#SysCtr

Script: Export Unsealed Service Manager Management Packs

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Customizations to Service Manager are stored in unsealed management packs. These should be backed up. These can be exported from Service Manager and stored in a safe location. The process to export unsealed management packs from the Service Manager console is manual and each have to be exported one by one. A better way to do this is to use a script to export all un-sealed management packs.

There are several scripts out there that can do this but most are for older versions of SCSM. I have recently updated one of these scripts. It was created by Microsoft MVP and one of the top Service Manager experts Anders Asp. Here is his blog with the original script: http://www.scsm.se/?p=227

I have updated the script to work with the latest SCSM PowerShell CMDlets and have tested it with SCSM 2012 R2 UR7.

The script is named: ExportUnsealedSCSMMPs.ps1

You can download the script locally on a Management Server

Edit the script and change “C:\Unsealed SCSM MPs\” to a directory on your server. Be sure to leave the “\” at the end.

Run the script from an elevated PowerShell window on a Management Server by typing

.\ExportUnsealedSCSMMPs.ps1

You should see the following output:

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The unsealed MP’s will be loaded in a folder with the current date as seen in the following screenshot:

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Note: Old folders will need to be manually cleaned up. You can also schedule this using Task Scheduler.

This script can be downloaded here:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Export-Unsealed-Service-43602dd4

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4th time System Center MVP

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This morning I received an email from Microsoft that I am awarded System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management MVP for the 4th year. Here is the email I received: The System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management MVP’s are a great lively bunch of folks. It is an honor to still be a part of this … Read more

System Center Futures 2016 and Beyond

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UPDATE 9-4-2015:

***There is an upcoming FREE event covering the Future of System Center. This will be held on Sep 25, 2015 at the Microsoft MTC in Minnesota (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mtc/locations/minneapolis.aspx). This is a must attend event for any company running System Center. For more info on this event visit: http://bit.ly/1JIHS48***

Last week I was able to attend the first ever Microsoft Ignite conference in Chicago. There was a lot of exciting news announced at this conference around the many Microsoft products and technologies. Everything was covered from SharePoint, Exchange, Unified Communications, Office, Windows server, Windows 10, all things Azure and more. This post is focused for any System Center professional that was unable to attend the MS Ignite 2015 conference but what’s to know what’s up with System Center. If you had any concern about System Center going away or just want to know about the future of System Center in general this post is for you.

During conference there were many sessions related to the various System Center components however there were a couple of critical sessions that covered the future of System Center. These are the Platform Vision & Strategy sessions. These are titled:

Windows Server & System Center Futures—Bring Azure to your Datacenter (Platform Vision & Strategy)

And

Platform Vision & Strategy (6 of 7): What’s New in System Center for Management

These sessions are important because they featured System Centers top guy Jeremy Winter and he talked about future direction of the management solutions. In this post I will sum up key information from each of these sessions.

NOTE: This post is my perspective on the Platform Vision & Strategy sessions from Ignite and do not represent the opinions of Microsoft.

Traditionally System Center has been a complete management stack for IT Operations. This is not going to change but will continue to get better. The stack consists of: Managing endpoints (PC’s/Mobile device/servers) – *SCCM/Intune* | Monitor – *SCOM* | Automation – *Orchestrator (SMA)* | Provision – *VMM* | Service Management – *SCSM* | Protection – *Data Protection Manager* | Self-service – *Azure Pack* also represented in the following screenshot from one of the session slides.

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So we are now in the year 2015 and have not had a new major version of the entire stack since 2012. However since the release of System Center 2012 we have seen a steady progression of enhancement to the stack. We have seen it move from SP1 to R2 and now updates and new features through update rollups.

These update rollups have been released on a faster cadence at a speed we have not seen from Microsoft before. In fact we have recently seen a round of new features in update rollup 6 and more announced at Ignite. Below is a list of key features that stuck out to me along with slides from one of the Platform Vision & Strategy sessions giving insight into where the System Center components are headed next.

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Deploy & Configure DPM Enhanced Reporting

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A while back I posted about the enhanced reporting for DPM here: https://www.buchatech.com/2014/11/dpm-2012-r2-reporting-improvements/ I wanted to create another blog post on how to deploy and configure the new enhanced reporting for Data Protection Manager (DPM) 2012 R2 and as a follow up to my Enterprise Backup session @ Microsoft Ignite (http://meme.ms/d5gpbrq). Here is a diagram of the new DPM reporting framework:

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This new reporting for DPM is a part of Operations Manager (SCOM). SCOM can monitor your DPM server/s so it only made sense to build this new reporting framework in SCOM. Data from your DPM server/s is brought over to SCOM through the monitoring and placed in SCOM’s data ware house database. This data is then accessed via a new set of DPM SQL views and served up to the reports.

