As a hybrid cloud management suite Microsoft provides a brand new hybrid management solution called OMS that helps to manage enterprise no matter where they run: Azure, AWS, Windows Server, Linux, VMware, or OpenStack.
OMS itself will extend your System Center investments and also includes best practices in operating world’s largest cloud environments to simplify management of your assets wherever they live.

In this blog post I just want to refer to the top and most popular information around OMS to learn more about that new technology.

• Microsoft Brings the Next Generation of Hybrid Cloud - Azure to Your Datacenter
• Microsoft announces new solutions to empower IT professionals
• Ignite Keynote Demo Recap: The Microsoft Operations Management Suite (OMS)
• Microsoft Operations Management Suite

You can create and manage distributed applications using the Distributed Applications Designer in the Operations console as a graphical environment. First, this article provides some fundamentals for distributed applicaitions and the service model anatomy. The second part of this article that serves a custom solution to resolve a common challenge that may appear once you manage change against a distributed application service model during the lifecycle of your entire IT-Service. As enterprises will have to adapt to the new market challenges very frequently, change very often results in adaptations to the IT infrastructure and IT-service landscape. Accordingly, service transition planning and support process must incorporate the service design and operational requirements also.

Anatomy of Distributed Applications

(As provided by: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh457612.aspx )

Once you are managing your IT-Service as a distributed application you may need to adapt the IT-service model component group membership definition during service operations or service transitions. A component group is declared as the root for all components that will be contained by the toplevel System.Service class. At some points your service model may declare component groups that aggregate even further logical sub-groups as illustrated in the example above. The problem that may arise is that these sub-groups may be disappeared within the Operations Manager Console group view. This does not cause Monitoring failure but handicaps changes against these nested groups. The problem with that is that these nested groups are not be managed as a top-level entity as per GetRootMonitoringObjectGroups() anymore. To resolve from that issue we will need to add these groups back to a  top-Level entity group to re-establish visibility within the OpsMgr Console group view. The following custom Management Pack solution provides a group discovery that aggregates each contained group within a component service group back to an auxiliary top-level entity group.

Please note: The sample scripts are not supported under any Microsoft standard support program or service and may also cause side-effects on (Default) ressource pool performance within large-scale environments. The sample scripts are provided AS IS without warranty of any kind. Microsoft further disclaims all implied warranties including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability or of fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk arising out of the use or performance of the sample scripts and documentation remains with you. In no event shall Microsoft, its authors, or anyone else involved in the creation, production, or delivery of the scripts be liable for any damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use the sample scripts or documentation, even if Microsoft has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Below please find the discovery definition that will calculate DistributedAppGroupPopulator.InstanceGroup object that will contain all System.Group entities that are contained within a ServiceComponentGroup. The mpx-Fragment is also attached to this post.

 <ClassType ID="DistributedAppGroupPopulator.InstanceGroup" Accessibility="Public" Abstract="false" Base="MSIL!Microsoft.SystemCenter.InstanceGroup" Hosted="false" Singleton="true" Extension="false"/>

Once this group has been discovered successfully your group will be back visible / mangageable in the Operations Manager Console.

Update #1 - 2014/08/22

In order to tweak discovery performance you may want to add the maxDepth parameter within the contained expression type. Thanks to Brian MC Dermott for this pointer!

DAGroupPopulator.zip

This blog post provides a playbook that demonstrates how to install Update Rollup 3 for System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager.

First, please download the UR3 update package from the Microsoft Update catalog: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2965445/en-us

Please be aware of the following known issues for this update rollup:

Issue #1: After you install this update rollup package on all roles on the server that is running System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2 (except on the Gateway role), the updates do not appear in the Add or Remove Programs item in Control Panel.
Issue #2: After you install this update rollup package, the version number of the console is not changed.
No Workaround available yet.

Issue #3: After you install this update rollup package on a web console, you receive the following error message in Internet Explorer:Server Error in '/OperationsManager' Application.
To resolve this issue, close and then restart Internet Explorer.

