1) Reduced servicing

2) Reduced management

3) Reduced attack surface

4) Less disk space required

Additionally I was hoping to see a decrease in the memory footprint which would allow me to add more virtuals onto a system running core instead of the full version of Windows.

My test lab included two identical Windows 2008 R2 SP1 hardware configurations running an I7 processor with 24 gb of memory. HyperV03 was installed with a  full version of Windows and HyperV04 was installed on a core version of windows.

My testing results for the 4 benefits listed above:

1) On both servers I have had a total of about 80 updates applied since I started this test (not including forefront endpoint definition updates).

2) Management on the core server itself is reduced – as you don’t often want to log into the server to manage it. This however realistically moves the management to other servers or to other tools such as CoreConfig to manage the server. Once Hyper-V was functional on this system, I was able to use SCVMM almost exclusively to manage the core Hyper-V system.

3) I see the logic that the attack surface is reduced – less code to attack means less surface to attack but I can’t provide any specific details here yet. More below.

4) On my core system I saw a significant decrease in disk space usage with 6.2 gb in the Windows directory versus 16.6 gb in the Windows directory for the full version of windows.

Memory test results:

The memory tests I were the primary item I was interested in because the only reason I had to expect extra available memory was the decrease in the attack surface which would hopefully result in a decrease of the number of processes and services running on the system. For this test I shut down all virtuals running on both of my Hyper-V servers and compared their available memory and the number of processes running on the server.

HyperV03: (Full Windows)

The full version of Windows was running a total of 59 processes, using 7% of physical memory and had a total of 21913 mb of free memory.

HyperV04: (Core)

The core version of Windows was running a total of 45 processes (14 less), using 7% of physical memory (identical) and had a total of 22120 mb of free memory (207 mb of additional free memory).

While running on core did decrease the number of processes from 59 down to 45 this did not have any significant impact on the amount of free space in a server especially one with 24 gb of available memory.

Management of core:

Management of the core version of Windows is another big item to factor into the decision whether to use it on Hyper-V or not. While you can still RDP into the core version, most of the commonly used utilities to configure the Operating System are not available. The shift that occurred with me on core was to use other Windows servers to manage my core system as management of it locally required a very different approach than I am used to as a Windows administrator of full Operating Systems. Additionally other items were more complex to manage such as configuration for DPM:

As an example for DPM I had to manually install the agent, attach it and set it’s configuration as shown below:

Patch management can be done through Configuration Manager, but for checking patches and performing common actions I highly recommend the Core Configuration 2.0 tool available on codeplex: http://coreconfig.codeplex.com/

However, once the server was configured and patched and running Hyper-V I was able to manage it from that point forward using System Center Virtual Machine Manager and at some points I actually forgot that one of the servers was running the core version of Windows.

Summary: Hyper-V running on core versus running on a full version of Windows? Here’s my assessment:

1) Reduced servicing – The number of updates which have been applied on both servers were similar over a period of several months.

2) Reduced management – Management work is done far less often on the actual core Operating System.

3) Reduced attack surface – Based upon the number of processes alone this is a logical conclusion.

4) Less disk space required – Confirmed with approximately 10 gb less space used in the Windows directory alone.

And my two items I wanted to check:

5) Memory footprint – No significant decrease on memory required unless it is a server with a very small amount of memory available to use.

6) Management complexity -  It is more complex to manage a windows core server if you (like me) are not used to managing it.

So, my summary of the summary – If it’s important to decrease your attack surface or you have critical space issues definitely look into core but you need to go into it with your eyes wide open that management of core is a different beast especially up to the stage where SCVMM can take over management of the system.

