Below are some procedures for excluding SQL database engine instances, SQL databases and SQL Agent jobs from discovery and/or monitoring. To exclude these components from monitoring, we need to:

1. Override the Object Discoveries
2. Delete any existing discovery data

1. DB Engine Instances:

If you want to exclude specific DB Engine instances by name then one or more overrides can be applied to the “Discover SQL 2005 Database Engines (Windows Server)” (SQL 2005) or “Discover SQL 2000 Database Engines (Windows Server)” (SQL 2000) discoveries to provide an “Exclude List”.

Exclude List is a comma-delimited list of SQL DB Engine instance names as shown in figure 1 below. If you want to exclude whole servers entirely from having their DB Engine instances discovered then you could right-click on the discovery select “Overrides” -> “Disable the object discovery” -> “For a specific object of type: Windows Server” and select the systems they want excluded.

Figure 1 Override for Exclude List on “SQL 2005 Database Engine”.

2. SQL Databases:

The process for SQL databases is quite similar to that of the SQL DB engine. One or more overrides can be applied to the “Discover Databases for a Database Engine” (SQL 2005) or “Discover SQL 2000 Databases” (SQL 2000) discoveries to provide an Exclude List which is a comma-delimited list of DB names to exclude, which is shown in figure 2 below.

Likewise if you wanted to exclude whole SQL DB engine instances from having their databases discovered then they could right-click on the discovery select “Overrides” -> “Disable the object discovery” -> “For a specific object of type: SQL 2005 DB Engine” and select the DB Engine instances they want excluded.

Figure 2 Override for exclude list on “Discover Databases for a Database Engine”.

3. Long Running Jobs:

There are two (technically three) ways this monitoring is provided: On a per-SQL agent basis (SQL 2005 only) and on a per-job basis (SQL 2000 and SQL 2005).

On a per-”SQL agent instances” basis (SQL 2005 only):

This is the only monitoring that is “turned on” by default and it’s only provided in the SQL 2005 MP. I put turned on in quotes because all of the monitors are enabled but the job specific monitors are targeted at classes which are not discovered by default in the MP. The behavior of this monitoring is that every so often a script runs against each SQL agent and identifies of all the jobs that are run by that agent, what the duration of the longest job was. That value is then compared against the threshold (defaults to 120 minutes) and an alert is raised is the threshold is exceeded.

So regardless of how many jobs are hosted on an instance of SQL agent, if one or more of them deviate from the threshold then an alert will be raised for the given SQL agent by the “Long Running Jobs” monitor. Exclusions here are handled by standard overrides on the “Long Running Jobs” monitor as shown in figure 3 and should consist of instances of the “SQL 2005 Agent” class.

On a “per-job basis” (SQL 2000 and SQL 2005):

This monitoring is available in both the SQL 2005 and SQL 2000 MPs via the “Job Duration” monitor associated with the “SQL 2005 Agent Job” and “SQL 2000 Agent Job” classes respectively. In order to get this monitoring the user needs to enable the discovery of individual jobs, which can be done via overrides on the “Discover SQL 2000 Agent Jobs” and “Discover SQL 20005 Agent Jobs” object discoveries. Once jobs are being discovered, then each job will have this monitor associated with it. The behavior of the monitor is rather straight forward in that it looks at the most recent duration for a given job and will evaluates that duration against two values; a lower threshold and an upper threshold. If the duration is below the lower threshold then the state of the monitor for that job is set to green. If the duration is above the lower and below the upper then state is turned to yellow/warning. If the duration exceeds the upper threshold then the state changes to red/error.

Exclusions for the “Job Duration” monitor would be done via standard overrides to that monitor, providing a list of “SQL 2005 Agent Job” or “SQL 2000 Agent Job” instances that the override would apply to.

Figure 3 Configuring overrides on the “Long Running Jobs” monitor for specific SQL 2005 agent instances.

To Delete Discovery Data

Instructions for deleting discovery data using the remove-disabledmonitoringobject cmdlet can be found HERE.

When CPU and memory resource consumption are running at or near 100%, the first thing an administrator wants to check is what processes are running at the time the excess resource consumption took place. The problem is that by the time you can get to a machine and retrieve a list of running processes, the condition has improved and the evidence gone.

This problem can be easily overcome in Operations Manager or Essentials 2007 using a new feature called a diagnostic to automatically perform data collection tasks at the time a condition is encountered. However, you will not find the appropriate diagnostic in place out of the box.

