Have you ever been looking at a management pack and wishing it was collecting just a little more information for you?  You’re not the only one, there are quite a few people who write MPs from scratch to support applications they are running, but there are more who are still a little leery of going down the path of MP Authoring.  In the next series of posts I’m going to walk through extending the base Hyper-V management pack so that it provides more information around how healthy the servers really are. 

Writing Management Packs for SCOM: A more robust Hyper-V MP – Xplat Xperts

This is the introductory release of the SystemCentered Reporting Management Pack (version 1.0). The purpose of these reports are to provide SCOM users and administrators easy access to performance information in the datawarehouse.

When making a report, I have a few key rules to ensure an effective report:

• Try to keep all vital information on a single page
• Simple and intuitive report parameters
• Run time should be minimized by utilizing efficient SQL (namely, properly using indexes)
• Reports should look the same on screen as it does printed

For feedback, requests, or other information, you can contact me at chad@chad.cc or see my blog at chad.cc where I provide more detailed information on the creation of these reports and other SCOM information.

SystemCentered Reporting Management Pack – SCOM 2007 R2 Performance Reports

Most of the times we can rely on the more general reporting features delivered with SCOM 2007 R2 for reporting purposes. But when you want to design a really nice looking report which is much easier to generate and target you need to dive into report designer or even the even more flexible Visual Studio which

Creating a Custom Report for SCOM 2007 R2 with SQL 2008 reporting in Microsoft Visual Studio 2008

As part of OpsMgr 2007 R2 and Desktop Error Monitoring 3.5 (DEM) we will be releasing four new AEM reports later this month.

The 4 new reports are:

- Top Blue Screen Computers

- Top Blue Screen Computers by User

- Top Crashing Applications by User

- Top Crashing Applications by Computer

System Center Operations Manager : New Beta AEM\DEM Reports

After weeks of pilot testing, the xSNMP Suite version 1.1.0 is ready for public beta release.  In addition to some bug fixes and feature enhancements, this release includes four completely new management packs:

• xSNMP Juniper-NetScreen MP:   Implements comprehensive monitoring of NetScreen firewall devices
• xSNMP NetApp MP:  Implements comprehensive monitoring of NetApp storage devices
• xSNMP Sun Hardware MP: Implements monitoring of Sun Server hardware, through the SunFire Management Agent, Sun ILOM out-of-band management interface, or the Fujitsu XSCF out-of-band management interface
• xSNMP Dell PowerEdge MP:  Implements monitoring of hardware for Dell PowerEdge devices via the Dell OpenManage agent or DRAC out-of-band management interface

These management packs are in addition to the other 11 management packs previously included in the suite

xSNMP Management Pack Suite Version 1.1.0 (Beta) « Operating-Quadrant

I’m essentially mirroring this from the original one on my blog, but since I’ve decided to transition to a tech blog and a non-tech blog, it seems like a good idea.

I’ve taken the listing of SQL queries from Kevin Holman’s original post, cleaned them up a bit, and made it into one file which you can download and load into SQL Studio Manager, instead of copying and pasting individual queries. I’ll also be showing you how to automate a lot of these with PoSh, but right now I’m swamped and haven’t had the time to clean things up proper – so you’ll just have to wait.

Useful SCOM SQL Queries | Pavleck.NET

Updated: May 22, 2009

Applies To: Operations Manager 2007 R2, Operations Manager 2007 SP1

After the initial deployment of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007, you might need to move the Operations Manager database from one Microsoft SQL Server-based computer to another.

SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 support the ability to change the location of the data files and of the log files between SQL Server-based computers, between instances on the same SQL Server-based computer, and different volumes on the same SQL Server-based computer. For more information about using this function in SQL Server, see the SQL Server documentation (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=93787).

The high-level steps of moving the OperationsManager database are as follows:

1. Back up the OperationsManager database.
2. Uninstall the OperationsManager database.
3. Delete the Operations Manager database.
4. Restore the OperationsManager database.
5. Update management servers with the new database server name.
6. Update the Operations Manager database with the new database server name.
7. Update the Operations Manager database logins on the new database server. Ensure that for the root management server, the SDK Account and the Action Account are included in the logins and that they have appropriate permissions. If reporting is installed, ensure that the Data Warehouse Action Account has appropriate permissions.
8. Set ENABLE_BROKER if needed.
9. Verify that the move is successful by ensuring that the console is displaying valid data.

How to Move the OperationsManager Database in Operations Manager 2007

New Base OS MP 6.0.6667.0 adds file fragmentation monitor to all Logical Disks

I recently blogged about the new Base OS MP that was recently released:  HERE

One of the things you will notice RIGHT off the bat… is that a huge percentage of your logical disks will go into a warning state, if you don’t already have some sort of scheduled defragmentation set up.  This will be true for virtual machines and physical machines…. anything over 10 percent file fragmentation (or the OS recommended setting) will get hit:

Kevin Holman’s OpsMgr Blog : New Base OS MP 6.0.6667.0 adds file fragmentation monitor to all Logical Disks

Designing a custom performance report

On February 27th 2009 I presented a TechNet Webcast to show how to author your own custom performance reports using Operations Manager 2007.

The webcast can be viewed from

https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mseventsbmo/view?id=1032399073&role=attend&pw=9CAB8380

Attached to this blog are the step by step instructions and sample files that accompany the webcast. Extract files to view.

Using both the webcast and instructions you should be able to walk through and create your own report.

Daniel

http://blogs.technet.com/momteam

System Center Operations Manager : Designing a custom performance report

Useful Operations Manager 2007 SQL queries

A large list of SQL Queries to run against the operational database and the data warehouse

Kevin Holman’s OpsMgr Blog : Useful Operations Manager 2007 SQL queries