1) Increasing performance – the new solution needed to be functioning at a reasonable or better level of performance

2) New equipment – her new equipment needed to replaced the old equipment but she still needed to access her old system

3) Minimal impact – make it intuitive to use what applications she is used to while still accomplishing #1 and #2 above

So, if you are an IT geek who is working with SCVMM what are you thinking at this point? Yep! It’s Physical to Virtual time…

Here’s the steps that I used to perform our laptop migration using SCVMM 2012 RC, Terminal Services, and Windows 7:

1. On her current computer, I disabled the firewall and asked her to save out whatever she was working on (ok, she ignored me on the second half but I swear I told her to get out of Outlook)
2. On SCVMM I performed a PtoV migrate of her current system and activated it one of my HyperV servers
3. I shut down her original laptop after the PtoV migration was completed and logged into the version on the HyperV server (the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI if you prefer) through SCVMM
4. After validating that the PtoV version of her laptop was working, I shut it down and changed the hardware configuration from 1 processor and 1 gb of memory to 4 processors and 4 gb of memory and restarted it.
5. I removed her original laptop and replaced it with the new laptop.
6. On her new laptop I created an RDP connection to her original laptop which was configured to run full screen, allowing access to all local devices and resources and optimized performance for the Local Area Network. I put the shortcut to the RDP connection on the desktop of her new laptop. RDP performance is optimized as this is a new Windows 7 laptop connecting to a virtual running Windows 7.
7. The result so far meets the three requirements above (performance is significantly improved, using the new laptop and she can continue to almost as she was before the migration). We are starting to migrate her to running applications on the local desktop (internet explorer, office, etc). Her original applications are still accessible through the virtual version of her laptop and we will migrate these applications off of the virtual version of the laptop over time.

The following are the RDP configurations I used to connect to the virtual version of the laptop:

[The two images missing are available at: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2012/02/06/system-center-virtual-machine-manager-scvmm-home-networks-and-vdi.aspx]

Summary: This provides a relatively simple example of how VDI can become part of an environment as part of a laptop replacement solution by performing a PtoV for laptops which are being decommissioned.

P.S. On a personal note I’m not saying that SCVMM can save your marriage but it I this case it certainly helped mine!

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.]

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!

(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!

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

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!

• Packaging and Pricing change: simplified the pricing from 8 SKU’s down to 2 SKU’s [System Center Standard, System Center Data Center]. From the technical chat: “SMSE will transition to SC 2012 Standard and SMSD will transition to SC 2012 Datacenter Edition. Both will maintain existing rights plus additional benefits.” “SC 2012 Standard and Datacenter will both be offered through SPLA.” “All customers with SA on existing licenses will transition to the new integrated product SC 2012 with equal or better use rights than they have today.”
• Notification that System Center 2012 RC is publicly available and represents eight products brought into a single suite (Virtual Machine Manager, Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, Service Manager, Orchestrator, EndPoint Protection, App Controller & Data Protection Manager).

Additional tidbits from the technical chat session: [The information below is only gathered from chat users identified as MSFT and was not specifically stated by the presenters in this presentation. Per the chat session “the users with MSFT after their name are part of our Microsoft team of experts here at the event”.]

• Upgrade from System Center 2012 RC to System Center 2012 RTM is only supported if you are in the TAP. “while we expect RC to deliver a great evaluation - you will need to do a clean install at general availability.”
• Configuration Manager and Unix/Linux: “We have announced that we will add unix/linux management agents to ConfigMgr 2012 - these agents will be delivered after GA. We are aware of the demand for Mac management, but we do not have anything to announce at this time. If you need Mac management today, we have partners like Quest who provide Mac management on the System Center infrastructure.”
• Microsoft sees the cloud as great virtualization plus management.
• System Center Essentials: “Our primary offering for SMB is System Center Essentials, which isn't impacted by today's announcement. As we move forward with the development of System Center 2012, we remain committed to providing a “right-sized” set of management functionality and tools for IT in the midmarket that makes it easy for these customers to setup and manage Hyper V. Details on our midmarket management strategy will be released in the months ahead.” “We're not yet announcing planned updates to SCE at this time. We'll have more here in the next few months.”
• Unified Installer for System Center 2012. “there is a unified installer available in RC as part of this System Center RC. that will allow you to do a clean install of all the System Center 2012 components in one experience.” More information is available at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh751290.aspx

This also has had an impact on the various System Center related MVP groups. To reflect this several of the MVP groups have been consolidated (SCDPM, SCVMM, and SCOM MVPs) into a single new “System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management” MVP group. The links and screenshots showing this are shown below.

https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/MVP.aspx

https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/communities/mvp.aspx?product=1&competency=System+Center+Cloud+and+Datacenter+Management

Summary: While I’m no longer an SCOM or OpsMgr MVP – I look forward to being a System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management [SC-CDM] MVP! (And from the list above I’m in good company!)

