System Center

Updated DPM-save-create-Config Script for 2012

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I have updated the DPM-save-create-Config to work with DPM 2012 SP1/R2. The script can be used to save your DPM settings to an .xml file and then import the settings in from that .xml file. This script was originally created by a Microsoft employee Ruud Baars (Rest in Peace). If you don’t know who Ruud … Read more

System Center Universe Jedi finalists

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Earlier this week System Center Universe announced the 3 finalists for the SCU Jedi contest. If you don’t know what the contest is here is the description for it: System Center Universe has a contest to give one lucky presenter the opportunity to present at the next System Center Universe conference. This lucky presenter will … Read more

Service Manager: Request Offering Multiselect User Prompt

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Background:

Recently at a client of mine I was building a new hire Request Offering for them. I ran into a roadblock because they needed a software list to be able to select software from that list that needed to be installed for certain users only. Yes they had SCCM and OSD with standard builds. The software on this list however was on a case by case basses and not a part of the main build. This information needed to be communicated through the Request Offering form so that the team member building the new computer would know what software outside of the main build needed to be installed.

Problem:

The problem is that when you create a user prompt with prompt type list on a Request Offering you can add the list of software but this cannot be a multi-select. You can only select one item in a prompt type list.

An alternative is to use a prompt type of query results. This prompt type allows multi-select. The query results prompt type queries Service Managers CMDB and presents a list of configuration items (CI’s) to a user on the actual Request Offering form like in the following screenshot.

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I had the SCCM connector setup and was already pulling software into the CMDB. The problem here is that there are 2,000+ software CI’s and there is no way anyone wants to sift through that many CI’s when filling out a form.

There are only 10 software products that were needed on the build list for new hires. What I needed to do was get these 10 software products into the CMDB as CI’s or flag existing ones and expose only these 10 on the Request Offering for a user to select from.

Solution:

Here is what I did to get around this problem. Essentially I needed to accomplish two things and they were:

    1. Bring or flag the 10 software products in the CMDB.
    2. Create a Query Results prompt type that is filtered to the 10 software CI’s to be exposed in the Request Offering.

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MVP Cameron Fuller Presenting at SysCTR MN User Group

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This month the Minnesota System Center User Group will have System Center MVP  Cameron Fuller presenting "Monitoring and tuning System Center with SCOM".  For those of you not familiar with Cameron, he is a Operations Manager Most Valuable Professional (MVP).  A Principal consultant for Catapult Systems, an IT consulting company and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. … Read more

Custom Service Request Area

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There is an issue that has been around for some time were you cannot delete items from the Service Request Area list in Service Manager 2012. You can do this to the Incident Classification and Change Area but not the Service Request Area. See references to this issue here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/systemcenter/en-US/952d60eb-392f-4fa4-928f-c61da91616cc/how-to-delete-scsm-2012-by-default-service-request-area-and-service-request-priority?forum=customization http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/systemcenter/en-US/b1d2255a-86bd-421a-9d81-2dfbf32854c1/how-do-i-edit-a-service-request-area-on-lists http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/systemcenter/en-US/48086671-a7b8-4f1d-aafa-96e33d0fad26/why-can-you-modify-incident-classification-and-change-area-but-cant-modify-service-request-area http://www.systemcentercentral.com/forums-archive/topic/delete-service-request-area-list-entries/ Incident Management, … Read more

Display SCSM Management Group Name Script

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The Service Manager Management Group name is not shown in the console. The Service Manager Management Group name can be found in the registry on a Service Manager Management Server. This is easy enough to do, but as a consultant working in different SCSM environments I need to get this information all the time for … Read more

Service Manager SP1 to R2 Upgrade

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    Microsoft recently released System Center 2012 R2. I wanted to post about my experience upgrading System Center 2012 Service Manager SP1 to System Center 2012 Service Manager R2.

     

    The official upgrade steps for this can be found here on TechNet:

    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn520902.aspx .

    Release notes for System Center Service Manager R2 can be found here:

    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/dn299381.aspx.

     

    Before we get into Service Managers upgrade process we need to cover some housekeeping items. First off if you are using multiple System Center components (two or more) you need to upgrade them in a specific order. If you only have a single System Center component in your environment then don’t worry about this order. Here is the upgrade order:

    1. Service Management Automation (SMA)
    2. Orchestrator (SCORCH)
    3. Service Manager (SCSM)
    4. Data Protection Manager (SCDPM)
    5. Operations Manager (SCOM)
    6. Configuration Manager (ConfigMGR)
    7. Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)
    8. Service Provider Foundation (SPF)
    9. Windows Azure Pack for Windows Server
    10. Service Bus Clouds
    11. Windows Azure Pack (WAP)
    12. Service Reporting
    13. App Controller

    Here are links to upgrading all System Center components except for Service Manager because upgrading SCSM is being covered in this blog post.

  • Orchestrator
    Describes the sequence for upgrading Orchestrator.

NOTE: Some System Center components are not included on that list such as Service Management Automation .

This is because they will typically be new additions to your environment.

The upgrade order also applies if you plan on introducing new System Center components into your environment. For example if you plan to deploy DPM 2012 R2 at some point be sure to deploy this after Service Manager 2012 SP1 has finished being upgraded to R2.

More about this can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn521010.aspx.

 

Backup of Service Manager

Before any upgrade is started be sure to back up Service Manager and any customizations.

  • Backup encryption keys on the Self-Service Portal and management servers.
  • Export and backup all unsealed management packs these will include any customizations.
  • Backup management server and data warehouse databases. Here are the databases:

 

Service Manager Databases:

ServiceManager DB

DWStagingAndConfig DB

DWRepository DB

DWDatamart DB

 

  • Backup the SSRS database & RDL files.
  • Document any security that is setup.
  • Backup and document SharePoint web parts and customizations.

 

Before upgrading it is recommended to upgrade to the latest UR first… For example from SP1 –> UR4 –> R2 RTM. You need to be up to at least SP1 with UR2 or the upgrade will not run. If you don’t have a minimum of UR2 you will get the following message.

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After the latest UR has been applied this is the order we will upgrade Service Manager in: 

  • Data warehouse server/s first
  • Management server/s second
  • Self-Service Portal server last

There is more detail for each server upgrade that we will go through in the following sections.. Now let’s jump into the Service Manager upgrade process.

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SCSM Assignment/Re-Assignment Notify Options

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Service Manager can email analysts when a work item is assigned to them or re-assigned to them. Assignment/re-assignment notification is a common requirement most Service Manager projects. To set this up is not an easy task. This is a topic that has been blogged about already and there are several solutions out for this. Some … Read more