System Center Advisor (formerly Microsoft codename “Atlanta”) is a cloud service that enables IT professionals to assess their server configuration and proactively avoid problems. With System Center Advisor, support staff is able to resolve issues faster by accessing current and historical configuration data, all with the security features that meet their needs. Additionally, System Center Advisor helps reduce downtime by providing suggestions for improvement, and notifying customers of key updates specific to their configuration.

The basic idea is to have your servers monitored in a Microsoft Cloud, with a web interface for the management part. Technically, you will need to have a gateway server in your enterprise (A gateway is just a server which has an internet access and all your monitored servers will contact to that gateway for updating informations to the cloud and not directly to internet).

Attention, currently System Center Advisor only supports the monitor of Windows Server 2008, Sql Server 2008 and some AD part.

System Requirements

The System Center Advisor agent and gateway require either 32-bit or 64-bit versions of:
Windows Server 2008 or later

The System Center Advisor agent analyzes both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of:

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 or later
Windows Server 2008 or later

To access the System Center Advisor web portal you will need a browser that supports Silverlight 4.0, such as Internet Explorer 7.0 or later.

Let’s starting:

Microsoft just published the RC of Advisor, and as it’s free for the moment, it’s the right time to test it. Just go on https://www.systemcenteradvisor.com/ and create an account thanks to you Windows Live ID.

Once your account created, you have to download the Certificate and the setup program. This certificate will be used for authentication between the Microsoft Advisor Cloud and your Gateway server. You don’t need to add this certificate in your certificate store, the setup will ask for it during the installation process, nothing more.

Once your gateway ready, the process will install the Operations Manager Agent. You don’t need to have a Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 infrastructure in place, System Center Advisor will just installed the agent and configured it for working with the Microsoft Advisor Cloud.

When everything, we will have to wait some times for having data retrieved in your web console

Overview

The web console has 5 min parts:

• Alerts: in that view, we could see all your servers’ alerts and manage it. Changing the status, disabling not needed alert…

• Configuration : In that part, we have a global snapshot of the current configuration of your servers

  

• Change History : History of your configuration changes

• Servers : View of all your monitored servers and gateways

  

   

• Account: In that part we could manage your user access (base on Windows Live Id), the name of your company and closing your company account.

Conclusion

Microsoft System Center Advisor could be really a great product for small companies that don’t have the money and the resources for the implementation of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2. The setup is really quick and the entire configuration is saved in the Microsoft Cloud.

Currently Advisor has only a few monitoring rules for AD, Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008. I hope that Microsoft will soon add all the rules/monitors available in the different OpsMgr Management packs.

I invite you to read the comment of Paul Mestemaker / Sr. Program Manager / Microsoft / System Center Advisor below.

Below, all the alerts that could you have with Microsoft System Center Advisor RC:

I invite you to read the comment of Paul Mestemaker / Sr. Program Manager / Microsoft / System Center Advisor below.

advisor · cloud · microsoft · monitoring · system center

Dear All,

If you have just installed the Lync Server 2010 Management Pack and then you have also Linux / UNIX servers monitored by your System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 environment, it’s possible that you will be flooded by “Secure Reference Override Failure” alerts in the console and Event ID 1107 in the event viewer of all the management servers that are currently monitoring Linux / UNIX servers.

The Health Service on computer bramomms001.xxxx.com failed to resolve SecureReference override. This issue may affect multiple instances. Additional details: Account for RunAs profile in workflow “Microsoft.Linux.RHEL.4.Process.Syslog.Restart”, running for instance “Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 8)” with id:”{FBAA7FEC-9E05-6981-C6A6-97BA710C9111}” is not defined. Workflow will not be loaded. Please associate an account with the profile. Management group “xxx”

The Health Service on computer bramomms001.xxxx.com failed to resolve SecureReference override. This issue may affect multiple instances. Additional details: Account for RunAs profile in workflow “Microsoft.Linux.RHEL.4.Process.Udev.Diagnostic”, running for instance “Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 8)” with id:”{FBAA7FEC-9E05-6981-C6A6-97BA710C9111}” is not defined. Workflow will not be loaded. Please associate an account with the profile. Management group “xxxxx”

This is caused by a problem with the “Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Profile” and the Linux / UNIX profile. The cause is not really clear, but this is related with the Run As Accounts used by Lync Server 2010 management pack that is targeted to “All targeted objects” and not to “Windows Computer” class only.

