System Center

Provide feedback to Microsoft (Azure Back-up & DPM)

by

Do you use DPM and or Azure back-up? Now you can provide feedback about these products directly to the Microsoft product group. The product group has added DPM and Azure back-up on user voice feedback forum on Azure. They watch this forum and now is a great time to get your requests and feedback in. … Read more

DPM 2012 R2 Reporting Improvements

by

A while back I released a custom DPM report that could be loaded in SSRS. This report is community based and only offered reporting on one DPM server at a time. It was however an improvement over the out of the box DPM reporting. More about the custom DPM report here: https://www.buchatech.com/2014/04/free-dpm-backup-summary-report/ . Finally Microsoft has taken the step to improve the out of the box reporting within DPM. Hats off to the DPM team for stepping up and taking steps to improve this. Recently at TechEd Europe new DPM reporting was announced. It is not available as of now but is coming soon.

The video covering this can be found here starting at 19:43:

Cloud Integrated Data Protection with System Center Data Protection Manager and Microsoft Azure Backup

http://channel9.msdn.com/events/TechEd/Europe/2014/CDP-B334

In this blog post I will take a look at what is coming. As you can see there is some success SLA reporting, protected data source overview on specific workloads such as Exchange, SharePoint and SQL, duration summary in hours, top backup failure reasons, bandwidth, and transfer data, and even data around deduplication! The new reporting will be surfaced in SCOM. This is what the report will look like.

clip_image001

With the new reporting you can chose to use what is their out of the box or extend this further without any coding. This reporting framework will cover all of your DPM servers because it is surfaced in SCOM. The new reporting leverages the SCOM management pack and the DPM management pack. All of your DPM servers are aggregated up through SCOM and therefore will show up in reports. Below are two diagrams one that breaks down the new reporting framework and one that covers the new reporting architecture:

clip_image002

clip_image003

To enable the reporting you will need to first have the two DPM management packs loaded in your SCOM deployment. Your DPM servers need to be discovered. You then will need to add a third DPM reporting management pack. The following screenshot shows the new DPM Reporting management pack for SCOM.

clip_image004

After the new management pack is loaded the some new DPM views are added within the SCOM DW database as seen in the following screenshot. Note that the new reporting has not been released and therefore we may see more changes to the views. The new report can be accessed and used or you can build your own report based on the views using a tool like report builder.

clip_image005

The new reporting is estimated to be public in January as a part of the next update rollup. Thanks DPM team for making improvements such as this to DPM. If you have specific requests or feedback about what you want to see in DPM reporting feel free to email me.

Read more

Service Manager 2012 R2 UR4

by

I want to take this blog post and help promote Update Rollup 4 for System Center Service Manager 2012 R2. There has been many issues with Service Manager for some time. It is good to see the Service Manager team tackling these issues to give us a stable solution.

They continue to fix bugs in Service Manager with the new faster cadence. It is good to see the plan of stabilizing and improving performance materialize. Before we know it the Service Manager team will move on to adding new features and functionality to the product.

Don’t forget to go and apply update rollup 4 to your Service Manager 2012 R2. Note it is always recommended to apply updates to a test Service Manager environment first. The list of fixes include:

Bug fixes included in this update:

 

  1. ObjectGUID (MT_Microsoft$AD$UserBase) is retained correctly when Users imported into Service Manager using the Active Directory (AD) connector with Group Expansion check enabled. The changes will take effect the next time the workflow runs.
  2. The Folder and View links on the central pane of the ‘Work Items’ item of the console, appear correctly when the DataWarehouse Management Server is connected.
  3. Changes to DisplayName field are replicated correctly, when the title of a Manual Activity is updated.
  4. Request Offering wizard displays the runbook input parameters only (instead of all the properties) for Service Management Automation (SMA) runbooks.
  5. Saving a Template containing a Configuration item with an enumeration property that no longer exists works without errors.
  6. The default value for Data warehouse transform jobs have been increased to 180 minutes , up from 60. This value can be configured.
  7. Service Requests incorrectly entered the “Completed” status on rare occasions. This issue has been addressed.
  8. Creating a new SLA Calendar does not cause an error message to be displayed when the local timezone on the computer is custom.
  9. Console does not freeze after applying changes to an existing Knowledge Article.

