BICTT

Yeah!
Finally I got the paper version of the SCOM 2007 R2 Unleashed book in my hand.
My Precious (imagine the Gollum voice here)...
Already had the electronic version, but I simply like real paper books most for normal reading.
Thanks to Kerrie and friends!!!

Bob

Ran into this error while manually changing some SCOM agents. They actually needed both an update and a second management group configured.

While trying to update the settings of the SCOM agent through Add/Remove programs on Windows 2008 boxes I got the error "Microsoft ESENT Keys are required" and it did not change anything.

So what happens is that User Account Control (UAC) could not differentiate between an admin account and a non admin account in this case and did not give an UAC prompt. You can read about it in this KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969569/EN-US.

The workaround is the following:
Open an Elevated command prompt and run one of the following commands, depending on the SCOM version.

System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1:
msiexec /I{768DB8BD-CB3A-43F4-9A4C-BA2921D27AD3}

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2:
msiexec /I{25097770-2B1F-49F6-AB9D-1C708B96262A}

In my case this worked.

After this I found a post by Mark Wolzak pointing to the same, but also pointing out that in some cases the GUID might have changed and how to find the GUID needed in the command. In that case you would see an error "This action is only valid for products that are currently installed."
To get around that you will have to find the GUID in the registry somewhere in this path: 'HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall' and search for the DisplayName that starts with "System Center Operations Manager 2007" and find the command you need in the ModifyPath value.

Good Luck!
Bob Cornelissen

Microsoft released another SCOM update KB981263:

Management servers or assigned agents unexpectedly appear as unavailable in the Operations Manager console in Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008

Consider the following scenario:
You install a Microsoft System Center Operations Manager root management server or a Microsoft System Center Operations Manager management server on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008.
You open the System Center Operations Manager console to view management servers and assigned agents.
In this scenario, either management servers or the assigned agents may be displayed as unavailable even though the health state of the management servers is displayed as healthy.

If you are impacted by this you can find the hotfix at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;981263.

Good luck!
Bob Cornelissen

Tim McFadden has published an update to the remote maintenance mode scheduler script he created in order to make it R2 ready. Please refer to the blog posting by Tim for more information and the download link.

Going to start reading the documentation is always a good place to start.
So as DPM 2010 and Service Manager 2010 hit RTM you can find the docs and links to docs here:

DPM 2010:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff399192.aspx

Service Manager 2010:
http://blogs.technet.com/servicemanager/archive/2010/04/25/where-s-the-docs.aspx

Happy reading!
Bob Cornelissen

The new Cumulative Update 2 for OpsMgr 2007 R2 has been released just before this weekend.
You can find the download at the download center:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=61714687-668a-46e4-b127-ad8519594351

A description of the rollup can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979257.

Basically the CU contains both CU1 and CU2 updates.
It brings certain files to a version 6.1.7221.15

As always it is good to read the hotfix description and installation guidelines. Follow the usual procedure for deploying these kind of updates.
Kevin Holman already deployed it in his test environment and lists steps and things to keep in mind. My test environment is going to go for it right after I finish writing this.

Good luck!
Bob Cornelissen

 

Microsoft just announced the RTM of SQL Server 2008 R2.
Read more about it over here at the MS press pass.
We will be able to use it in a few weeks time.

 

Now I am sure I must have missed this somewhere in the flood of posts

On MS downloads you can find a download for Operator Basics SuperFlow for Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007.

According to the description overview:

The Operator Basics SuperFlow contains the essential information for a new operator using Operations Manager 2007. The SuperFlow interactive content model provides a structured and interactive interface for viewing documentation. Each SuperFlow includes comprehensive information about a specific dataflow, workflow, or process. Depending on the focus of the SuperFlow, you will find overview information, steps that include detailed information, procedures, sample log entries, best practices, real-world scenarios, troubleshooting information, security information, animations, or other information. Each SuperFlow also includes links to relevant resources, such as Web sites or local files that are copied to your computer when you install the SuperFlow.

Just downloaded and installed this.
It is basically an introduction into the practical stuff within SCOM (how it is built as components, what the consoles look like, what to do with alerts and things like that). It is meant for people starting with SCOM and gives intro into the basics. So for Tier1 support (Helpdesk first and second line lets say) and to get started for others as well before they dive deeper into the product.

A very good initiative.
Any Operator starting with SCOM should check this out!

Bob Cornelissen

 

Yesterday Bob Muglia announced the RTM of System Center Service Manager 2010.
That is great news!

You can download the Eval version here.

 

As you might have heard Robert Bakker from Microsoft Netherlands organized that we could watch the keynote at their office through a live stream and have pizza afterwards. As one of the great things of the MMS is networking, we at least could meet up with a number of old friends again.
Stefan Stranger made a short video of our experience there.

At least we did get to see Raymond Chou and Marcus Oh!!!

Thanks Robert for organizing this and thanks to Stefan for the impression

Bob Cornelissen