Hi Guys,

Microsoft just published the Release Candidate of System Center Orchestrator 2012. You could download it at the following address : http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27842

What’s new ?

System Center Orchestrator 2012 Release Candidate

As part of the release candidate Microsoft has delivered the following features:

• Install Experience
  • Improved prerequisite checks
  • Implementation of Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), error reporting and interface with Microsoft Update
  • Allow user to log on as a service and select different service accounts for each service
  • Design Improvements( Error handling, port # for DB, increased logging, enabling log on as a service automatically)
  • UI Consistency between other System Center components
  • Time bomb(easy conversion from EVAL to licensed SKU)
• Security improvements
  • Encryption of DB connection
  • Encryption/decryption of passwords
• Globalization
  • Unicode capable
  • Convert SSH to Unicode
• Web service
  • Versioning
• Orchestration Console
  • Browse events
  • View events
  • UI Updates
• Bug fixes across all product features

System Center Orchestrator 2012 Integration Toolkit

• Rebranding, security enhancements, new generic activity icons
• Wizards can upgrade 6.3 activities and IPs to be compatible with Orchestrator
• Fixes issues with upgrading IPs multiple times
• Fixes issues with DLL / dependent file conflicts among different IPs

System Center Orchestrator 2012 Release Candidate Integration Packs

• System Center 2007 Operations Manager
• System Center 2010 Service Manager
• System Center 2008 Virtual Machine Manager
• System Center 2010 Data Protection Manager
• System Center 2007 Configuration Manager

Stay stunned for a future complete review of this new release  

Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 Resources :
Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 RC is available as public RC at the Microsoft Download Center : http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=27842

Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 Team Blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/scorch/

TechNet Forums for System Center Orchestrator : http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/systemcenterorchestrator

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

connection · Fixes · Reporting · SSH · Web

Hi All,

As you probably already noticed, Microsoft has released some days ago the new New Base OS MP 6.0.6957.0.

This management pack adds a lot of new cool functionalities that Kevin Holman explained on his blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2011/09/30/opsmgr-new-base-os-mp-6-0-6956-0-adds-cluster-shared-volume-monitoring-bpa-and-many-changes.aspx

Now after several days, we’re starting to notice that this new management pack has also some “bugs” :

1: Report execution might fail because of lacking proper security settings on a Stored Procedure;
2: Importing the MP might fail when one has many overrides in place for diskspace. All because of a spelling error;
3: Knowledge is out of date for the new default values in the free space monitors;
4: The BPA monitors can be noisy for Server 2008R2 systems;
5: The “performance by utilization” report section dealing with Logical Disk % Idle time is upside down: the lowest idle time values are on top (100% Idle time is the lowest) and the highest idle time (anything close to 10% or even less) are on the bottom.
6: Impossible to deploy the new reports on SQL2005

Marnix Wolf and Bob Cornelissen started to report these bugs on their own blogs :

http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/2011/10/more-than-one-lets-ask-for-new-improved.html
http://www.bictt.com/blogs/bictt.php/2011/10/04/asking-for-a-quick-fix

Marnix also took the really good initiative to open a bug report on connect :

If you also noticed these bugs, please go to the link below and share your experience :

https://connect.microsoft.com/OpsMgr/feedback/details/692944/new-server-os-mp-version-6-0-6956-0-has-some-bad-bugs

This is not a flame or something like that, just an initiative to get a fixed and working MP very soon with all the great new stuff that was added and without at least most of the issues!

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

link · noisy · operations manager · opsmgr · Scom

Hi Guys,

Last week, with my friend Kurt Van Hoecke (SCSM Expert), we delivered two sessions at Microsoft Belgium on System Center Orchestrator 2012. These sessions have been recorded and are now available online on Technet.

System Center Orchestrator 2012: An Overview by Kurt Van Hoecke.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/video/system-center-orchestrator-2012-an-overview

System Center Orchestrator 2012: Migration Plan by Christopher Keyaert.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/video/system-center-orchestrator-2012-migration-plan

Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 Resources :
Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 beta is available as public beta at the Microsoft Download Center : http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26503

Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 Team Blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/scorch/

TechNet Forums for System Center Cross Platform and Interoperability :http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/scinterop

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

online · SCSM · System · Team · TechNet

Hi Everyone,

Last week, I’ve been called by one of my customer, who told me that they saw a huge performance degradation of their SCOM2007 R2 environment.

This customer has a quite big infrastructure, around 2200 servers, using Nworks MP, NetApp MP, Oracle Enterprise Manager connector, Opalis 6.3, Scheduling maintenance mode ….. This environment was working well since a long time and no major modification has been done so far.

The symptoms :

• Taking more 10 min for connecting to the console.
• Console navigation extremely slow or not responding.
• High CPU usage on the RMS.
• Very high CPU usage on the DB Cluster.
• Connection lost time to time to the DBs

After we checked everything we could, it was time to call the Microsoft Premier Support. After several days of investigation with them, we didn’t identity clearly the root cause. so, It was time to turn off one by one each connectors, each third party software that were connecting to Operations Manager.

It took time but we finally found which application was causing our nightmare since several days…. it was the Maintenance Mode Scheduling Tool.

This tool has been released part of the Administration Resource Kit for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 published by Operations Manager Product Team some months ago. More information available here : http://blogs.technet.com/b/jimmyharper/archive/2011/07/14/maintenance-mode-scheduling-tool.aspx

This is really an excellent tool that provide you an user interface for scheduling maintenance mode of your servers. My customer was using it a lot for disabling the monitoring during batch processing, planned reboot and so on.