· SDK Service

o Console access and role based access control

o Connectors to other management systems

· Health Service

o Notifications

o Group Calculations

o Availability

o Dependency Monitor

o Health aggregation

o DB Grooming

· Configuration Service

o Distribution of configurations to agents

The RMS was both a single point of failure and a potential bottleneck.

In SCOM 2012 the Root Management Server was removed but an RMS Emulator role (RMSE) has been retained. These seem to be logical next-step questions to ask based upon the new RMSE:

· What we know about the RMS Emulator?

· Does the RMS Emulator do all of the same items that the RMS originally provided?

· Are there other things we should be aware of related to resource pools?

· What classes should be used to target instead of using the RootManagementServer class?

Questions/answers below to these are below:

What we know about the RMS Emulator?

· The RMS Emulator Role is assigned to the first Management Server installed in the management group. This role can be moved to another Management Server using PowerShell:

o To find out the current RMS Emulator - Get-SCOMRMSEmulator

o To move the RMS Emulator role, you need to use the Set-SCOMRMSEmulator

§ Get-SCOMManagementServer –Name | Set-SCOMRMSEmulator

· From - http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2011/08/22/topology-changes-in-system-center-2012-operations-manager-overview.aspx - In order for us to not to break backwards compatibility and provide support for legacy management packs we decided to leave the Root Management Server instance and add a special role to one of the management servers in the Management group called the RMS Emulator. This RMS Emulator is only for backwards compatibility to legacy management packs and is in no way required for the management group to function correctly.” An example of a management pack which contains a workflow which would require the RMS Emulator is shown below:

The RMS Emulator Role is only necessary to trick those workflows that were targeted to the RMS into thinking that the RMS still exists.

Subset from http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2011/08/22/topology-changes-in-system-center-2012-operations-manager-overview.aspx “At this point you may be wondering about workflows targeted to the RMS that are outside of the OpsMgr product groups control (other management packs from different Microsoft teams or third party vendors). They have all been moved to target Resource Pools OR singleton objects (that also live in the “all management servers” pool). Other applications management packs or custom management packs might still want to find that object, and that is the only reason why this object exists. The OpsMgr management packs don’t target the RMS object anymore which brings us onto Resource Pools.

Does the RMS Emulator do all of the same items that the RMS originally provided?

The majority of the services previously provided by the RMS can now be performed by any management server and as a result inherently provide redundancy when multiple management servers exist in the appropriate management server resource pool.

The services which were previously managed by the RMS are listed below with their new homes:

· Console access: Role based access control is done by ANY SDK Service when you connect to it. Any management server although you can control which management server (as with some other SDK activity) via Load Balancing. To use load balancing provide users with the virtual name of the Management Server load-balancing pool and just add management servers into and out of the resource pool on the load balancer.

· Role based access control: Role based access control is done by ANY SDK Service when you connect to it

· Distribution of configurations to agents: Distribution of configurations to agents is done by any MS for its agents (“federated config service”)

· Connectors to other mgmt systems: Connectors to other mgmt systems can “talk to” any MS they like – like consoles

· Alert notifications: Alert notifications is a workflow, runs in a pool [Notifications Resource Pool]

· Group Calculations: Group Calculations is a workflow, runs in pools and or distributed across MS’s depending on which MS owns which group/container [All Management Servers Resource Pool]

· Availability: Availability – runs distributed as usual – pieces on the agent, pieces on the MS’s, depending on which MS owns which group/container/singleton object [All Management Servers Resource Pool]

· Dependency Monitor: Dependency Monitor – runs where the corresponding objects live… on one of the servers in the “all management servers” pool

· Health aggregation: Health aggregation is a workflow, runs in pools and or distributed across MS’s depending on which MS owns which container [All Management Servers Resource Pool]

· DB Grooming: DB Grooming – runs in a pool [All Management Servers Resource Pool]

· Enables model based mgmt: While the RMS handed some of the model based management

Are there other things we should be aware of related to resource pools?