 

You can download it from:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44575c

For steps and order of upgrade and tasks to applying Service Manager update rollups check out the bottom half of Sam Erskine’s blog here: http://itprocessed.com/2014/09/815/

Read more

New UR’s for SC 2012 R2 & SP1, Updated Exchange 13 MP & more

by

Wow another exciting day for Microsoft and specifically System Center! Microsoft is moving at a fast pace and doing some cool things. There were several announcements today. These included: Update Rollup 4 for System Center 2012 R2 http://aka.ms/yktkfk App Controller is not included in this. I am not surprised by this. Configuration Manager and Orchestrator … Read more

DPM 2012 R2 Upgrade unable to connect SSRS. ID: 33431

by

I recently had to help someone do a DPM upgrade from DPM 2012 SP1 UR3 to DPM 2012 R2. I am a fan of starting fresh when I can but in this case we had no choice but to do an upgrade. We had to first upgrade SQL 2008 R2 to SQL 2012. After upgrading to SQL 2012 and trying to run the DPM upgrade we got the following error regarding SSRS:

“DPM Setup is unable to connect to the specified instance of SQL Server Reporting Service. (ID: 33431)”

clip_image001.png

 

What is happening is that the DPM installer is trying to access the 2008 R2 SSRS even though it no longer exists as SQL has been upgraded to 2012. I manually removed the left over SQL 2008 components and rebooted but this did not help. The DPM installer uses WMI to get information about the SSRS installation during the install, so in order to fix this I had to go into WMI and remove the SQL 2008 references. Here are the steps:

Open the WMI tool:

From the Run window type: wbemtest

clip_image002.png

In the namespace type the following:

\\NAMEOFYOURDPMSERVERGOESHERE\root\Microsoft\SqlServer\ReportServer\RS_NAMEOFYOURSQLINSTANCEGOESHERE

clip_image003.png

You will now be connected. Click on Query.

clip_image004.png

Put in the following query:

SELECT * FROM __NAMESPACE

clip_image005.png

You will then see two entries for SSRS that DPM is trying to access. You will see one for v10 and one for v11.

v10 is for SQL server 2008 R2 and v11 is for SQL 2012. We want the DPM installer to connect to SSRS on SQL 2012.

Click the Apply button in the query window and you will see the results.

clip_image006.png

Highlight v10 and click the Delete button. Now click Close and click Exit to close out the WMI tool.

Now run the DPM 2012 R2 upgrade again and it should go through without any issues.

DPMSSRSerror1

Read more

Speaking @ MMS as one of the 3 International System Center Chefs

by

I am excited to be co-presenting a Service Manager session at MMS 2014 on November 10th. The Midwest Management Summit is a 3-day conference purposely capped to just 500 attendees so that nobody gets lost in the crowd. Almost 60 Microsoft MVP’s will be presenting on System Center topics and more.

Areas the speakers will be presenting on are Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, Orchestrator, Service Management Automation, Service Manager, Data Protection Manager, Azure Pack, PowerShell, Desired State Configuration and more.

The session I will be co-presenting in is titled: 900 Degrees of Service Manager with 3 International System Center Chefs. I am lucky to be co-presenting with:

image

image

Here is what you can expect from the session:

“In this demo-packed session, you explore the depths of customizing Service Manager with Samuel Erskine, Dieter Gasser and Steve Buchanan (MVP). We will walk you through real-world scenarios of using advanced customization techniques such as the Authoring Tool, PowerShell, and Visual Studio to build and customize classes, forms, workflows and console tasks in Service Manager. We also discuss best practices, recommendations and processes you follow when customizing Service Manager. You will learn how to plan for customizing Service Manager for business processes. Transform your plans into custom solutions using the advance authoring tools. Finally the session is delivered by 3 deep experts with vast real world deployment and authoring experience.”

Here is a video from the MMS site with us talking about the session:

image

About me:

image

Full details about this session can be found here: 900 Degrees of Service Manager with 3 International System Center Chefs

UPDATE:

MMS has extended reduced conference registration until Friday, October 17th. So go and register today to keep from paying the higher conference and hotel rates!

Read more

Hot off the press: Service Manager 2012 Unleashed book

by

The System Center 2012 Service Manager Unleashed book is finally done! I received some copies of it on Friday. It is set to publish on Monday October 6th 2014. Here is the link for it and a picture below.

http://www.amazon.com/System-Center-Service-Manager-Unleashed/dp/067233707X

SCSM 2012 Unleashed

There was a great team of people behind this book consisting of well-known folks in the Service Manager community from MVP’s, MCT’s, expert consultants, and even Microsoft staff. Authors included me, MVP Kerrie Meyler, MVP Kurt Van Hoecke, and MCT Sam Erskine. Contributors include MVP Jakob Svendsen, Microsoft employee Kathleen Wilson, MCT Kenneth Surksum, Oskar Landman, MVP Patrik Sundqvist, and Peter Quagliariello. Even the foreword was done by former Microsoft program manager and now MVP Christian Booth and Service Manager program manager Srikanth Ranganathan.

This book is packed with tons of “why” and “how to” content for Service Manager. If you have Service Manager deployed or you are about to embark on a Service Manager project add this book to your library. Here is an overview of the content in the book:

This comprehensive resource will help you automate and optimize all facets of service management with System Center 2012 Service Manager.

Expert consultants offer deep “in the trenches” insights for improving problem resolution, change control, release management, asset lifecycle management, chargeback, and more. You’ll learn how to implement high-value best practices from ITIL and the Microsoft Operations Framework.

