SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), TimeAdded, 102) AS DayAdded, COUNT(*) AS AlertsPerDay 
FROM Alert WITH (NOLOCK) 
WHERE TimeRaised is not NULL 
GROUP BY CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), TimeAdded, 102) 
ORDER BY DayAdded DESC

Computers Generating Most Events

This query quite simply shows us which computers are consuming the most database space with collected events. Run this one against either the Operational database (OperationsManager).

SELECT top 20 LoggingComputer as ComputerName, COUNT(*) AS EventTotals 
FROM EventallView with (NOLOCK) 
GROUP BY LoggingComputer 
ORDER BY TotalEvents DESC

Remaining Installments

At this point, we're down to processes and reports where these queries come in handy...

• Next time, we will look at a troubleshooting flowchart to help define a process for leveraging this information
• We'll then wrap up the series with a couple of sample reports to demonstrate how to more conveniently collect and present this information

Jeff Wettlaufer

With this connector update, Administrators will be able to utilize valuable Application Compatibility information right from within the Configuration Manager console.  The ACT Connector provides the following functionality within the Admin console:

• Inventories installed software applications and creates reports that will assist with determining which applications are Windows compatible.
• Retrieves device driver compatibility for installed devices and creates reports that will assist with determining which device drivers will need to be upgraded to support the Windows operating system.

Read and Download

Full article and download links HERE

Issue: The rule performs a DNS query of type “NS” (as provided in the Query Type parameter), which means the query is search for the name servers of the domain provided in the Host parameter. The problem here is that the domain name provided is “www.microsoft.com”. Since this is a host name rather than a domain, the query returns a referral rather than a list of DNS servers. This results in the error message referenced above. This was occurring in MP version number 6.0.6480.0.

Resolution: You can fix the error in one of two ways (pick one, not both):

• Set the Host parameter to “microsoft.com” (without the quotes). Then the query returns a list of DNS servers for the microsoft.com domain OR
• Set the Query Type parameter to “A”. Then the query returns the IP address(es) for www.microsoft.com