· Resource pools only cover Health Service functionality.

· Resource pools do not cover Config service – There is now a distributed configuration with a Configuration Service on every management server. Failover and assignment works as it did in OpsMgr 2007 R2.

<side-bar of extra cool OpsMgr goodness

The config service was rewritten almost from scratch. It has a new service name – the original was OMCFG and the new is CSHOST. The data is now federated among management servers, all contributing to the configuration. A new set of tables were created in the OpsDB (CS.*) to persist the instance space (as opposed to having it all in memory like the old config service did). The “new set of tables” is called the Configuration Store (hence the CS.* schema), and was initially meant to be a separate database, but was then collapsed into OpsDB after it was understood that it really would not impact performance to keep the two together – as it is one less DB to maintain and backup, so easier for the user.

</side-bar of extra cool OpsMgr goodness

· Resource Pools don’t cover SDK functionality which you demo by connecting to a management server or reporting through a console. If you stop the sdk service on the management server you are connected to then the console or reporting won’t failover to another management server. But you can leverage load balancing to achieve this.

What classes should be used to target instead of using the RootManagementServer class?

This will vary depending upon the requirements for the management pack which is being developed but primarily the Microsoft.SystemCenter.AllManagementServersPool class from the Microsoft.SystemCenter.Library management pack would be used for a 'general' server-based workflows. Another option is to create your own singleton class that "makes sense" for your application, and target that one. Many other workflows will need a different pool as a target (like a "user pools" or a pools for network device monitoring or a pool for Linux/Unix monitoring).

Summary: The RMS Emulator only provides backward compatibility to management pack using things which target the ‘Root Management Server’ class instance (Target=”SC!Microsoft.SystemCenter.RootManagementServer). The RMS emulator is hosted on a management server and as such it does a lot of activities that aren’t specific to the RMSE role. Everything else the RMS used to be responsible for is managed by the “All Management Servers Resource Pool”, the “Notifications Resource Pool” and the “AD Assignment Resource Pool”.

Additional reading links:

Link to find RMS emulator and how to move it: http://scug.be/blogs/christopher/archive/2012/01/09/scom-2012-move-rms-emulator-role.aspx

Rob’s article on this topic: http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2011/08/22/topology-changes-in-system-center-2012-operations-manager-overview.aspx

I owe a huge thanks to the entire OpsMgr MVP community for their assistance in dumbing this down to my level! Specific thanks to: (alphabetically since so many folks helped with this!)

• Alexey Zhuravlev
• Daniele Muscetta
• Gordon McKenna
• Graham Davies
• Łukasz Rutkowski
• Kerrie Meyler
• Marcus Oh
• Marnix Wolf
• Yann Gainche

Here’s an example of a channel defined with multiple SMTP options in OpsMgr 2012:

Additional readings on Exchange Back Pressure is available at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201658.aspx

Summary: Even in environments with highly available Exchange servers, it is still best practice to define multiple SMTP servers in a channel for OpsMgr.

“Can you have both explicit and dynamic members in a group?  Simple question but no one seems to address it.”

Just to keep this extra-interesting I tried this in OpsMgr 2012. First I created a dynamic group based upon servers containing the name “cloud” in my environment which when viewing group members looks like this:

Next I added one of my hyper-v hosts (hyperv01) which didn’t match the naming convention as an explicit member to the group and the results on group membership is what we would expect below:

[There is a problem with this image posting here, please see http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2012/01/07/a-quick-question-about-groups-in-opsmgr-scom.aspx for the missing graphic]

Summary: In OpsMgr you can create a group which has both Dynamic members and Static members in the same group. If you wanted to get tricky with it you could create three groups – One which has the dynamic, one with the static, and the third which includes the other two as sub-groups.

