While a comprehensive deployment of server and application monitoring is a vital service for many enterprises, this can lead to headaches when it comes to routine maintenance due to server patching. Of course, it is good security practice to apply patches as they become available (e.g. monthly), but the regular required reboots can lead to [...]
Filed under: Maintenance Mode, Powershell, SCOM, System Center Operations Manager | 64 Comments »
Over the past few years, I’ve bounced between virtualization products in my home test lab, including MS Virtual PC and Virtual Server, as well as VMWare Server and Desktop. Given the option, I’d love to have a Windows 2008 Hyper-V server to run my home development environment, but given the hardware requirements, I don’t see [...]
Filed under: Tools, VirtualBox, Virtualization | Leave a Comment »
Given the severe performance issues that can be caused by SCOM monitoring on hosts without the Windows Script Host 5.7, and the possibility that WSH 5.7 binaries can be replaced with older versions by Windows File Protection (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/955360), I’ve found it useful to use a SCOM unit monitor to monitor managed agents for the expected [...]
Filed under: SCOM, System Center Operations Manager, WSH | 2 Comments »
Typically, one would monitor a TCP port remotely, from a designated watcher node, as a means of confirming availability of a network service, but in some cases, this may not be the most desirable method to poll for TCP port status. For example, if you wanted to monitor the availability of tcp port on a [...]
Filed under: SCOM, System Center Operations Manager | 2 Comments »
When creating some types of Unit Monitors (such as SNMP polls) in the OpsMgr GUI, SCOM will set the default type of the values in the expressions to be strings. If your health monitoring logic performs numerical comparisons, this will create unexpected and unreliable results, because the monitor will be performing comparisons on the numbers [...]
Filed under: SCOM, System Center Operations Manager | 2 Comments »
This utility has so changed the way I work, it’s hard to imagine life before it. Terminals is a remote desktop utility that implements tabbed windows for RDP, VNC, SSH, ICA (and more) remote connections. Get it here: http://www.codeplex.com/Terminals
Filed under: Tools, Windows | Leave a Comment »
Marios Philippopoulos did a great job with an article on monitoring long-running SQL blocks with SCOM 2007 at SQLServerCentral.com. The article: Monitoring Database Blocking Through SCOM 2007 Custom Rules and Alerts (http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Blocking/64038/) provides a set of scripts for detecting (and display vital information about) long-running blocks in SQL Server 2000 and 2005 as well as [...]
Filed under: SCOM, SQL Server, System Center Operations Manager | Leave a Comment »
The web seems to bring us a seemingly endless supply of PowerShell scripts for manipulating maintenance mode in SCOM 2007. I had occasion to write yet another maintenance mode script recently and thought it may be worth throwing out there. This one will put objects (Windows Servers) in maintenance mode when the agent IP address [...]
Filed under: SCOM, System Center Operations Manager | Leave a Comment »
Many organizations have some form of an audit requirement that critical alerts from a monitoring system are mapped to helpdesk tickets for tracking. While the simplest solution would be a configuration that generated helpdesk tickets (with an email or script) for every critical alert fired, this is not always practical. Examples of this problem are [...]
Filed under: SCOM, System Center Operations Manager | 1 Comment »
Firstly, the name. The Microsoft Operations Framework (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc539262.aspx) defines the Operating Quadrant as including “IT operating standards, processes, and procedures that are regularly applied to service solutions to achieve and maintain service levels within predetermined parameters.” The Service Management Functions included within the Operating Quadrant are: System Administration Security Administration Directory Services Administration Network Administration [...]
Filed under: Misc. | 2 Comments »
