Innovative Technology Weblog

OpsMgr is mainly used to get a grip on you server infrastructure and to optimize performance and availability by using best practice, which knowledge provide in the MP’s, and resolve errors with a head start with the provided knowledge. But the next step into monitoring is getting the most out of your infrastructure and Virtualization is one of these things that can help you get there.

Currently a lot of organizations want to save money and cut back on hardware and power with the great green IT wave landing in most organizations right now. OpsMgr can help you that. VMM 2008 has the ability to manage and optimize performance, load and availability and cut back on the off hour work by leveraging the heterogenic environment to a single management console in combination with PRO ( Performance and Resource Optimization ) it does give you the insides and tips in your environment. So System Center Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager will give you the tools you need the manage it all.

But how can i select the best virtualization candidate in my environment to make the first steps in optimizing my infrastructure? The answer is easier than expected.

To select the best virtualization candidates just import the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and the System Center Virtualization Reports 2008 Management pack from the catalog to run the report for virtualization candidate selection, even when you not using VMM 2008 in your environment.

This MP is not only for the SCOM 2007 R2 users but can be used in SCOM 2007 SP1 too. Just download the System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager 2007 and import the Microsoft.SystemCenter.VirtualMachineManager.2008.mp and the Microsoft.Virtualization.Reports.2008.mp and you can run your reports.

Getting into the report go, in the SCOM console, to the reporting area and navigate to the System Center Virtualization reports 2008  and select the Virtualization Candidates report. Now you can define the parameters for you selection of virtualization candidates.

Start identifying you virtualization candidates and building your dynamic datacenter, have fun with it!

Update: The selection process for virtual candidates relays on the “Virtual machine” property “IsVirtualMachine” to be FALSE for selecting the physical machines in your environment. The downside to that property is that VMWare virtual machines are not detected so the generated reports will show the physical machines you want to see and the virtual VMWare machines.

The solution to that problem is the following Management pack made by Pete Zerger of the System Center Central. Thanks Pete!

Virtual Machine Discovery MP for OpsMgr 2007

This MP extends existing discovery of virtual machines by Operations Manager and Essentials to include VMware guests. The MP will update the “IsVirtualMachine” property of the Windows Computer object to TRUE for VMware guests. Also disables and replaces the existing discovery rule that sets this value to false for non-MS VMs.

Regards,
Walter Eikenboom
http://weblogwally.spaces.live.com

As a System Center Operations Manager Specialist I’m happy to tell you all that SCOM 2007 R2 has hit Release to Manufacturing today. The Operations Manager Team has worked for two years to get this version out there. Thank for that!

The SCOM 2007 R2 is a solid piece of work with numerous new and improved features to make it easier to do your daily task in getting a better an more cost effective infrastructure. In this article I will discuss a few of the new improvements and features in R2.

One of the big eye catchers is the cross platform functionality that OpsMgr 2007 R2 provides out of the box. OpsMgr 2007 R2 will integrated touch and feel for both Windows and Unix/Linux based clients. With this integration you can watch your environments health through a single pane of glass.

The SCOM 2007 R2 supported cross platform operating systems are:

When Service levels are in place the access and security to these IT services becomes more and more interesting. Audit Collection Services ACS gives the insight IT organizations need to drive compliance and investigate un-trusted and unwanted access to there services. ACS provides an integrated solution and with SCOM 2007 R2 the ability to use ACS on no windows systems will broaden de scope as a complete solution for compliancy.

Ease of operations is always a nice to have but in these times when application updates and product renewal is a day to day operations the ease of use and ease to operate is key for any product. SCOM 2007 R2 even made it a bit easier. A full upgrade from the SCOM 2007 SP1 is supported and all tuning and configuration you have done over the last two years will stay in place. Notifications where simplified and the the latest Management packs will provide reports with easier object selection. Enormous performance increate in console usage, which was a big down side in SCOM 2007 and SCOM 2007 SP1. Even the show updated management pack function as was used in MOM 2005 is back in SCOM 2007 R2. Not as an alert but when importing Management packs from the online catalog you can select the option to show update Management pack which you have installed in your environment.

 If you want to tryout all these features in the new version download the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 evaluation edition. I will get in more detail about some of the new features in some upcoming articles.