The diagnostics in this sample Retrieve Running Processes MP (link provided at the end of this article) , which automatically retrieve a list of running process the moment the alert threshold is breached, ensure the offending process information is captured. Simply download and import into your environment to make immediate use of this feature (no configuration required).

If you are looking in the Management Packs area of the Administration name, you will see the name of this sample MP is named Custom Diagnostics and Recoveries, which is so named so as to allow you to save your own diagnostics you create to this MP. The monitors shown in figure 1 represent the monitors in the Windows 2003 Base OS Management Pack that will alert when CPU and/or memory utilization break MS recommended thresholds.

How it Works

This management pack creates a diagnostic on each of the five monitors in the Windows 2003 Base OS Management Pack (shown in figure 1) that automatically dumps a list of running processes on the target machine when the threshold of the monitor is breached. The output can then be viewed in the Health Explorer for the target machine for the monitor in critical condition, as shown in figure 2. The settings of the diagnostic itself can be seen on the Diagnostics and Recoveries tab of the monitor.

Figure 1 - Monitors affected by diagnostics in the Retrieve Running Processes Sample MP. 

Figure 2 - Output of the Retrieve Running Processes Diagnostic

Settings of the Dump Process Diagnostic

The dump process diagnostic is configured with the following characteristics:

• Executes when the monitor is in a critical state
• Executes automatically
• Executes tasklist.exe to dump the list of running processes.

Figure 3 - Retrieve Running Processes Diagnostic Settings(1)

Figure 4 - Retrieve Running Processes Diagnostic Settings(2)

Conclusion

Hopefully this has increased your awareness of the usefulness of diagnostics in Operations Manager 2007. Download the Retrieve Running Processes Sample MP HERE:

Have a cool script, MP or other System Center Solution you’d like to share? Submit an entry in the System Center Solutions Contest for a chance to win an Xbox, Zune 2 and other great prizes! Visit the System Center Virtual User Group website for more information today!

On any Operations Manager administrators daily to-do list should be alert review and rule tuning.

Effective alert tuning means that every alert should ideally have its place. This does not always work out, but you definitely want to have a bucket for classifying most common possibilities. Generally this is done with custom alert resolution states (only NEW and CLOSED exist by default).

The underlying philosophy is that consistent evaluation of alerts, and appropriate disposition leads to 1) a higher percentage of actionable alerts over time, 2) remediation of lingering service issues in the environment and 3) greater respect for Operations Manager and the importance of the monitoring function by IT support staff and service owners 4) and theoretically, better tuned (and thus better performing) IT services.

Here is an example of a very basic, yet effective system for daily processing alerts. For each active alert:

1. Resolve alert if condition no longer exists (transient failures)
2. Remediate the issue represented in the alert
3. Escalate to next support tier or SME (using custom resolution state)
4. Tune the source rule or monitor as appropriate if the alert is not actionable. This may involve threshold or disable overrides.
5. Bug - I have a custom resolution state I use flag potential bugs to investigate and/or report back to MS.
6. Other - Some alerts I have to flag with a resolution state for later investigation on my part, such as with runtime script failures.

Some organizations use custom resolution states to assign alerts to service owners or teams (e.g. - a resolution state of ‘Assign to Exchange team’). This is fine, but at the end of the day, this method does not prompt immediate action from the service administrator - and let’s face it, occasionally a more direct approach is warranted.

That’s why I love the Alert Forward Task MP (from Cameron Fuller), which is the MP that allows you to forward an alert via e-mail to an address you supply when you launch the task.

I have modified the version I use just a bit. I modified the script to include Please Investigate: in front of the alert name in the subject line. The From: address is a shared mailbox for the Opsmgr admin team. When I find a legitimate alert that needs to be investigated (particularly one that has been ignored or missed by service administrator for several days, weeks or months), I simply click the forward alert via e-mail task and send a friendly reminder. (Hey, what’s up? It’s me. You know, that alert you’ve been ignoring?)

I find this action always launches discussion, and frequently leads to collaboration between myself and the service administrator, and often quick resolution of important issues. If you don’t use custom resolution states and the Alert Forward Task MP today, I definitely encourage you to consider how these tools can improve both the effectiveness of your monitoring initiatives and have a positive impact the quality of your IT service delivery.

We revealed to you shortly after SP1 that the MOMCertImport tool had a new GUI, which is used to read the certificate serial and write it to the registry so the Health Service knows which certificate to use. But what if we told you that exporting the certificate was no longer necessary?