Following is a breakdown of what you need to get the new reporting framework put in place and configured.

What do you need?

  • Need SCOM 2012 R2 deployed w/ DW working.
  • DPM management packs must be imported to SCOM and central console must be deployed.
  • DPM 2012 R2 and Central console must be on UR5.
  • Must configure SLA’s on your DPM servers using Set-DPMProtectionGroupSLA CMDLet to get SLA data in reports. More on this later.
  • The FileServices MP is a pre-req of the DedupReporter MP.

You must be careful about how you install/upgrade the DPM central console and management packs on SCOM as you can run into problems if you do not pay attention. I have had to re-deploy a SCOM server once in a lab to get this to work. Here is the order I follow and have had the best success with:

How to deploy the reporting?

1st: Import RTM 4.2.1126 MP’s in SCOM (You may already have these loaded. They are DPM 2012 R2 RTM MP’s and are named:

         – Microsoft.SystemCenter.DataProtectionManager.2012.Discovery.MP

         – Microsoft.SystemCenter.DataProtectionManager.2012.Library.MP

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2nd: Install Central console (This is DPM 2012 R2 RTM)

– You will find this on the DPM media

 

3rd: Apply UR5 to your DPM server/s.

For a list of DPM version build numbers and download links visit:

         – http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/4058.list-of-build-numbers-for-system-center-data-protection-manager-dpm.aspx

          – UR5 is version 4.2.1292.0. UR5 with the latest hotfix is version 4.2.1297.0.

4th: Apply UR5 to Central console.

NOTE: When updating the DPM Central Console be sure to run the correct .exe.

See the following screenshot that highlights the correct one for the Central Console.

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5th: On your SCOM server import the new DPM management packs version 4.2.1276 MP’s. These will automatically upgraded the RTM DPM 4.2.1126 MPs.

         – The System Center Management Packs for Data Protection Manager 2012 R2 Reporting, DedupReporter, Discovery and Monitoring can be downloaded from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=45525.

           NOTE: With the new DPM MP’s there are two additional MP’s that were not part of the DPM RTM MP’s. There is the    Microsoft.SystemCenter.DataProtectionManager.2012.Reporting.mp which is required for the new reporting and there is the Microsoft.SystemCenter.DataProtectionManager.DedupReporter.mp that is optional if you want to get reporting around de-duplication on your DPM servers.Here is a screenshot of importing the new DPM MP’s and the File Services MP:

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After you import the new DPM MP’s you should have the following management packs loaded in your SCOM:

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In SCOM if you navigate to the Reporting workspace you will have System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manager Reporting. Here you will find the DPM Executive Summary Report.

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The following screenshot is what the DPM Executive Summary Report looks like.

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6th (Optional): Configure SLA’s on your DPM server/s using Set-DPMProtectionGroupSLA CMDLet to get SLA data in reports. This has to be done on each DPM server per each protection group that you want to receive SLA reporting on. The steps to do this are:

Launch the DPM Management Shell. Run Get-ProtectionGroup -DPMServerName YOURDPMSERVERNAMEHERE to get a list of Protection Groups.

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Run Get-DPMProtectionGroup | where {$_.Name –ieq ‘Exchange Mailbox Databases’} | Set-DPMProtectionGroupSLA –SLAInHours 24 to set the SLA on a protection group.

That is it. Now you have set an SLA for your protection group. The SLA is defined in hours. DPM will check the SLA once a day and an event is written to the DPM backup event in the event log.

That’s all for the setup and configuration. Stay tuned for a post on how to build out custom reporting in the enhanced reporting framework in the near future.

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Enterprise Backup Session @ Ignite

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I will be presenting with some good friends Microsoft PFE Islam Gomaa and System Center MVP Robert Hedblom @ Microsoft Ignite next Tuesday, May 5th 05:00PM – 06:15PM.

The session is Enterprise Backup: Custom Reporting, BAAS and Real-World Deployments in Data Protection Manager. Here is what we will cover in the session:

This session covers the recently released enterprise-grade reporting framework in Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager for IT admins to build custom reports and dashboards for monitoring and managing their entire backup operation. It also will cover offline backup to Azure and will highlight real-world deployment best practices for protecting applications in a hybrid environment using Microsoft Azure Backup.

Enterprise Backup Event

We also will have announcement about something new with DPM in the Microsoft Private cloud story!

