SCOM Cross Platform monitoring

Based on one of my SCOM assignments which requires Ubuntu to be monitored, we all know that with the previous SCOM 2012, this might not possible (well, we can still use SNMP to monitor whether the server is up or down, but nothing further than that i guess)

With the release of System Center SP1, which monitoring of the version and variants of cross platform OS has been extended, i am quite eager to see how this is possible.

What i have in the lab is a virtual Ubuntu 12.04 server hosted in a Windows Server 2012 server, with apache Tomcat and MySQL services installed. First is to install the SCOM Agent and to make things easier, i have been using root account for the agent installation.

Some of the screen from the monitoring are as below.

Stay tuned to my upcoming posts on monitoring Apache Tomcat Web Server via Microsoft JEE Application Server MP.

Error in installing additional SCOM Management Server

Not to say an expert, even though I had been working with SCOM for quite some time, error below was the first time I encountered during a recent engagement. Error below occurred when I tried to install a third SCOM management server which was totally unexpected, since the installation for the first and the second MS was done successfully without much hiccup.

Tried to repeat the installation again but the failure rate was 100%. Check out the internet and it seems that this might have something to do with the SQL connection time out, while the installation was trying to connect to the SCOM DB server to register the new Management Server.

One of the way you could possibly try is to extend the duration before the connection is timed out, and this requires updating the registry key of the server before the installation is re-started. Following will be the key that needs to be created.

Once created, reboot the server and try to reinstall the SCOM Management Server again. It should work this time (well at least it worked for me )

note: one thing to take note about before you reinstall the MS is that, you must remove that particular server from the management server list via the Operations Console. If not, you will not able to select the OpsMgr database during the MS installation.

Upgrading System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 to 2012 (pt.2)

It has been a while since my previous post about upgrading SCOM from 2007 R2 to 2012. Apologies to my oversight in the post earlier, you will need at least CU4 to proceed with the upgrade, together with other required pre-requisites.

Well, glad to say that now I had a production upgrade before and guess I can share more experience here. What I have was a multiple Management Server environment with more than 300 agents.

The whole upgrade exercise was divided into a few stages, from reinstalling the SQL server again, from 2008 to 2008 R2 (for future SP1 upgrade) and upgrading the management servers by stages, starting from the secondary management servers

While upgrading the management servers, it should be quite straight forward as the SCOM 2012 installer will be able to determine whether it is a fresh installation or an upgrade, something like below and the follow the wizard to complete the upgrade.

Once done, you should be able to see the version number changes of the management server that has been upgraded to SCOM 2012 via your 2007 R2 Operations Console and during the upgrade exercise, the 2 versions of SCOM can actually co-exists pretty well if you are doing the upgrade similar to what I had done.

However, if there is an Operations Console installed in the upgraded management server, you will not be able to access it and you will be prompted with the familiar “Data Access Service is not initialized…”.

Once the upgrade stabilized, you can now proceed to upgrade the SCOM agents which are reporting to this management server. As for the manually installed Agents, you will to manually upgrade it. Please take note that in certain circumstances, the agent update might be failed, IF it does not meet the requirements of a SCOM 2012 agent.

SCOM Installation Headache !!! (pt.2)

In my previous post, I was not able to test out the kb974886 hotfix since I was not able to reproduce the error in my lab environment. Well as of today, I got the luxury of simulating the problem using a live data.

A few things to keep note before applying the fix in the DC is that, firstly it is better for you to check out the version of the samsrv.dll file in the DC (under %systemroot%\system32 directory.) The current version should be less than 5.2.3790.4250.

Next, proceed to install the hotfix. Installing the hotfix should be straight forward whereby the installation wizard will leave you an option “not to reboot the server” after the installation completes. But if you do no check this option, the wizard will automatically reboots your DC, once the installation completes.

When the DC is back online, you may check the version number of the samsrv.dll again. By this time, the version number should be 5.2.3790.4250.

Now, proceed with the SCOM installation. At first you might be hitting the same old authentication problem again, when the SCOM installation wizard prompts you for the SCOM action account credential. If you have the similar experience, what you need to do is to relogin to the SCOM server again and re-initiate the SCOM installation. By this time, your credential should be successfully authenticated.

The same goes to other SCOM servers, if you are installing the components in different servers.

Activating SCOM 2012

Be default, even after you had successfully installed SCOM 2012 into your environment, it will be in Evaluation version.

Searching around the net, you might have found the ways to inject the productID but unfortunately for me, it does not seemed to be smooth for me. After a few tries, the following should be the easiest way (at least to me ) to apply the product key.

• run the PowerShell via elevated permission
• follow the commands as attached above

Once successfully done, repeat the steps in all other SCOM servers you have in your environment. Once done, it is best to reboot your SCOM servers. After the server is reboot, launch the SCOM console again and check if license key had been successfully registered. If it is, then you will see the status similar to the below

SCOM 2012 Cumulative Update (CU) 1

The CU 1 for SCOM 2012 has been released. Thank god, this time around, the installer size seems to be less than 100mb, (75mb to be exact), where you can get it here.

Cutting the story short, once extracted to a desired folder, there will be several .MSPs and .MPBs files extracted. It also comes with readMe.txt file which refers you to the KB2674695 article.

The installation order for the patch should be started by Server, then followed by each of the components installed in your SCOM Management Servers. Final step will be importing the updated management packs bundled with this update.

Apart from the update dll updates for console and webconsole, another thing to take note is that once the “KB2674695-AMD64-Server” patch has been applied, the patch for the SCOM agents will be automatically extracted to the AgentManagemt\amd64 folder

With SCOM 2012 CU1, you do not have to manually patch the Agents, once the Management Servers has been updated. In fact, this can be done automatically whereby what you need to do now is to open the “Pending Management” tab, you will be able to see a list of the Agents that need to be updated.

Once approved, for the update, a job will be invoked and display you the status, similar to what we have when installing a SCOM Agent

From here, you have the option to select all the agents from the same Management Server to perform the update at one go.

To check if all the Agents had been successfully patched, at the SCOM Console, go to OperationsManager –> Agent Details –> Agents by Version, and you should be able to see the patch list information

To have a complete listing about the SCOM 2012 CU1, please visit here.

Changing Management Servers for SCOM 2012 Agents

I think most of the SCOM experts out there already know how to switch the Management Server a SCOM 2012 Agent is reporting to. Nevertheless, I am posting it again as a handy quick reference if is it needed eventually.

Imaging on a scenario that your existing Management Server is a little tied up with the resources and you now have a new Management Server to ease things a little bit. This first thing you decide is to move some of the agents to the new server. At the existing SCOM Management Server, highlight the agent that you would like to move, and select “Change Primary Management Server”

Once done SCOM will then display you all the Management Servers within the Management Group, together with the Agents there are managing.

Select the desired Management Server and click OK

Once done, Agent of the selected server is now pointing to another Management Server