That’s right! The MOMCertImport tool now actually reads certificates right out of the certificate store. And in our tests, the MOMCertImport UI only displays certificates capable for use in certificate authentication. If you export your cert and delete from the store, and then launch MOMCertImport, the UI comes up empty.

This is great for two reasons - 1) We know longer risk export of the certificate private key to disk and 2) Fewer steps in implementation (which is positive for TCO).

——————

Has your brilliance gone unrecognized? Why not show off your System Center skills? Check out the System Center Solutions Contest now in progress at the System Center Virtual User Group for a chance to win an Xbox 360, Zune 2 or other great prizes.

Update your MOM skills to Operations Manager 2007 at the Operations Manager 2007 Bootcamp! Check the 2008 Bootcamp Schedule and request pricing and availability HERE.

Occassionally, a resource comes along that changes my operational processes (for the better) with regard to Operations Manager 2007. I think this is one of them.

Silect started with the release of MP Studio Lite for free MP reporting and browsing. I’m already using this to explore my unsealed MPs where I store overrides.

Now, the Silect Software team has done it again! The group created a Wiki with MP reports on the various MP versions. Additionally, they have zip file downloads illustrating the differences between MP versions. Very convenient to be sure.

Check it out at the URL below:

http://www.silect.com/wiki/doku.php?id=mps:latestreleasedmps

Silect Studio has delivered for the Operations Manager community in a big way with MP Studio 2007 Lite, a scaled down version of MP Studio designed primarily for MP reporting (in HTML format). Much needed add-on for the Operations Manager community.

Did I mention it’s free?!

Download at the URL below and request your license

http://www.silect.com/downloads/MPStudio2007Lite.zip

Even with the keynote still in progress, good things are coming from the face-to-face contact with fellow System Center community members at MMS 2008.

After a lengthy discussion last night, some members of the System Center User Group decided to launch a community development effort to develop a proper, model-based File System Management Pack for Operations  Manager 2007. The group is asking for your input into the design phase of the effort.

Read more and offer your feedback on the System Center User Group site HERE.

There is another addition to the downloads section that will check the availability of a DNS server by running a "nslookup" type test.  This MP uses a 3rd Party DLL called Simple DNS Resolver to make the DNS calls.  The VBscript that is included in this MP will test a FQDN using the nameservers specified and compares it to an IP address that is supplied as well.   Not only can you really test the availability of the target DNS service, you can also use it to verify that a DNS record is returning the proper IP address.

After importing the MP, you can view the sample rules by changing the scope of the Rules view in the Authoring pane to Management Server.  The two rules to look for is called DNS Check - Example and DNS Check Failure.  The DNS Check - Example contains the script that will check DNS availability and the DNS Check Failure rule checks for the event IDs logged by the DNS Check - Example rule.

You can download the Simple DNS Resolver from the author’s site at kartmann.org and you can download the sample MP located in our Downloads section called DNS Check MP.

I am flying in for the big show in the morning. Very excited to meet many of you in person for the first time. I’ll be in the community session briefly on Tuesday, presenting in a session on the Operations Manager Gateway role and Mutual Auth Friday morning, and in various Q & A capacities in the in between times as well.

 Remember, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas - usually ;)

See you  there!

Here are the results of a form posted 04/25/2008 8:00AM:

Alert: Network Adapter Disconnected

Issue: Network adapter is not connected

Resolution: Either disable this monitor for this specific instance on this specific server, or determine why it has been disconnected.

Submitted By: Cade

I just don’t have the patience to wait for software deployment. As my grandpa used to  say, “Lord give me patience, but I want it right now!”

But did you know it’s possible to force near immediate software deployment to agent managed computers with Essentials 2007?

1. Go to the Software space 

2. Set a deadline date in the past for the program package.

3. Run the command “wuauclt /detectnow” on the client machine.

To check for success: 

To check that the client recognizes the package install request, check the System Event Log for event ID: 18, as shown below:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: Windows Update Agent
Event Category: Installation
Event ID: 18
Date:  4/23/2008
Time:  12:06:20 AM
User:  N/A
Computer: XP
Description:
Installation Ready: The following updates are downloaded and ready for installation. This computer is currently scheduled to install these updates on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 at 12:06 AM:
- MS GIF Animator

I have created a MP that will check a target server’s SMTP service by using telnet.  The script included in the sample MP will require a command (to run on the target server) and an expected response (usually a string).  The VBscript part of this MP uses the Toolsack Baseline dll (from Toolsack Software) to perform the telnet functions.  When you import this MP, can you find the example rules by changing the scope of the Rules View in the Authoring pane to Management server.  You can implement this MP in a SCE environment as well. 