Issue #4: Agent is not updated when you use Pending Patch view in the Operations Manager console. 
To work around this issue, deploy the update to agents by using the Repair option. To do this, expand Device Management in the Administration hierarchy, right-click Agent Managed, and then click Repair to repair the agents.

Issue #5: Agent is not updated when you install from the gateway computer.

To work around this issue, copy the agent update from the SCOM server to the gateway computer. For example, copy KB2929891-amd64-Agent.msp from the following: \\SCOM Server\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager\Gateway\AgentManagement\amd64 
Then, copy KB2929891-amd64-Agent.msp to the following:  \\SCOM Gateway\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager\Gateway\AgentManagement\amd64
Deploy the update to agents by using the Repair option. To do this, expand Device Management in the Administration hierarchy, right-click Agent Managed, and then click Repair to repair the agents.

Issue #6: When you try to import Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Component.Library, the import fails because of missing dependencies.
To resolve this issue, import Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Component.Library again.

Please note: For XPLAT related issue please refer to the KB avbove.

Rollout procedure for Update Rollup 3

1. Install the update rollup package on the following server infrastructure:

• Management server or Servers
• Gateway servers

Once the update was applied please check the application Event log for the following message:

• Web console server role Computers

Once the update was applied please check the application Event log for the following message:

2. Apply SQL update scripts (Location: %SystemDrive%\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Operations Manager\Server\SQL> Script for Update Rollups)

• Data Warehouse: UR_Datawarehouse.sql

Expected result:

• Operations Manager Database: Update_rollup_mom_db.sql
  (You may receive a message to normalize line endings, please apply the CR LF line ending.)
  

Expected result:

3. Manually import the management packs (Location: %SystemDrive%\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Operations Manager\Server\Management Packs for Update Rollups)

• Microsoft.SystemCenter.TFSWISynchronization.mpb
• Microsoft.SystemCenter.Advisor.mpb
• Microsoft.SystemCenter.Advisor.Internal.mpb
• Microsoft.SystemCenter.TFSWISynchronization.mpb
• Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Library.mpb
• Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Component.Library.mp
• Microsoft.SystemCenter.Visualization.Component.Library.mpb

If you are getting the following error which has the note that Microsoft.SystemCenter.TFSWISynchronization.mpb has the following dependency: Microsoft.SystemCenter.AlertAttachment.mpb, which should be installed from the SCOM 2012 R2 RTM media

The Microsoft.SystemCenter.TFSWISynchronization.mpb is located on the Installation media under Management Packs.

Once all dependencies are met, the Management Packs can be imported without dependency errors:

4. Apply the agent update to manually installed agents, or push the installation from the Pending view in the Operations console.

Please be aware of the following issues:

• Agent is not updated when you use Pending Patch view in the Operations Manager console. 
  To work around this issue, deploy the update to agents by using the Repair option. To do this, expand Device Management in the Administration hierarchy, right-click Agent Managed, and then click Repair to repair the agents.
• Agent is not updated when you install from the gateway computer.
  To work around this issue, copy the agent update from the SCOM server to the gateway computer.
  For example, copy KB2929891-amd64-Agent.msp from the following: \\SCOM Server\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager\Gateway\AgentManagement\amd64

this session provides an overview of the most stable enterprise monitoring product available today and the new innovations that arrived in R2 and since. This session also features a panel discussion with members of the System Center Product Group.

Enjoy! ;-)

Dear all,

this is a session on the new Dashboard widgets and Features introduced in System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager and UR2. Enjoy! ;-)

This session covers the brand new innovations in the Operations Manager dashboard infrastructure that allows you to build custom dashboards for any audience.  

Speakers: Ryan Benson, Charlie Satterfield, Jeremy Winter

attached please find a sample MP that contains some examples on how to implement the new PowerShell widgets that are introduced in UR2 of System Center 2012 R2 - Operations Manager. Once the MP attached is imported you can check out four sample  dashboards that demonstrate the functionality of these brand new widgets (see official Product Group announcement here)

1. Operations Manager Survival Guide Reader

• Table of content source widget and contextual widget to fetch the contents of the Operations Manager Surival Guide for SCOM 2012 R2.