The authors begin with an expert overview of Service Manager, its evolution, and its new capabilities. Next, they walk through overall planning, design, implementation, and upgrades. Then, to help you focus your efforts, they present stepwise coverage of all topics in each feature area, linking technical information about Service Manager with essential knowledge about the technologies it depends on.

Whatever your role in deploying or running Service Manager, this guide will help you deliver more responsive support at lower cost and drive more value from all your IT investments.

• Leverage MOF and ITIL processes built into System Center 2012 Service Manager
• Plan and design your Service Manager deployment
• Install Service Manager or upgrade from earlier versions
• Efficiently administer work and configuration items
• Use connectors to integrate with Active Directory, Exchange, and System Center components
• Create service maps
• Enable end user access through Service Manager’s self-service portal
• Implement incident, problem, change, and release management
• Utilize workflows to automate key support processes
• Create service level agreements with calendars, metrics, and objectives
• Provide quick access to a standardized catalog of services
• Use notification to ensure that Service Manager items are promptly addressed
• Secure Service Manager and its data warehouse/reporting platform
• Perform maintenance, backup, and recovery
• Manage Service Manager performance
• Customize Service Manager

http://www.amazon.com/System-Center-Service-Manager-Unleashed/dp/067233707X

Read more

SCORCH Web Console Error Executing the current operation

by

When I tried to access my Orchestrator 2012 R2 web console @ https://localhost:82 I was receiving the following error: Error Executing the current operation [HttpWebRequest_WebExeption_RemoteServer] Arguments: NotFound Debugging resource strings are unavailable. Often the key and arguments provide sufficient information to diagnose the problem. My Orchestrator web service (http://localhost:81/Orchestrator2012/Orchestrator.svc) still worked just fine. I did … Read more

SCOM Cannot initialize report after DB move

by

After moving the SCOM database, DW database and Reporting database to a SQL 2012 cluster I was no longer able to run reports. I would get a Cannot initialize report error as shown in the following screenshot. More of the error: Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms.ReportServerException: An error has occurred during report processing. (rsProcessingAborted) —> Microsoft.Reporting.WinForms.ReportServerException: Cannot create a … Read more

Point SCSM DW & WAP Request Management to new SQL server

by

I recently worked with a client that hosted the Service Manager database on a SQL cluster. They manually failed over the SCSM database to the other node in the SQL cluster. Request Management in Azure Pack and the SCSM data warehouse were still trying to communicate with Service Manager using the old node in the SQL cluster. We needed a way to manually flip both Azure Pack and The DW over to the new node in the SQL cluster. Below is how I did this. I am posting about this in case it saves anyone else time and for me if I need it for future reference.

GridPro Request Management in Windows Azure Pack Failover:

Navigate to: C:\inetpub\MgmtSvc-RequestManagementAPI

Open the “solidConnectionSettings.config” file in a text editor such as notepad.

Modify the highlighted value in the connection string to the name of the second node in the SQL cluster:

<connectionStrings>

<add name=”ServiceManagerCMDB” connectionString=”Server=SQLSERVER1,1433;Database=ServiceManager;Integrated Security=True”/>

</connectionStrings>

 

After this is modified an IIS reset is needed. After that the Request Management in Windows Azure Pack should now attempt to connect to Service Manager on the correct SQL node.

Service Manager Data Warehouse failover:

In regards to the data warehouse we needed to re-point this to the second node in the SQL cluster. To do this I:

Opened the DWStagingAndConfig database.

Open the MT_Microsoft$SystemCenter$ResourceAccessLayer$SqlResourceStore table.

And

Run Select * from MT_Microsoft$SystemCenter$ResourceAccessLayer$SqlResourceStore

Or

Right click on the table and Select Top 1000 rows. (Don’t worry there are only 10 rows in this table.)

clip_image001.png

 

Note the 5th row column DataService_98B2DDF9_D9FD_9297_85D3_FCF36F1D016B has Service Manager listed. Further along in row 5 under column Server_48B308F9_CF0E_0F74_83E1_0AEB1B58E2FA it has the SQL server for Service Manager that it is pointed to listed. This is what needs to be changed. You can see this in the following screenshot:

clip_image002.png

To change this run the following:

UPDATE MT_Microsoft$SystemCenter$ResourceAccessLayer$SqlResourceStore

SET Server_48B308F9_CF0E_0F74_83E1_0AEB1B58E2FA = ‘SQLSERVER2’

WHERE DataService_98B2DDF9_D9FD_9297_85D3_FCF36F1D016B = ‘ServiceManager’

NOTE: Be sure to replace SQLSERVER2 with the name of your new SQL node.

Now if you Run Select * from MT_Microsoft$SystemCenter$ResourceAccessLayer$SqlResourceStore

You will see row 5 in the Server_48B308F9_CF0E_0F74_83E1_0AEB1B58E2FA column will reflect the change.

clip_image003.png

Read more