This is better than a port check, as it allows you to send an SMTP command (like EHLO) and check the string returned to make sure the server is open for business. A readme is included with the MP download.

Note: Which ever server you pick to run the scripts/rules from this MP, it must have the Toolsack baseline package installed.  You can visit the site www.toolsack.com to download the DLL.

You can find the MP in the downloads section called “SMTP Check for Ops Mgr 07″ or you can download it from here.

The development team reports that while making some WMI-related improvements in preparation for Windows 2008 and Vista, they were also able to take time to resolve the performance issues common to running their virtual agents on a virtual guest. Thus, they now support Quest Extensions for Operations Manager 2007 running in a virtual machine.

NOTE: This  includes support for guests on VMware ESX, which should address the issue for most enterprise users.

You’ll find an article on “What’s New in Essentials 2007 SP1?” that  I wrote a few weeks ago. But you’ll also find some really nice work on AD and Windows 2008, as well as an intro to the newest member of the System  Center family, Mobile Device Manager.

Check them out at the links below:

• Windows Administration: Active Directory Backup and Restore in Windows Server 2008
• Windows Administration: Designing OU Structures that Work
• Windows Administration: Extending the Active Directory Schema
• System Center: Introducing System Center Mobile Device Manager
• System Center: What’s New in System Center Essentials SP1

 Update your MOM skills to Operations Manager 2007 at the Operations Manager 2007 Bootcamp! Check the 2008 Bootcamp Schedule and request pricing and availability HERE.

It’s process that raises questions in any software platform, and controlling your management pack deployment and tuning processes is one of th most important.

The Management Pack Lifecycle Whitepaper provides great insight and process guidance around effective tuning, deployment and release management of your Operations Manager and Essentials 2007 MPs. Although written by Silect Software (a 3rd party ISV for Opsgmr and SCE), this paper is full of excellent guidance (and I am not paid to say that).

 Download the Managment Pack Lifecycle Whitepaper from Silect HERE.

The Remote Operations Manager Deployment Guide for Essentials 2007 is now available for download from the Microsoft website. For those of you not familar with Remote Operations Manager, it is the Essentials add-on that allows managed services providers to remotely monitor Essentials environments at remote customer sites.

The deployment guide discusses best practices for deploying Remote Operations Manager 2007. The guide includes the following:
• Architecture
• Security
• Requirements
• Service Provider Site Deployment
• Customer Site Deployment
• Post-Deployment Tasks

 Download the guide HERE

I created a script for a customer to measure the response time of SMB file share (Windows File Share) to test new network equipment.  I thought that this script might be useful to someone in the community so I dressed it up a bit and created two versions of it.  You can download the scripts in a MP form here. 

The versions of the script are as follows:

• Single File Share - The script will copy the file to a single server share and log the response time.  The script will log an event if it succeeds or fails.
• Multiple File Share - The script will copy a file to multiple servers with the same share.  This script will also log an event if it succeeds or fails.   

Both sample scripts listed above and included with rules in the MP as an example on how to use it.  Included in the download is a readme file that explains the command line parameters.

I am fairly sure this can work in SCE but I haven’t tested it so I would really appreciate some feedback from anyone that tries it.

The product team posted a March refresh to the SQL 2000 /2005 MP. This one includes several significant fixes you’ll want to check into.

 Punch list of fixes and download link at the Opsmgr Team Blog.

Update your MOM 2005 skills to Operations Manager 2007 at the  Operations Manager Bootcamp! 

Check the 2008 Bootcamp Schedule and request pricing and availability HERE.

As you might have read earlier, the System Center Virtual User Group was launched, on March 27th. It’s a user group dedicated to providing resources for education and collaboration between users of Microsoft System Center technologies everywhere. Check it out at www.systemcenterusergroup.org.

To get the user group off to a fun start, we were discussing the possibility of hosting a contest for the best custom System Center solution, and need to know if you’d be willing to participate. Please read the following, and then post a comment to this thread if you would be willing to play.

The contest would showcase the best custom System Center community solution for a number of categories, including custom Management Pack (Opsmgr / Essentials), Configuration Pack (SCCM), Scripts (any System Center product), etc. Users would submit their entries to the site for judgement by a panel of System Center experts. Prizes would include XBOX 360 (for the overall winner), a Zune for the first couple of runners-up overall, and then books and miscellaneous prizes for the runners-up in each category.