(Hey, Cameron’s back from vacation and finally started blogging again !)

One of my colleagues was using the OpsMgr 2007 console which was missing the folder view on the left side of the screen (shown below in the reporting pane in OpsMgr 2012 as one example):

What’s the quick way to return this to the view? Use Alt-F1 and it re-opens the view as shown below.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/announcing-system-center-operations-manager-2

• Integrating the OpsMgr web console: How to find the URL’s to link in to dashboards
• Creating company specific dashboards
• Service Level Dashboard: Installation challenges
• Service Level Dashboard: Creating multiple unique SLD sites
• Service Level Dashboard: Developing SLT’s which show availability with and without maintenance windows
• Service Level Dashboard: Using the prebuilt SLD reports
• Visio integration: Installation challenges
• Visio integration: Creating a Visio integrated diagram from a Distributed Application
• Visio integration: Changing where links go
• Visio integration: The zoom trick
• Visio integration: Customizing linked items and how they represent their health state
• Visio integration: Creating a network connectivity map and using color to represent state
• Service Manager: What to include (and not to include) in customized Service Manager dashboards
• Third Party dashboarding solutions: Silect
• Third Party dashboarding solutions: Bay Dynamics
• Custom dashboarding in Visual Studio
• Server health: Creating a health state for a group of servers in a dashboard
• Bringing it all together into one NOC dashboard
• Lessons learned – dashboard technologies and when to use each
• OpsMgr 2012 built-in Dashboards [article in Windows IT Pro due for release early 2012]

The last of these series were posted yesterday – this post is to provide the final links for all of the blog posts in this series!

“Server Operating System: must be Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1”

But, that doesn’t seem to explicitly sound like it won’t run on core. A quick search of the word Core in the same document only references Core XML services (cool, but not relevant to this conversation).

Ok, so sometimes you just gotta try. Installed a Windows Server 2008 R2 on Enterprise core. Copied over the bits for System Center Operations Manager 2012 RC and ran the installation. Result below:

Ummm. No… Or denied. Or just plain ERROR.

Summary: As of OpsMgr 2012 RC, server core doesn’t seem to be an option for a Management Server.

For the test, we created an OU and moved a subset of servers to that OU.

Next we create a new MP (DynamicDA in this example) from the Administration pane, Management Packs

From the Authoring pane create a dynamic group based upon the OU containing our DynamicDA OU:

Verify the members of the group are correct by right-clicking on the group and choose View Group Members (it may take a while for OpsMgr to identify what computers have been moved to a new OU)

We see three of the five servers as part of this Dynamic group now (cloud-sm03 and cloud-sm04 are agentless monitored so they do not apply in this group – only agent managed servers).

Create a DA with a server included (adding a Windows Server in the environment shown below as an example)

(If we just try to add the group directly instead of using this method, health does not roll up  as shown below from OpsMgr 2012 RC)

Export xml for the Management Pack from the Administration pane, Management Packs

Replace the hard-coded server section of the XML with the dynamic group section in the XML (using http://blogs.technet.com/b/brianwren/archive/2008/01/26/dynamically-populating-component-groups-in-distributed-applications.aspx  as reference). The example below as configured for the Computers OU as an example.

Goes into:

Resulting in:

Update the version number at the top:

Import the updated Management Pack: (if it will not import, something when wrong when editing the XML – go back to that stage)

Open the Distributed Application in the Monitoring pane, Distributed Applications and open it in a Diagram View. If all went well, we should see the group and health of the servers in the group:

From here we can change rollup to be based upon our requirements for health for this group. The example below shows as healthy until at least 60% of the servers are not in a healthy state.

Two of the three servers unavailable (66%):

One of the three servers unavailable (33%):

Here’s the same DA with a fourth server agent identified from the OU:

NOTE: Once you have made this change, you can no longer update the Distributed Application in the Distributed Application Designer (ok, you can but you will need to re-update the XML as shown above).

