System Center Orchestrator 1801 Integration Packs

 

Orchestra…?

 

FYI – Additional IP’s released this month for Orchestrator, SMA, and SPF

Orchestrator https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56558

Service Management Automation https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56559

Service Provider Foundation https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56557

 

In case you didn’t know, from Lynne Taggart’s blog , these integration packs (IP) were released in February:

System Center 1801+ Integration Pack for HP iLO and OA
System Center 1801+ – Orchestrator Integration Packs
System Center 1801+ Integration Pack for HP Service Manager
System Center 1801+ Integration Pack for IBM Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus
System Center 1801+ Integration Pack for VMware vSphere
System Center 1801+ Integration Pack for HP Operations Manager

 

Have fun automating!

Dock the Outlook calendar

Tired of clicking to see your Outlook calendar?

 

 

I recently lost the ‘Outlook peek’ off my Outlook client, and panicked!

Here’s the Office Support link https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Change-how-you-view-your-Outlook-calendar-A4E0DFD2-89A1-4770-9197-A3E786F4CD8F

 

It’s real easy to fix, but man it eluded me there [ as I over think it 🙂 ]

 

Right click on the calendar icon (lower left hand corner)

Choose Dock the peek

 

Voila!  calendar shows on your email tab

 

 

Office support article

OMS Heartbeat failures and creating alerts

 

Feel like you have a ton of data, but lack insights?

 

 

Would like to thank the Product team to clarify how to do this with Kusto (new OMS Query language)

 

If you use OMS and need to verify the most recent data collection

Heartbeat | summarize max(TimeGenerated)

If you want to check a specific machine you can run this one:  

Heartbeat | where Computer==”contosovm” | summarize max(TimeGenerated)

If you want to build an alert based on it you can write something like:

Heartbeat | where Computer==”contosovm” | summarize m=max(TimeGenerated) | where m < ago(15m)

The last query will return result only if you have heartbeat missing for more than 15 minutes.

 

If you need additional information on OMS query syntax, check out Antoni’s blog

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/antoni/2018/02/03/operations-management-suite-101-log-analytics-queries-101/

 

Kusto site http://kusto/

SQL MP bloat

Updated 25 Feb 2023

 

Ever wish alerts were like a wad of cash?

The more you solve, the more you make!

 

How about performance counter data?

 

 

The SQL management packs are awesome for visualizations, and provide a bunch of data.

 

Tim McFadden pointed out SQL Performance counters https://www.scom2k7.com/crazy-db-performance-collection-rules-in-the-sql-mps/

His blog brings up SQL MP Disk Latency performance counters.

 

His blog got me thinking about SQL DB and DB file design, where multiple DB files are on the same Drive, causes duplicate performance counters (SCOM workflows) on the agent, and will typically be one of the culprits for HealthService restarts.

 

SQL MP creates performance counters (per DB file, group, instance, engine)

 

Let’s start with how I figured out why all my money goes into storage.

 

Start in the SCOM console

Click on the Reporting Tab

Click on the ‘System Center Core Monitoring Reports’ folder

Double click on the Data Volume by Management Pack

View of SCOM report from console reporting tab

Select the timeframe (from, to)

Click Run

Data Volume MP selected

 

Reporting Data

I have 2 2016 DB’s and 1 2014 (SCVMM) database server monitored, and it’s 50% of my data volume!

 

 

 

Another example – had the DW shutdown for days

Data volume of SQL after

 

Did you know there are 60+ perf counter rules in 2012 alone, and nearly 200 in 2016?

 

How about an OFF pack, a management pack that turns off all the performance counter rules?

The monitors still exist for health, just no pretty performance graph, should you look.

 

 

Github repo link

Check out the Gallery post for download

TechNet gallery download

 

Zip file contains

  1.  OFF MP’s for 2008,2012,2014,2016
  2. XLS sheets to allow you to go to the SQL team and ask them what performance counters they use

 

 

2016 SQL SP1 patch issue

False alert?

 

If you have SQL2016 SP1 monitored in SCOM, you most likely have Compliance monitor warnings

 

This is actually a problem with SP1 where SQL did not update the registry key.

 

 

Two options to remedy:

  1. Disable SCOM monitor per instance (or class if SP1 is NOT in your environment)
  2. Fix the offending SQL Servers that are patched to SP1

 

 

Steps to fix the offending SQL Servers patched to SP1

Update Registry Key

 

Via PowerShell

 

TechNet forum is nice as well, but had to tweak it (blog listed here )

 

# Get Instance

$Instance = (Get-ItemProperty “HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server”).InstalledInstance )

NOTE: If you have multiple instances, you will need a foreach loop

# Get Version

$Version = (Get-ItemProperty “HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\$((Get-ItemProperty ‘HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\Instance Names\SQL’).$Instance)\Setup”).Version

# Match Version and set Registry Key
if ($Version -match ‘13.1.4’)

{

Set-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\$((Get-ItemProperty ‘HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\Instance Names\SQL’).$Instance)\Setup” -Name ‘SP’ -Value 1

}

# Verify

Get-ItemProperty -path “HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL13.MSSQLSERVER\Setup” | ft SP

 

 

 

Steps broken out

 

Get Registry Key value via PowerShell

 

Get-ItemProperty -path “HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL13.MSSQLSERVER\Setup” | ft SP

 

 

 

Set Registry Key

 

Set-ItemProperty -path “HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL13.MSSQLSERVER\Setup” -name “SP” -value 1

 

 

Verification

Verify via PowerShell

 

 

Verify via RegEdit

 

Reset SCOM Monitor

 

And the false alert is gone!