Would you be willing to participate?
If so, register on the site (free) and add a comment to this post. If it looks like there will be a good number of participants, we will announce something official in the next few days!

Microsoft User Researchers want to receive feedback from companies that use System Center Essentials software.  We would like to meet with IT professionals who perform multiple responsibilities for their company; such as routine server maintenance tasks, various levels of troubleshooting, daily server, network or desktop management, and the planning and implementation of technology.  We want to meet at your office and learn what potential improvements could be made in our software.  This gives you the chance to tell us what your needs are and speak with some members of our product team.  We highly value your time and will be offering Microsoft software in appreciation of your participation. 

If this is something that you or others at your company would be interested in, please reply to ms_sitev AT microsoft.com at your earliest convenience.

In case you missed one or more of the articles in the series, here is a list of all 8 articles from our Jalasoft Network Monitoring and Integration series, as well as a link to all 8 articles in a single pdf download.

Article links

• Part 1: Monitoring Network Device Interfaces and Port Status
• Part 2: Monitoring Device Availability and Response Time
• Part 3: Asynchronous Monitoring with Xian Io
• Part 4:Monitoring of Processes in non-Windows systems
• Part 5: Distributed Applications and Xian Network Manager Io
• Part 6: Xian Policy Templates
• Part 7: Operations Manager 2007 and Jalasoft’s Xian Network Manager Io UI integration
• Part 8: Receiving E-mail Notification with Xian Network Manager Io

PDF download (contains all 8 in the series)

http://systemcenterforum.org/wp-content/uploads/Jalasoft_Series_rollup.pdf

 Thanks to the Jalasoft team for their time and effort in sharing this information!

Update your MOM skills to Operations Manager 2007 at the Operations Manager 2007 Bootcamp! Check the 2008 Bootcamp Schedule and request pricing and availability HERE.

Here are the results of a form posted 03/27/2008 9:38AM:

Alert: WMI Probe Module Failed Execution

Issue: Object enumeration failed Query: ‘SELECT * FROM MSCLUSTER_Resource where Name=”*** *** *** E:\”‘ HRESULT: 0×80041017 Details: Invalid query One or more workflows were affected by this. Workflow name: Microsoft.Windows.Cluster.Resource.StateMonitoring Instance name: *** *** *** E:\ Instance ID: {CB737B6D-72C4-A00B-B858-04E04EF6A422} Management group: ***

Resolution: http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.opsmgr.sp1&tid=94c39ab4-ad17-4b43-9029-e9edf7e881d4&cat=35313A04-C7CB-4422-86A1-8D1135E1FA95&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=&p=1

Submitted By: jgraham

We are happy to announce the formation of the System Center Virtual User Group, a user group dedicated to providing resources for education and collaboration between users of Microsoft System Center technologies everywhere! Thanks to all in the community and at Microsoft who have assisted in it’s formation and offered resources. Details on group launch date and where to find us at MMS 2008 below.

Future announcements and resources will be available online at http://www.systemcenterusergroup.com . Thanks to Maarten Goet of techlog.nl for his collaboration in starting the group and hosting the site!

This group is intended to function not only as a traditional user group holding periodic meetings (via Live Meeting in our case), but as a forum where users can come together to find resources in establishing their own traditional “physical” user groups.

Visit us at MMS 2008! For more information on how you can participate in the SCVUP, please visit us in the Community area or the Infront booth at the Microsoft Management Summit 2008 in Las Vegas, NV, scheduled to be held the week of April 28th, 2008. We’ll be podcasting, giving away SCUG t-shirts and holding a drawing for several prizes!

To receive future announcements: Click “Join” in the top right corner of this page and setup your free member account. Further details will be posted to the site and sent via e-mail to site members. You may also receive announcements subscribing to the RSS feed of the site weblog.

First Group Meeting is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, May 28th. A detailed agenda and meeting invitation will be e-mailed and posted in coming weeks.

References to Kurt Vonnegut novels aside, allow me to introduce the fix our friend and collegue, Pontus Blomqvist, has been waiting for! The new and improved Active Directory Managment Pack with the localization fix for the LDAP Bind Monitor!

Get your ADMP fix right HERE.

My copy of System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed arrived to my secret location in Texas (after it spent some time at my home in Oklahoma). After the mail carrier wheeled it into the den (it is heavy), I had a look at the official page count - 1322, and that’s if you don’t count appendices!