Summary: It is possible to create Distributed Applications based upon components which are dynamic such as OU membership. These DA’s can then be tied into a top level NOC view which provides the overall health of the set of servers based upon how you have defined the rollup for health for your group of servers!

Additional readings on this topic:

Kevin Holman’s article covers steps to create a group based upon an OU: http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2008/02/05/creating-a-group-based-on-ou-organizational-unit-in-active-directory.aspx

Brian Wren on how to make the DA dynamic: http://blogs.technet.com/b/brianwren/archive/2008/01/26/dynamically-populating-component-groups-in-distributed-applications.aspx

How can I quickly skill up on OpsMgr 2012 – The Top 10 List!

1) Try it! There is nothing like hands-on experience with a product. Download and install it from here!

2) CEP: Join the Community Evaluation Program (CEP) to “evaluate early versions of products with guidance from the product team and by sharing of experiences and best practices among a community of peers.”

3) SCU: Sign up for the upcoming System Center Universe event!

4) Webinars, Podcasts, slides: Use free online resources:

• What is public knowledge on OpsMgr 2012?
• Microsoft OpsMgr 2012 website
• Critical Considerations when Migrating Webinar and Slides
• Critical Considerations when Migrating Q&A
• Top 5 Reasons to Migrate Webinar and Slides
• Top 5 Reasons to Migrate Q&A
• Inside Podcast on OpsMgr 2012
• RunAs Radio interview on OpsMgr 2007 and 2012
• Talk Technet Radio interview on OpsMgr 2007 and 2012
• Twitter – watch #SCOM

5) Gotta-know-url’s:

• SystemCenterCentral
• MyITForum
• Thoughts on OpsMgr (Marnix Wolf)
• Kevin Holman's Blogs.TechNet
• System Center Operations Manager blog

6) Catapult System Center 2012 Roadmap: Catapult can assist with learning more on OpsMgr 2012 on-site as part of the roadmap project for System Center 2012 (contact via this blog article with a comment or from an email to info@catapultsystems.com)

7) Books: Currently there are none available for OpsMgr 2012 but when it releases I recommend the System Center Operations Manager 2012 Unleashed book as I know who is authoring on it and the proposed content.

8) Microsoft Forums: There is nothing currently available for OpsMgr 2012 yet but I expect that they will arrive here at RTM

9) Training Classes: Historically InFront’s training crew has been at the front line of new training, look for when they are scheduling System Center classes: http://www.infrontconsulting.com/training.php

10) Virtual Labs: Nothing available for OpsMgr 2012 yet but may arrive here

Do you know of other ways to skill up on OpsMgr 2012? If so, please post them here!

“We want dashboards” – isn’t quite sufficient for requirements. Specifically we’re looking for items like:

1) The goal is to provide  NOC dashboard

2) We want a C-level dashboard

3) We want our application owners to have custom dashboards for their apps

4) We need to know if we are meeting our service level agreements

As a next step, I recommend working from here: (subset taken from http://www.windowsitpro.com/content1/topic/operations-manager-dashboards/catpath/systems-management/page/2)

Swiss Army Approach

No single Operations Manager dashboard solution includes all the information you might want in a dashboard (e.g., state integration, service-level tracking, charts, gauges). Using dashboards in Operations Manager is much like using a Swiss Army knife: A variety of options let you integrate different dashboard solutions.

Table 1 summarizes the services provided by the dashboard technologies that I discuss in the article.

Table 2 summarizes the options available for integrating these dashboard solutions, including their functionality.

Operations Manager 2007 has numerous options for robust dashboard functionality. Which dashboard options you choose will vary depending on your organization's requirements. For more information about using Operations Manager dashboards, see the Learning Path.”

When you add to the 3rd party solutions from Silect and Bay Dynamics that adds more options to the table that need to be assessed. My overall recommendation however is still the same. We identify what the requirements are, compare that with the tools available and choose the right tool (or tools) required to meet the business requirements.

Summary: Do you want to know what dashboard technologies to use for OpsMgr? Determine the business’ requirements for dashboards, assess them compared to the options available above and use the right tool (or tools) to meet the requirements.