Regards,
Walter Eikenboom
http://weblogwally.spaces.live.com

This morning Brad Anderson, General Manager Management & Services Division of Microsoft Corporation did the opening Keynote at MMS 2009 in Las Vegas. Central topic of his opening keynote was the user centric approach for end user desktop experience without the current device restriction.

Brad talked about Windows 7, App-V and Med-V giving these feature to the end user without bothering them with technical details or action to give the full functionality. With windows 7 the new feature that will help provide these goals in a secure and cost effective way will be:

• Direct Acces
• Branch Cache
• Federated Search
• Navigation
• Bitlocker
• Bitlocker on the Go
• Applocker
• Security Development lifecycle
• Powershell
• Windows client troubleshooting platform
• Deployment tools
• VDI enhancements

Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 with MDOP and System Center will provide Discover & Assess, Compatibility, Deployment and User productivity, faster and easier in every stage for the modern client. To really get this on the road Microsoft is changing there client licensing ECAL to support full Client lifecycle management. New in the ECAL will be the DPM client CAL and the System Center Service Manager Client CAL. Service Manager will be key in these scenarios for delivering enriched client support, self-service and desired operation state in the Desktop optimization model, based on the infrastructure optimization model.

All these solution apply to the onsite IT infrastructure but the future of IT, Like Bob Kelly stated in yesterdays keynote, is the Cloud. Brad Anderson announced the System Center Online Desktop Manager to be available in beta shortly. The power of choice in this scenario will be the On-Premise support model, cloud support model and the combination by the use of federation. The V1 will not have the federation options but in the 6 month update cycle federation will come available shortly after the V1.

Some of the announcements made at the keynote where Configurations Manager Service pack 2 within 60 days and of course the always interesting System Center Road map.

Will keep you posted on the latest MMS 2009 news.

Regards,
Walter Eikenboom
http://weblogwally.spaces.live.com

Today at MMS 2009 Bob Kelly presented the MMS 2009 attendees a gimp on how the Cloud will effect the future of IT and how the Microsoft Windows Server and System Center will live up to the cloud expectation. The Cloud will provide Reliable, Predictable and automated service to companies and end users to drive their business and enable the evolution of IT. But is the Cloud The evolution of IT?

The cloud will provide services and scalability for all, from managed datacenters or your own organizations server room so we are the cloud!!! With this knowledge Microsoft explained the private cloud and Public cloud scenario where federation and management integrate seamless in both clouds.

The Private cloud will be the interesting part because that’s our environment connect to the world. The change in management will be the service oriented look at the infrastructure and how to scale out using the cloud to leverage with business needs, the Dynamic IT model will provide additional investments in virtualization, security and interoperability to get connected and in control. Some of the tools needed to accomplice this where announces by Bob Kelly in the MMS 2009 Keynote:

System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 within 30 day with key futures:

• SLA monitoring
• Visio integration
• Performance dashboard
• Linux/Unix Support by the use of open standards and common discovery for all server types
• Partner investments on PRO for VMM by HP and DELL Hardware management and cross platform MP’s for Apache, MySQL, Orcale and VMWare.

Virtual Machine Manager with cloud connection (migrating offline machines to the cloud for leveraging your resources, Demo by MaximumASP) possibilities and live migration in combination with Hyper-V in Windows server 2008 R2.

Dynamic Datacenter Toolkit for Hosters available today!

Dynamic Datacenter Toolkit for Enterprises within 60 days

With all these new announcements the strategies to get your business cloud ready:

Regards,
Walter Eikenboom
http://weblogwally.spaces.live.com

February second the Open Group released a new version of its framework TOGAF 9. TOGAF started out as a Technical Infrastructure Framework, started by the US Department of Defense in 1995 with TOGAF 1, and has grown out to a full framework for enterprise architecture in TOGAF version 9.

So why do you need a framework like TOGAF 9. From its origin IT was introduced to speedup business process so companies could make more money faster. Somewhere along the way IT became a technology driven, self sustaining machine where we all needed more gadgets without contributing to the added business value. Enterprise architecture is one of the ways to get the primary goal of IT back within normal costs and in control for a organization.

Have a look at TOGAF version 9 and see where it can help you improve you business with or even without IT.

Regards,
Walter Eikenboom
http://weblogwally.spaces.live.com