Hardware Monitoring with SCOM 2007

UPDATE – Looks like the Major 3 server hardware manufactures have now all released their Management Packs see the list below.

I work with most of the popular and even some un-popular providers and as such I will use this post to direct you to where you can get the latest hardware Management Packs:

IBM
 - Server & Blade Center: https://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/iwm/web/preLogin.do?source=dmp (You will need to log in. You will find the downloads at the bottom of the Windows pages. See screen Shot)

DELL
- Server: http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R158716&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=212055

HP
- Server: http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/mom2007/index.html
- Storage Works: http://h18004.www1.hp.com/storage/SCOM_managementpack.html

ACER
Note: I have spoken to reps and have been told that the Management Pack for Acer Server will be out Q3 2007. This work has been outsourced to Microsoft to develop.

Web Console Error: “Server Error in ‘/’ Application – Requested value ‘UrlViewType’ was not found.”

SYMPTOMS

You get the following error in the SCOM Web Console:

Server Error in ‘/’ Application – Requested value ‘UrlViewType’ was not found.

CAUSE 

This is due to the fact that Microsoft doesn’t support Web Page Views in the web console.

RESOLUTION

Remove the Web Page View or don’t use the Web Console.
 I believe MS are working on a fix for this.

Custom created Management Pack with custom rules don’t show correctly in Reporting

I have found the following Issue when creating a report from a Custom Performance Counter that was added to a Custom Management Pack.

If you would like to follow along, First, create a new Management Pack and then under Authoring create a Rule for a performance counter ie: % Processor Time.

Second, go to Reporting and under “Microsoft Generic Report Library” open the “Performance” report and fill out all the details. When you go to selecting the counter you will see an uninterperatable name. This is displayed as a sequence of numbers and letters where the counter name should be, this is obvious from the screenshot below:

This becomes a real neusence when you get your report results as the ‘Rule:’ detail is not interperatable. So should you forget what you printed or saved, you will not be able to reference this in the feature. See the follow screenshot:

I have highlighted where you should see what the counter name is, if you were to look back at this report in the future you would not be able to tell that it was % Processor Time.

Duplication in Reports – Issue found in SQL MP

I have found a issue I have yet to verify with other Management Packs but will be doing some testing to see how common this is.

Basicly, if you install the SQL Management Pack and then Uninstall it and then reinstall it again, and in my case it was off for about 2 weeks. You may find when in the Monitoring pane that when you are highlighting an SQL server under Microsoft SQL Server – Active Alerts you see duplicate reports. See the screenshot below:

‘Design a report’ in SCOM Reporting fails to open successfully

SYMPTOMS

 When in the Reporting pane of System Center Operations Manager, you click on ‘Design a report’ and IE opens and then closes straight away with no error.

CAUSE

This is caused by the requirements of Microsoft’s ClickOnce technology not having the required IE setting configured. The minimum requirements can be found at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms159221.aspx

In summary of the article you need to enable to following configuration in IE’s Internet Option enabled:

.NET Framework-Reliant components
         – Run components not signed with Authenticode

RESLOUTION

1. Open IE 7
2. Click on Tools / Internet Options
3. Select the Security Tab
4. Select the zone ie: Local Intranet
5. Click Custom Level…
6. Find .NET Framework-relient components and enable the Run components not signed with Authenticode
7. Apply and close IE

If your like me and have a Group Policy setting these settings, you will need to create a new Group Policy and import the IE Group Policy Template. This is located normaly in Windows\inf folder called inetres.adm.

Import this into an overwriting policy for the machines that require this setting.

Finding a MP Rule

I have found and also reading a lot of posts in message boards that one of the big changes in moving from MOM 2005 to SCOM 2007 is where do MP rules go and how can i view them and disable or edit them. So here is a quick few steps to help you out:

1. Open the Operation Console
2. Open the Authoring section
3. Expand Management Pack Objects and click Rules
4. There is light yellow line which operates the Scope function
5. Click Change Scope
6. Now select the targets you are interested in viewing. (These are name very similar to the MP’s you have installed)
7. Click OK
8. Now you can Right-Click and perform the required override or view the rule properties.

Its good to note that most packaged MP’s are now ‘locked’ which means you will only be able to perform a limited set of functions on them. Bacause of this you are also not able to create new rules in a locked MP. Microsoft have you create your own MP and create all your new task and rules. So be sure to try and keep a standard when creating new MP’s as it will make management a lot easier.

Operations Manager 2007 Design Guide Released

What I would believe to be a document needing to be released before the product, the Design Guide, has now been published on the Microsoft Website. Authored by Christoper Fox its a nice read for those Architects out there planning a SCOM deployment.

My only opinion at the moment on the data contained is I believe the minimum are too low. If your like me and like speed then I would recommend much higher configurations.

You can get a copy of the Design Guide from the link bellow:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/4/d/74deff5e-449f-4a6b-91dd-ffbc117869a2/OpsMgr2007_DesignGuid.doc

SRS Server Validation Error – (407) Proxy Authentication Required

ISSUE:

If like me, you are behind a proxy and you use a proxy.pac file to athenticate to the Internet, and you have this set in IE. You may get an SRS Server Validation Error. To find out if this is the case use the following command line to log the instalation of the SCOM Reporting MSI:

msiexec /i reporting2007.msi /l*v c:\reportinglog.txt

Look at the reportinglog.txt file and you will see the following:

Action start 12:25:05: _ValidateSRSWebSiteBindingsCA_Wizard.
MSI (c) (58:44) [12:25:05:568]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\DOCUME~1\itsjrh\LOCALS~1\Temp\MSI2C2.tmp, Entrypoint: ValidateSRSWebSiteBindingsCA
MSI (c) (58!E4) [12:25:06:146]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding REPORT_SERVER_FULL_HTTP_PATH_VALID property. Its value is ‘0′.
MSI (c) (58!E4) [12:25:12:787]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding FailedMsgProperty property. Its value is ‘CheckHttpAddressResponse: Failed Status Code of The remote server returned an error: (407) Proxy Authentication Required.’.

RESOLUTION:

Remove all proxy setting from IE and re-run Reporting installation.

Backout / Roll Back a SCOM Management Pack

It would be nice if SCOM supported a Roll Back feature for its Management Packs like Windows does with drivers nowadays. However it doesn’t, so should you want to backout an MP you are going to need to remove it. You are unable to install an older version MP over a new version MP.

Removing a SCOM Management Pack is simple:
1. Open System Center Operations Manager 2007 Operators Console
2. Go in to the Administration section
3. Select the Management Packs in the left plane
4. Highlight the Management Pack you with to remove on the right
5. Right-Click and select Delete
6. Click YES to approve

Note: Some MP’s (ie: SQL) have dependancies and these will be shown as needing to be removed before you can remove the currently selected MP.

Once you have clicked delete it can take some time and you will notice that the TEMPDB in your Database Warehouse can expand to an incredible amount. I have seen it get upto 14GB! This something to keep your eye on as you will be removing all the data associated with the Management Pack.

Back from Holidays! 12th June

All,

I am back from holidays and have started to get back into things and have a lot of interesting emails from various sources including Microsoft with updates and issues with SCOM.

I had a great holiday in the US visiting LA, San Fransisco, Chicago and New York with a 3 day stop over in Fiji on the way back. The people were great but as I went there to visit friends I can’t say I saw as much as a tourist would. Have to say though that with no expectation of Chicago it exceeded all expectations and has jump to the top my favorite places in America

However, with my hobby being in Wine I did enjoy the Nappa thoroughly!

Look forward to getting back into SCOM and posting some good fixes and topics soon