I’ll publish some mini - reviews chapter-by-chapter as I can. No doubt this will be the authoritative reference for Opsmgr administrators everywhere. Congratulations to (my fellow MVPs) Kerrie, Cameron, John, Andy and the Unleashed team for a job well done!

If your an Essentials administrator reading this, remember Opsmgr and Essentials have the Monitoring, Authoring and to some degree Administration workspaces in common. I encourage you to pick up a copy as well.

Get your copy of unleashed on Amazon.com for less than $40! Page for page, that’s a pretty good deal indeed.

There are several updates recently posted to the System Center Pack Catalog. In particular, the Active Directory and Configuration Manager MPs both contain several fixes.

• 3/19 - Active Directory Management Pack  -  Download HERE.
• 3/19 - Windows System Resource Manager - Download HERE.
• 3/17 - Exchange 2003 Management Pack -  Download HERE.
• 3/10 - System Center Configuration Manager MP - Download HERE.

Update your MOM skills to Operations Manager 2007 at the Operations Manager 2007 Bootcamp! Check the 2008 Bootcamp Schedule and request pricing and availability HERE.

By Roberto Alcocer

For System Center Forum readers that might have missed our first blog posts, this is Jalasoft’s last article about Xian Io’s functionality in a series of eight. Prior posts discussed the monitoring of network device interfaces, port status, a device’s response time, asynchronous monitoring, the monitoring of processes, distributed applications with Xian Io, policy templates and Xian Network Manager Io’s UI integration. On this occasion, we will look into receiving mail notifications associated to network devices being monitored by Xian Network Manager Io.

Ops Mgr 07 provides network administrators with the option to receive e-mail notifications associated to any of the servers, computers and applications being monitored. As soon as the event is generated network administrators will be informed about this problem quickly and thus will be able to take the proper actions to solve this issue

You can also configure Ops Mgr 07 to send you a mail if there is a problem with any of the network devices that you are monitoring with Jalasoft’s Xian Network Manager Io. For example, you will be able to know if an interface of a specific switch was unplugged or if the CPU load of your Linux server is over a normal value without the need of constantly reviewing your Ops Mgr console. Let’s take a look at the steps needed to configure Ops Mgr 07 to achieve this:

Enabling mail notifications:

1. Open the Ops Mgr 2007 console.
2. Go to “Administration”.
3. Click the “setting” node of the administration tree.
4. In the settings panel; double click on the “notifications” element so that the “Global Management Groups Setting - Notification” dialog will be displayed.
5. Click on the “Email” tab and check the “Enable e-mail notification” checkbox.
6. Click on the ‘add’ button.
7. Fill the “SMTP server (FQDN)”, port number and authentication method parameters and click on the ‘OK’ button.
8. Fill the “return address” field with the address of the sender object.
9. Fill the “Return primary after” with the value 0 minutes.
10. Click on the ‘OK’ button.

Creating and configuring an account for mail notifications:

1. Right click on the “Administration > Security >Run as accounts” node and choose the “Create Run as account” option so that the “Create Run as Account” wizard will be displayed.
2. On the introduction step, click on the ‘Next’ button.
3. Select “Actions Account” on the “Run As account type” combo box, insert a valid “display name” and click on the ‘next’ button.
4. On the “account” step, fill all the required fields such as User name, password and domain and then click on the ‘Create’ button.
5. Click on the “Run as Profiles” on the administration tree.
6. Double click on the “notification account” option under the “Run as profiles” pane.
7. Select the “Run as account” tab and click on “New”.
8. Select “Network service Windows account” and Click on the ‘OK’ button.
9. Click OK.
10. Right click on the “Run as profile” node and choose the “Create run as profile” option.
11. Click the ‘next’ button on the introduction step.
12. Fill a proper “display name”.
13. Select “Jalasoft SDK overrides for performance data collection” on the “Select destination management packs” option and then click on the ‘next’ button.
14. On the “Run as account” step, click on “new” and select “Network service Windows account”; finally click on the ‘OK’ button.
15. Click “create”.