As this management pack is sealed, we will not be able to do any modification to the existing entry. If you try, you will receive the following error message:

Currently, there is no official fix about this problem. I personally opened one thread on TechNet Forums:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/operationsmanagergeneral/thread/3e56d173-fff7-443d-8821-894194cc8418/

And also a bug report on Connect Portal:

https://connect.microsoft.com/OpsMgr/feedback/details/649914/lync-2010-mp-linux-secure-reference-override-alerts-appear-just-after-mp-import

With the help of Microsoft Premier Support, we found a workaround for fixing that issue. Remember, tried this workaround at your own risks and this is not supported by Microsoft.

As this management pack is sealed, we need to export it with Microsoft PowerShell by using the following command:

Get-managementpack | Where-object {$_.DisplayName -eq “Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Management Pack”} | export-managementpack -path D:\MpExtract\

Now, from the SCOM console, in the Administration pane, Management Packs, you have to delete the installed “Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Management Pack”.

Import the management pack that you just exported (xml file) with the PowerShell command:

After the import of the management pack, you have the possibility to modify the “Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Profile” and change the “This Run As Account will be used to manage the following Objects” from “All targeted objects” to Class “Windows Computer”.

Technically, that will change the following line in the management, from

<SecureReferenceOverride ID=”Microsoft.LS.2010.Override.RunAsAccount.NetworkService” Context=”System!System.Entity” Enforced=”false” SecureReference=”Microsoft.LS.2010.RunAsAccount”> <Value>01010101010101010101010101010101010101010100000000000000000000000000000000000000</Value></SecureReferenceOverride>

To

<SecureReferenceOverride ID=”SecureOverride2f91f0bb_03e8_9dbf_09c9_ca1673e1cb05″ Context=”Windows!Microsoft.Windows.Computer” Enforced=”false” SecureReference=”Microsoft.LS.2010.RunAsAccount”><Value>01010101010101010101010101010101010101010100000000000000000000000000000000000000</Value></SecureReferenceOverride>

This work around will fix the problem of “Secure Reference Override Failure” alerts caused on Linux / UNIX servers and from my own tests, that will not affect your Lync and Linux / Unix monitoring.

You could download below the management pack directly modified, but it’s at your own risks to use it.
http://www.vnext.be/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Microsoft.LS_.2010.Monitoring.zip

Now we are waiting for an official fix from Microsoft, in the meantime if you have any further information, please contact me.

Christopher KEYAERT

bug · lync · opsmgr · Scom · script · system center

Hi Guys,

Today, I will blog about the installation of the NetApp Management Pack for monitoring your storage environment directly in Microsoft Operations Manager 2007 R2.
This management is free and directly provided by NetApp, so there is no reason to not use it.

Pre-requisites

• Available on the NetApp Connect Website, you have to download the ApplianceWatchPRO2.1_x64_NetApp.exe file.
• Service account that could access to the NetApp Controller.

Installation

On the SCOM Root Management Server, each Management Servers and computers where you have SCOM console installed, run the ApplianceWatchPRO2.1_x64_NetApp.exe installer. The installation of this application is required everywhere you have SCOM console installed, if you want to be able to use Netapp task in directly from the Task pane of all your SCOM Consoles. If you don’t need that, just install the application on the RMS.

The setup is just a next-next, without any specific configuration. After the installation process, the official NetApp documentation and management packs are available in the installation folder.(by default located in : C:\Program Files\NetApp\ApplianceWatch PRO)

As always, read the documentation and after that import the following management pack (by default located in: C:\Program Files\NetApp\ApplianceWatch PRO) in SCOM Console:
DataONTAP.mp
DataONTAP.Reporting.mp

Configuration

Configure all your NetApp Controllers as Network Devices

Add all your NetApp Controllers as Network Devices, so you will have to know the Controllers IP and the SNMP community.
You could confirm the good working of the communication in the Network Devices State:

Set the credentials

After a few minutes, the controllers will appear in the Controllers
view from the NetApp folder in SCOM console, click on one controller and in the Action Pane
execute Data ONTAP : Manage Controller Credentials
Specify the credentials and protocol for each Controllers:

Enable the discovery

The Netapp management pack needs to run an automatic discovery every x times. Normally this discovery could be launch by any servers, but after several tests, I only succeeded to have it working when I run it from the RMS.

Go to Authoring > Management Pack Objects > Rules
and look for ‘Data ONTAP: Discovery Rule‘
Create an override to enable this rule and targeted it to the RMS:

The automatic discovery is now ok, if you want to force the discovery, go to Monitoring > Discovered Inventory and Change Target Type to Management Servers.

Click on the RMS and go to the Action Pane, and click on Data ONTAP : Run discovery task
and execute the task.

All the views

After a few hours, all the views will be populated with the data from the NetApp Controllers:

Conclusion

I hope this post help you with the installation of the NetApp Management for SCOM. Don’t hesitate to post a comment if you have any questions.
Christopher KEYAERT

mp · netapp · opsmgr · Scom · system center