Since we turned it off by disabling the rule Maintenance Mode Workflow, the Operations Manager infrastructure went back to business. So I continued to investigate on why this tools was causing all our troubles and I finally found this post : http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2011/06/21/schedule-maintenance-mode-reskit-tool-info.aspx

Best Practices:

• Do not go beyond 20 Jobs scheduled.  Anything over this will start to place too much load on your Root Management Server
• Do not schedule more then 20 items in one Job.  If you need to go over this please create a group and target this.  Note: The MP has a bug that only limits you to select up to six objects.  I have attached an updated MP that corrects this issue below.
• When scheduling a group make sure to select system.group then select the group.  If you select the group itself the tool lists the individual group membership.

My customer had more than 40 Jobs scheduled…. so we were clearly not respecting the best practice and that was explaining why our performance degradation came slowly day per day.

Currently, the only solution that we have for scheduling maintenance mode without using that’s tool is to come back to a PowerShell script that we will run from a windows schedule task.

Resources :
System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Evaluation : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/om/bb498233

Technet Forums : http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/systemcenteroperationsmanager

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

high cpu usage · operations manager · performance degradation · scheduling tool · Scom

Hi everyone,

Just a little post for telling you that the System Center Opalis Integration Server 6.3 Unleashed book is now in stock at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/System-Center-Opalis-Integration-Unleashed/dp/0672335611/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315594827&sr=8-1

I already received my copy, do you have yours ?

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

copy · Integration · KEYAERT · stock · System

Step into the System Center Virtual Labs for Free

It's simple: no complex setup or installation is required to try out System Center running in the full-featured TechNet Virtual Lab. You get a downloadable manual and a 90-minute block of time for each module. You can sign up for additional 90-minute blocks any time.

• TechNet Virtual Lab: Opalis: Building Advanced Policies
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Opalis: Building Error Handling into Policies
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Opalis: Controlling Policy Execution with Advanced Functions
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Opalis: Creating Basic Policies with Foundation Objects
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Opalis: Creating Your Own Integration Pack with the QIK
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Opalis: Incorporating Advanced Logic into Your Policies
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Introduction to Opalis

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

Handling · Incorporating · Integration · opalis · System

Hello Microsoft Community,

I’m proud to tell you that I just received a Microsoft Community Contributor 2011 Award for my contribution to the Microsoft Online Community through Technet Forums, vNext.be and Scug.be  

Thank you !

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

Christopher · Community · KEYAERT · microsoft · Scug

Hi Everyone,

Kurt Vanhoucke and myself will present two sessions about System Center Orchestrator 2012.

Event Details

Come and join us for our first event after the hot summer months. During this event we will discuss the new System Center Orchestrator, what has changed, new integration packs and also how to migrate from Opalis 6.3 to SCORCH.

Agenda

Thursday, September 29, 2011 from 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM (GMT+0100)

Location

Microsoft Belgium
Leonardo Da Vincilaan 3
Zaventem
Belgium

or Online via LiveMeeting (Lync)

Registration

Go to the registration website.

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

Migration · Orchestrator · pizza · Thursday · Vincilaan

Get a sneak peak preview of System Center Orchestrator and see what Opalis can do in your environment today.

By combining the power of the system center suite, we will demonstrate an entire workflow automated through Opalis. This will provide the attendees a view of the Opalis solution and how to implement runbook solutions with or without other System Center Products.

Watch the video : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/introduction-to-opalis-and-a-sneak-peek-at-system-center-orchestrator

Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 Resources :
Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 beta is available as public beta at the Microsoft Download Center : http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26503

Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 Team Blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/scorch/

TechNet Forums for System Center Cross Platform and Interoperability :http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/scinterop

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

blog · opalis · Orchestrator · platform · technet microsoft

The Audit Trail is a collection of text file logs that contain information about the interaction of a Runbook with external tools and systems. This provides a quick method to identify what and who made changes for audit purposes.

How to activate/deactivate the Audit Trail:

• Open a command prompt with the Run as administrator privilege.
  
  
• and go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft System Center\Orchestrator 2012\Opalis Integration Server\Management Service
   
  
• To activate the Audit Trail: atlc /enable
  
  
• To deactivate the Audit Trail: atlc /disable
   

Where are the audit files ?

In the folder : C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft System Center\Orchestrator 2012\Opalis Integration Server\Management Service\Audit

The file contains information about the date and time at which the policy was launched, the user name and domain that launched the policy, the name of the computer where the policy ran, and the name of the policy that was launched.

In the folder : C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft System Center\Orchestrator 2012\Opalis Integration Server\Action Server\Audit

The file contains information about the date and time at which the activity ran, the name of the action server it ran on, the ID of the Policy Module that ran it, and the Object XML.

For having a better view, I advise your to copy/paste the output into a XML indenter tool (Example : http://xmlindent.com/).

Depending on how many policies you run and how many objects those policies contain, the Audit Trail may consume a large amount of disk space on the computer that runs the management server and action server. (When a file reaches 200 megabytes in size, a new file is created) Two solutions, active it only when needed and cleaned the files after, or create a little Runbook for archiving these files to another location.

Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 Resources :
Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 beta is available as public beta at the Microsoft Download Center : http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26503

Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 Team Blog : http://blogs.technet.com/b/scorch/

TechNet Forums for System Center Cross Platform and Interoperability :http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/scinterop

TechNet Library – Audit Trail : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg464925.aspx

Cheers
Christopher KEYAERT
http://twitter.com/keyaertc

collection · indenter · policy · Runbook · TechNet