I have been away from blogging for a while as I needed to dedicate some more time to my family but now I am back with new blog post. Today’s topic we will focus on two Azure Monitor features – Resource Health and Log Analytics. Resource Health is may be not so known feature of Azure Monitor. The service will basically track the health of your resources for specific known issues. Think of it like something between Service Health which monitors health for specific services rather resources on higher level and Log Analytics/Application Insights which allows you to monitor on lower level. Using all of them you can achieve end-to-end monitoring. There are a number of resources that are supported by resource health with a number of issues that are monitored. My advise is if you do not have any monitoring on an Azure resource you should at least create resource health alerts for it. Even if you have monitoring I would still advise to use resource health as it will alert you on things that you probably cannot or your are not checking with your monitoring.
Tag: Data
#MSOMS Is Not #SCOM
I’ve been meaning to write this blog post for a long time. The reason for that is because since the first preview of OMS (Operational Insights back in the day) I’ve received question like “I’ve removed the Microsoft Monitoring Agent from my server but why I still see the server in OMS?” trough various channels. And btw if you wonder how long I’ve been using OMS today is exactly 2 years and 3 months since it was announced at TechEd North America 2014. I probably should be getting some honorable badge for this achievement . Back to the topic. While there are scenarios in which you can think of OMS like it is SCOM in many ways you should not and there is reason for that. I will try with this blog post to explain why and answer the above question. We can summarize the differences between Operations Management Suite and SCOM in the following statements: Continue reading “#MSOMS Is Not #SCOM”
Linear or Logarithmic View for Performance Data in OMS Log Analytics?
As you may have noticed in OMS Log Analytics for performance data you can now choose between linear or logarithmic view.
Continue reading “Linear or Logarithmic View for Performance Data in OMS Log Analytics?”
Where is My SQL SCOM Dashboard Performance Data?
I’ve seen cases where you have SCOM 2012 or higher and latest SQL Management Pack but the performance data is not showing in the SQL dashboards for some or for all of your SQL servers: Continue reading “Where is My SQL SCOM Dashboard Performance Data?”
Sync HP ProLiant Server and BladeSystem CIs from SCOM to SCSM
There is a great article at systemcentercentral.com on how to synchronize CI from SCOM to SCSM. The article shows an example with Dell Management Pack. I followed this article and will show you how to do the same for HP ProLiant Server Management Pack and HP BladeSystem Management Pack. Let first introduce what objects are discovered trough these two MPs:
- HP ProLiant Server Management Pack – This management pack discovers properties of all HP ProLiant servers – IP addresses of ILOs, Memory, Disks and etc.
- HP BladeSystem Management Pack – This MP discovers properties of c3000 and c7000 Enclosures – Names, Onboard Administrators, Device Bays (including server information for blades) and etc.
So here are the steps you can follow to sync your HP CIs from SCOM to SCSM:
1. Lets assume that you imported and configured HP ProLiant Server and HP BladeSystem MPs in SCOM.
2. Next steps is to figure out what information you want to sync.
3. You can find that by going in SCOM console –> Monitoring pane –> Discovered Inventory view.
4. Right Click on the middle view and select Change Target Type.
5. Select Items to Target window appears. In Look for field type “hp” and select View all targets.
6. Here you can see the friendly names of the different classes and to which Management Pack they belong to.
7. “HP Server” is the main class that holds information for HP Servers and it is located in Hewlett-Packard Servers Core Library MP. Select it and click OK.
Note: You can select any subclass like HP ProLiant Server if you find it more convenient for you.
8. After selecting it in the middle pane you will see information about your HP Servers you have in your environment. This information you want to sync in SCSM.
9. Next step is to find the friendly name for enclosures class.
10. Right click on the middle pane again and select Change Target Type.
11. Select Items to Target window appears. In Look for field type “hp” and select View all targets.
12. “HP BladeSystem Enclosure” is the main class that holds information for HP Enclosures and it is located in Hewlett-Packard BladeSystem Management Pack. Select it and click OK.