2. System Center Operations Manager Management Pack List

• Displays a list of all SCOM Management Packs available.

3. System Center: Operations Manager Engineering Feed

• Simple RSS-reader that demonstrates the value of the PowerShell Web Browser Widget.

4. Windows Computer Dashboard

• A simple dashboard view that displays the health state of your Windows Computer inventory.

Here are some of my lessons learned on IT-pro dashboard authoring:

• Encourage effective use of IT-pro Dashboards. Dasboards can deliver quick wins for IT organizations and valuable insights for business decision makers.

• Pay caution on too many contextual widgets because things are event-driven because a dashboard must speak clearly and immediately.

• The average response time of a widget will improve if there are not many “costly” contextual widgets that may also query data poorly as well.

• There may be timing issues so you need to navigate to a different dashboard then back the see the dashboard data correctly.

• It’s not easy to access the error exception dialog within a web browser widget yet.

• On context object change for a contextual widget item all remaining context widget get refreshed. This could be suppressed in a custom dashboard.

To learn more about dashboard authoring for System Center Operations Manager please refer to the TechNet Wiki that provides great documentation on each widget that is available to be included in an Operations Manager dashboard.

Happy Dashboard authoring! 

PowerShell.Visualization.Demo.zip

I am happy to announce the Operations Manager 2012 R2 survival guide a the successor of the System Center 2012 - Operations Manager survival guide. What is a survival guide? It is a page we created as a pointer to the best information on the web. You can use the information below to learn the fundamentals; increase your current knowledge; or stay current on Operations Manager and events. If you think we missed some great article out there, please add it below! Many links take you to topics and articles that apply to System Center 2012 SP1 also, so the content is linked where necessary. The survival guide is not finished yet, so feel free to contribute more content.

 Link to the Operations Manager 2012 R2 survival guide

Hello fellow Operations Manager community,

as you certainly know System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2 was just released a few days ago. This quick start guide is intended to help you to configure a basic System Center Operations Manager environment from scratch. Attached please find a little flip book that explains how to install the first SCOM Management Server in a Management group initially. Have fun!

/Matthias

OM2012R2_MS_QSG.docx

This is provided "as is " with no warranties, and confers no rights. Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified in the Terms of Use.

Scenario

Before I will dive into the technical details I would like to render the scenario that may apply in order to purge an agent from the Operations Manager database immediately. I hope this will serve the community with an idea how to handle system re-installation with the same NetBIOS name. Once the system is deleted from the Operations Manager Console it remains as deleted in the Operations Manager database until the next grooming interval (2 days, hardcoded by product design) removes those entities from the database. If the data from the old NetBIOS name is not completely groomed out of the database the new installed agent will appear as "Not monitored". In order to get the agent back into monitoring the only supported workaround is to wait for two days at minimum. For more information please refer to KB979387.

To get the monitoring immediately up and running after the agent was re-installed you may use the following SQL-statements. Thanks to my colleague Mihai for sharing this trick.

OpsMgr 2007 (R2): (Unsupported, use at your own risk)

======== DECLARE @TimeGenerated DATETIME, @BatchSize INT, @RowCount INT SET @TimeGenerated = GETUTCDATE() SET @BatchSize = 10000 EXEC p_DiscoveryDataPurgingByRelationship @TimeGenerated EXEC p_DiscoveryDataPurgingByTypedManagedEntity @TimeGenerated EXEC p_DiscoveryDataPurgingByBaseManagedEntity @TimeGenerated

OpsMgr 2012: (Unsupported, use at your own risk)

============ DECLARE @TimeGenerated DATETIME, @BatchSize INT, @RowCount INT SET @TimeGenerated = GETUTCDATE() SET @BatchSize = 10000 EXEC p_DiscoveryDataPurgingByRelationship @TimeGenerated, @BatchSize, @RowCount EXEC p_DiscoveryDataPurgingByTypedManagedEntity @TimeGenerated, @BatchSize, @RowCount EXEC p_DiscoveryDataPurgingByBaseManagedEntity @TimeGenerated, @BatchSize, @RowCount