Configuring the notification recipients and subscriptions:

1. Right click on the ‘Administration > Notification > recipient’ pane and select the “New notification recipient” option.
2. Click on the “General” tab and provide a recipient user on the “notification recipient display name” field.
3. Go to the “notification devices” tab and click on the ‘add’ button.
4. On “notification channel”, select “E-mail”, provide the mail for the “Deliver address for the selected channel” option and click the ‘next’ button twice.
5. Enter a proper name on the “notification device name” and click on the ‘Finish’ button.
6. Click on the ‘OK’ button on the ‘notification recipient properties’ dialog.
7. Right click on the ‘subscription’ node and choose “New notification subscription”.
8. Provide a subscription name.
9. Click the ‘add’ button and select a recipient.
10. Click ‘next’ up to the “Alert Aging” step and then select “use alert aging as a notification criteria”
11. On the “for longer for than this criteria (in minutes)” parameter, enter 1 and then click on the ‘next’ button.
12. Click on the ‘finish’ button.

After performing these configurations, Ops Mgr 07 will automatically send a notification to your email account as displayed on the images below:

Alert generated on OpsMgr 2007

Received Notification

Should you have any questions/comments about receiving mail notifications & Xian Network Manager Io, please reply to this post, and we’ll make sure to send you an answer as soon as possible. For further information on Xian Io for Ops Mgr 07 please visit our website www.jalasoft.com or visit our booth (#320) at the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas.

I recently had trouble finding links to the IBM hardware MPs (links we published HERE on systemcenterforum.org a few months ago appear outdated, and got some help from IBM partner with some updated links. If you’re looking for links to the IBM Director 5.2 or Bladecenter Chassis MPs, visit the xAnalisys website HERE, or reference the updated links below.

IBM Director 5.20 Management Packs for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007

• Discovery: Provides discovery of Level-1 and Level-2 managed systems.
• Events: Captures events that occur on Level-1 and Level-2 managed systems.
• Alerts: Sends a notification when certain events occur on Level-1 and Level-2 managed systems.
• State: Changes the state of Level-1 and Level-2 managed systems based on event criteria

IBM BladeCenter Chassis Management Pack

• Discovery: Provides discovery of a BladeCenter chassis and its components.
• Events: Captures events that occur on a BladeCenter chassis and its components.
• Alerts: Sends a notification when certain events occur on a BladeCenter chassis and its components.
• State: Changes the state of a BladeCenter chassis and its components based on event criteria.

Only 1 article popped up on the radar this week:

946423 - How to install a System Center Essentials 2007 agent on a computer that is running ISA Server 2006 or ISA Server 2004

Alert: Script or Executable Failed to run

Issue: there is a bug in the MOSS 2007 MP that causes this warning whenever discovery is run on each server that is discovered. The error references \”getservernames.vbs\”

The process started at 16:12:46 failed to create
System.Discovery.Data, no errors detected in the output. The process
exited with 4294967295

Command executed: \”C:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\cscript.exe\” /nologo
\”GetServerNames.vbs\” {A18B826D-DFA9-DC21-F94C-68A8A95ADD4C} {D289112E-
EC4F-295D-0A9B-4AC755ECC4F0} E2K3.xxx.xxxxxxxxx
Working Directory: C:\\Program Files\\System Center Operations Manager
2007\\Health Service State\\Monitoring Host Temporary Files 1\\12487\\

One or more workflows were affected by this.

Workflow name: Microsoft.Office.Sharepoint.Server.
2007.MOSS.Server.Discovery

Instance name: E2K3.xxx.xxxxxxxx

Instance ID: {D289112E-EC4F-295D-0A9B-4AC755ECC4F0}

Management group: XXX

Resolution: disable the rule.

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.opsmgr.managementpacks&tid=c2719164-4ae2-4ec8-aae4-663d48dc0aba&cat=〈=&cr=&sloc=&p=1

Submitted By: Ron Williams

Matt @ MS has a good post on verifying MP workflow on the agent managed computer, but there are a couple of things to be added here that are of value in checking for MP updates being delivered to an agent that do not involve reading XML output.

So Matt hit these three :

#1 Effective Configuration Viewer - Probably the best of the three options listed, availaable HERE.
#2 Health Service Task - To display this from the UI, make sure you target ‘Health Service’ instead of ‘Agent’ if you want to see your management servers. Here’s a detailed how-to from way back is listed  HERE. As mentioned this is a bit ugly.
#3 Powershell Script - This works, but’s it’s ugly 2.0. (Available HERE).

What other methods can tip you off that the change is received? Here are a couple of options.