13. You will see the information about enclosures you want to sync to SCSM.
14. For HP Enclosures I select one more class “HP BladeSystem Device Bay”.
15. This class holds information about blade servers. This is useful if you have have blade servers in the enclosures that do not have operating system and because of that they do not have SCOM agent also. WIhtout SCOM agent you not cannot get any information for them from HP ProLiant Server Management Pack but trough this class you can.
16. Next step is to see the names of the management pack and if they have dependencies.
17. Open SCOM console –> Administration pane –> Management Packs.
18. We found that the the information that we want to sync is contained in two management packs – Hewlett-Packard Servers Core Library and Hewlett-Packard BladeSystem Management Pack.
19. Find them in that view and right click on them Properties.
20. In General tab you under ID you will see thee name of the management pack. In Dependencies tab that you will see which other management pack you should also import in SCSM. If you do not have these MPs in your SCSM environment you will not be able to import the HP Management Packs.
Hewlett-Packard.Servers.Core.Library.mp
Hewlett-Packard.ProLiant.Servers.Base.mp
Hewlett-Packard.BladeSystem.mp
21. Even I do not need to import Hewlett-Packard ProLiant Servers Base Management Pack I will import it because may be later I will want to sync some information from that MP.
22. Next steps is to find the actual names of the classes we want to sync because we only have the friendly names: HP Server, HP BladeSystem Enclosure and HP BladeSystem Device Bay.
23. Open Operations Manager PowerShell and execute the following commands one by one:
- Get-MonitoringClass | Where-object {$_.DisplayName -match "HP Server"
- Get-MonitoringClass | Where-object {$_.DisplayName -match "HP BladeSystem Enclosure"
- Get-MonitoringClass | Where-object {$_.DisplayName -match "HP BladeSystem Device Bay"
24. The commands will find all properties about classes that have these display names. Against property Name you will find the actual names of the classes we need:
- HewlettPackard.Servers.HPServer
- HewlettPackard.Servers.BladeSystem.HPBladeSystemEnclosure
- HewlettPackard.Servers.BladeSystem.HPBladeSystemDeviceBay
25. Now that we have the actual names of the classes we want to sync we have to import the 3 HP management packs in SCSM.
26. Open SCSM console. Navigate to Administration pane –> Management Packs.
27. Click Import from Actions menu. Find the location where you store your MPs select the 3 HP MPs and import them.
28. If the MPs are imported successfully next step is to add the classes we have found to the allowed list of classes for syncing in SCSM.
29. Logon to your SCSM server.
30. Start PowerShell and execute these commands:
- set-executionpolicy Unrestricted
- add-pssnapin smcmdletsnapin
- Add-SCSMAllowListClass –ClassName HewlettPackard.Servers.HPServer
- Add-SCSMAllowListClass –ClassName HewlettPackard.Servers.BladeSystem.HPBladeSystemEnclosure
- Add-SCSMAllowListClass –ClassName HewlettPackard.Servers.BladeSystem.HPBladeSystemDeviceBay
- get-SCSMAllowlist
31. With the last command you will be able to see the HP classes added in the allowed list for sync.
32. Next step is to configure your SCOM CI Connector in SCSM to sync the HP Management Packs.
33. Open SCSM console. Navigate to Administration pane –> Connectors.
34. Find you SCOM CI Connector in the list of connectors and double click on it.
35. The Properties window of that connector will be opened.
36. Select the configuration option for Management Packs.
37. In order to see your newly imported HP Management Packs you have to click Refresh button. When you click Refresh you will be asked for the password of the account that is used to sync management packs between SCOM and SCSM. Enter the password and press OK.
38. When refresh is done the new management packs will appear in the list. Select them and click OK to save settings.
39. Wait until next synchronization schedule of SCOM CI Connector to see if synchronization was successful.
40. When synchronization is done you can create views to see the synchronized data in SCSM.
41. Open SCSM console. Navigate to Configuration Items. Create new folder. You can name the folder “HP Devices” or any convenient name for you.
42. Under that folder you can create 3 different views that have different HP classes for Criteria.
Note: This configuration was tested with SCOM 2007 R2 and SCSM 2010 but it should also work for SCOM 2012 and SCSM 2012.
Note: You can sync more classes than the ones described in the article depending on your customers needs. Just add these classes to the allowed for sync list in point 30.