Tag: monitoring

Importing and Configuring System Center 2012 Service Manager MP

The System Center 2012 Service Manager MP has some pitfalls during importing and configuration that you may stumble upon. So I will describe the steps needed to be made in case the MP guide is not clear enough.

1. First you need to install the MP so you can get the following MPs extracted:

  • Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Discovery
  • Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Library
  • Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Monitoring

2. After you have these 3 MPs extracted you have to import only Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Library

3. After the MP above is imported successfully you have to create Run As account. You can use the default action account or a separate account for tighter security. Just make sure that the account you will use has the needed permissions. You can find description of the needed permissions here on page 17. I basically make the account local administrator on Service Manager Management Servers, Service Manager DW and give db_datareader permissions to the Service Manager database and to the staging and configuration database.

4. So you create that Run As account as Windows type. Secure the account to the Service Manager Management Servers, Service Manager DW server, Service Manager database server and Service Manager DW databases servers.

5. Next you need to add the account to the Service Manager Database Account profile. Distribute it to all objects.

6. Next step is to import Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Discovery MP.

7. After it is imported successfully discovery of Service Manager will start. And here is the tricky part you have to wait until full discovery is performed before importing Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Monitoring MP. Basically you have to wait at least 24 hours to make sure discovery of Service Manager has passed fully. Trough OpsMgr console you can check if full discovery has passed.

8. Open OpsMgr console and go to Discovered Inventory view. Target it to System Center DataWarehouse 2012 Server. You should see your Service Manager DW server and if all properties are filled with values that means your Service Manager DW server is fully discovered.

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9. Next Target to SCSM 2012 Management Server. You should see all your Service Manager management servers. If all properties have values for all your Service Manager Management servers that means they are fully discovered. In my case I have only one Management Server:

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10. To fully verify if Service Manager was discovered you can go to Distributed Applications and open the diagram for Service Manager:

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11. All Service Manager servers and database should be visible with their properties in Detail View.

12. The last step is to import Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Monitoring MP so the monitoring of Service Manager can start.

The software I’ve used:

  • Windows Server 2012
  • SCSM 2012 SP1 UR2
  • SCOM 2012 SP1 UR2
  • System Center 2012 Service Manager 7.5.1561.0 MP

Note: System Center 2012 Service Manager 7.5.1561.0 MP does not state that System Center 2012 Service Manager SP1 is supported but so far I haven’t discovered something that is not working properly.

New MP: Windows Azure SQL Database Management Pack

New management pack is available for Windows Azure service. Now you can monitor your Windows Azure SQL Databases from SCOM. These are the key features:

  • User-friendly wizard to discover Windows Azure SQL Database servers.
  • Provides availability status of Windows Azure SQL Database server.
  • Collects and monitors health of Windows Azure SQL Database databases.
    • Space monitoring:
      • Used space
      • Free space
      • Total allocated quota
    • Track the total number of databases per server
  • Collects and monitors performance information:
    • Average memory per session
    • Total memory per session
    • Total CPU time per session
    • Total I/O per session
    • Number of database sessions
    • Maximum Transaction execution time
    • Maximum Transaction lock count
    • Maximum Transaction log space used
    • Network Egress/Ingress bandwidth
  • Ability to define Custom thresholds for each monitor to configure the warning and critical alerts.
  • Run-as profile to securely connect to Windows Azure SQL Database.
  • Detailed knowledge to guide the IT operator with troubleshooting the problem
  • Custom tasks to redirect the user to the Windows Azure SQL Database online portal
  • Custom query support to enable application-specific availability and performance monitoring

Grab the management pack and the installation and configuration guide from here.

Updated MP: System Center Management Pack for Windows Server Operating System

As MSFT promised we have a new version of Windows Servers OS MP in Q2. The update brings a couple of bug fixes and one significant feature marked in bold:

  • Fixed a bug in Microsoft.Windows.Server.2008.Monitoring.mp where the performance information for Processor was not getting collected.
  • Made monitoring of Cluster Shared Volume consistent with monitoring of Logical Disks by adding performance collection rules. (“Cluster Shared Volume – Free space / MB”,”Cluster Shared Volume – Total size / MB”,”Cluster Shared Volume – Free space / %”,”Cluster Disk – Total size / MB”,”Cluster Disk – Free space / MB”,”Cluster Disk – Free space / %”)
  • Fixed bug in Microsoft.Windows.Server.ClusterSharedVolumeMonitoring.mp where the Cluster disks running on Windows Server 2008 (non R2) were not discovered.
  • Fixed bug ‘Cluster Disk Free Space Percent’ and Cluster Disk Free Space MB’ monitors generate alerts with bad descriptions when the volume label of a cluster disk is empty.
  • Added feature to raise event when NTLM requests time out and customers are unable to use mailboxes, outlook stops responding, due to the low default value for Max Concurrent API registry Key (HLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters) , which is a ceiling for the maximum NTLM or Kerberos PAC password validations a server can take care of at a time. It uses the “Netlogon” performance counter to check for the issue.
    The updated management pack and its guide you can find here. Smooth updating.

New MP: Windows 8 Client Operating System

At the initial release of Windows 8 there was no plan for releasing SCOM management pack for the client operating system but it seems a lot of customers were actually needing this MP so MSFT changed its mind and decided to develop it. Several months later you can now download this brand new MP from here. This MP covers only Windows 8. Read the documentation before importing in your environment.

New MP: Microsoft Application Virtualization Server 5.0

This is a new management pack. There is available MP for for the previous version 4.5 of App-V. The new MP provides the following features:

  • Discovery of the Application Virtualization 5.0 Services: Management, Publishing, Reporting
  • Alerts indicating availability/configuration/security issues that require administrative intervention
  • Collection Rules defined for significant events in ETW logs of each App-V 5.0 Service
  • Verification that dependent NT services are running
  • Notification of security issues involving admin access attempts, admin added/deleted on App-V 5.0 Management Server

Download it from here and remember to read the guide first before implementing.