For more info on the session check out:

http://meme.ms/d5gpbrq

and

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Tech Reviewer of New SCOM 2012 R2 Book

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I was fortunate to be a Technical Reviewer on another System Center book. This one is about Operations Manager 2012 R2. It is titled Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager Cookbook. Authors include a fellow System Center MVP Steve Beaumont (http://systemcenter.ninja | @StevybSC ), a colleague of mine Chiyo Odika (http://mrchiyo.com | @MrChiyo ), Jonathan Horner, and Robert Ryan (http://scnuggets.blogspot.com). Here is a screenshot of the cover:

image

It contains 50 recipes that you can use with your SCOM deployment. The recipes in this book will help you:

  • Optimize SCOM
  • Build out monitoring for business applications, infrastructure and more
  • Work through tuning
  • Build and use dashboards along with reporting
  • Author management packs using MP studio or Visual Studio
  • Overall gain deeper insight into your SCOM environment

The book can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Operations-Manager-Deployment-Administration-Cookbook/dp/1782176241

and here:
https://www.packtpub.com/virtualization-and-cloud/system-center-2012-r2-operations-manager-deployment-and-administration-cook

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Service Manager Discovery Report

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I recently built a PowerShell script that creates a discovery report for System Center Service Manager. The idea behind the script was to have something that I could run to gather all of the information I would want about a Service Manager deployment. I searched online and could not find anything so that’s when I decided to put something together.

This report can be used by consultants doing assessments or SCSM admins as an easy way to document what you have in your environment. This is a first pass at the report so it is version 1.1. I plan to add more information/functionality to the report in the future. Keep in mind I am not a PowerShell expert so feel free to take the script tweak it and share your updates with the community.

When the script is run it will output a report of System Center Service Manager in HTML format. This script should be run on a management server within your Service Manager’s management group. The script should be run with an account that has administrative access to Service Manager and the local server it will be running on.

The script will run on Service Manager 2012 SP1 and above. It uses SCSM 2012 SP1/R2 CMDLETS along with SMLets. If you don’t have the SMLets installed you can download them here: https://smlets.codeplex.com/

Discovered in the report:

These are the sections of information in the report.

  • Management Server Name
  • Service Manager Version
  • Management Server HDD CPU Memory
  • Service Manager Management Group Name
  • Service Manager Data Warehouse Information
  • Users connected to Service Manager
  • Service Manager Run as accounts
  • Service Manager User Roles
  • Service Manager Notification Channels
  • Service Manager Connectors
  • Service Manager Email Templates
  • Service Manager Subscriptions
  • Service Manager Groups
  • Service Manager Queues
  • Service Manager Service Offerings
  • Published Service Manager Request Offerings
  • Draft Service Manager Request Offerings
  • Service Manager Views
  • Service Manager Tasks
  • Service Manager Un-sealed Management Packs
  • Websites local to the Service Manager Server
  • Last 10 Service Manager error event logs

Example Link:

This will take you to an online example of the report.

https://www.buchatech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Service-Manager-Discovery-Report.html

Example Output:

Here is a screenshot of the report.

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Download It:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Service-Manager-Discovery-a25c7d80

NOTE: The PowerShell report is provided AS-IS without warranty of any kind. It is recommended to run in a lab environment before running it in a production environment.

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Service Manager PowerShell Extensions – SCSMPx

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Recently a colleague of mine Rob Plank brought some new CMDLets for Service Manager to my attention. These are a part of a PowerShell module that can be installed on your Service Manager server. They are the System Center Service Manager PowerShell Extensions also known as SCSMPx. Here is the official description for them:

“The ScsmPx module facilitates automation with Microsoft System Center Service Manager by auto-loading the native modules are included as part of that product and enabling automatic discovery of the commands that are contained within the native modules. It also includes dozens of complementary commands that are not available out of the box to allow you to do much more with your PowerShell automation efforts using the platform.”

This module contains hundreds of new commands for Service Manager.

The module was built by Kirk Munro (@Poshoholic) and sponsored by Provance.

The System Center Service Manager PowerShell Extensions ( SCSMPx) module can be found here: https://github.com/KirkMunro/ScsmPx.

The module requires:

  • PowerShell 3.0
  • SnippetPx module

The module is very easy to install and can be done so by running this syntax from PowerShell on a Service Manager management server:

& ([scriptblock]::Create((iwr -uri http://tinyurl.com/Install-GitHubHostedModule).Content)) -ModuleName ScsmPx,SnippetPx

Running that will download and install the SCSMPx and SnippetPx modules. This is for all users and requires being run from an elevated PowerShell console. This module will auto-load (PowerShell 3.0 and above) so there is no need to run Import-Module to load it.

Once this module is installed on a management server it also enables auto-loading of the native Service Manager CMDlets for Service Manager 2012 and later.

The commands included in the module are:

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Microsoft Private & Public Cloud Poster

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On August 1st Microsoft released a new Cloud Ecosystem poster. Microsoft has a great Public and Private cloud story. With Microsoft technologies On-premises and public Azure and other Microsoft public cloud technologies such as Intune are really tied together. Microsoft Private and Public cloud consist of Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2 and … Read more