#4 Operations Manager Event Log -  On the target agent machine, you’ll see event ID: 1201 fromsource HealthService with the MP name and verision in the event description that was just updated. Pretty clear evidence, and no xml required. Incidentally, event ID: 1204 from the same source tells you about MPs that are no longer needed and are unloaded. This is an easy way and pretty safe I think if you don’t have folks making ad hoc changes to your MPs.
#5 MP xml files on the agent - This is not my favorite either, but provides a clue as well. In the agent installation directory under \Health Service State\Management Packs,  you’ll find the MPs running on the agent. You can also check the date/time stamp in the ‘last modified’ column. When you see your target MP with a time stamp from a moment ago, that’s your hint. Since it should be accompanied by a HealthService 1201 event,  I don’t see much point.

I think I like #1 and #4 together. You can use effective configuration viewer and watch for the event and I think that’ll do in most situations. But in the end, this is easier if you have some measure of change management in place to prevent ad hoc changes.

Here are the results of a form posted 03/21/2008 10:58AM:

Alert: WMI Probe Module Failed Execution

Issue: The WMI Probe module encountered an unexpected runtime error. This error could happen while processing a data item or an asynchronous operation.

Resolution: from http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3005952&SiteID=17

This is a known issue, which is under investigation and will be fixed in the future. You can just safely ignore the alerts. You can also disable the Rule which generates the alerts by following these steps:

1. Open console and navigate to Authoring pane;

2. Expand Rules and find a rule named \”WMI Probe Module Execution Failure\”;

3. Right-click it and choose Overrides -> Disable the Rule -> For all objects of type: Agent.

Submitted By: Ron Williams

Alert: Failure DSNs Total - increase over 60 minutes - Red(>40) - Hub Transport

Issue: DSN value being gathered from cumulative number of failures since the server was restarted, not within the last hour.

Resolution: Management pack bug which is confirmed in the newsgroups this is scheduled to be resolved in the next update of the management pack scheduled for April-June 2008.

Submitted By: Cameron Fuller [MVP]

by Roberto Alcocer

For System Center Forum readers that might have missed our first blog posts, this is Jalasoft’s seventh article about Xian Io’s functionality in a series of eight. Prior posts discussed the monitoring of network device interfaces, port status, a device’s response time, asynchronous monitoring, the monitoring of processes, distributed applications with Xian Io and policy templates. On this article we are going to focus on Xian Network Manager Io’s UI integration.

Xian Network Manager Io (Xian Io) extends the OpsMgr 2007 monitoring capabilities to a heterogeneous environment so you could monitor your Windows servers along with your network devices and UNIX servers. The Xian Io UI integration features further extend the integration with OpsMgr since most of the Xian tasks, such as discovering, removing and configuring the rules to monitor network devices/servers can be executed directly from the OpsMgr monitoring console; therefore, there is no need to work with other windows besides the OpsMgr one.

To point up the seamless integration between Xian Io and Ops Mgr 07, we are going to show how to add, remove a device, and also view its properties, all from the Ops Mgr 07 monitoring console. First, perform the steps below to display the different types of operations that can be performed over Xian Io from Ops Mgr 07:

1. Open the OpsMgr 2007 console and click on the ‘Monitoring’ button.
2. Expand the ‘Monitoring > Xian Network Manager > Jalasoft Xian’ branch and select the ‘Diagram view’ node. Remember to import the Xian management packs before attempting this operation.
3. Select the child Jalasoft Xian environment (in this image it is called ‘DEMOOPSMGRXIAN’).

The ‘Actions’ pane will now display the commands applicable to Xian Network Manager Io.

Adding a new device:

1. Click on the ‘Add device’ task option of the Xian tasks displayed under the ‘Actions’ view. The following dialog will be displayed:

2. Select the device type you want to discover and then click on the ‘OK’ button. A discovery or ‘add device’ wizard will be displayed.

3. Provide with the information requested at the different tabs of the wizard and then click on the ‘Finish’ button.

After a couple of minutes the device will show under the corresponding folder within the OpsMgr console.

Removing a device:

1. Select the ‘Remove Device’ task from the ‘Actions’ pane. The following dialog will appear:

2. Check the device(s) you want to remove and then click on the ‘OK’ button.

Viewing the properties of any device.

The ‘device properties’ dialog associated to any device you are monitoring with Xian lets you add, remove or edit rules, Syslog filters and/or policy templates applied to it. This important dialog is also available directly from the OpsMgr console; you only need to perform the few simple steps described below:

1. Select the ‘View Device Properties’ task associated to your Xian environment from the ‘Actions’ pane. The following dialog will be displayed:

2. Select the device from which you want to see its properties and then click on the ‘OK’ button. The ‘device properties’ dialog will now show.