System Center 2012 SP1 Update Rollup 3 is Now Available for Download!

Microsoft have just announced that Update Rollup 3 (UR3) for System Center 2012 SP1 has dropped and is available for download. There's a number of fixes for AppController, DPM and SCOM.

Here's an overview of what's fixed in this update for each product:

App Controller (2012 SP1) Update (KB2853227)

Issue 1

• When you try to add a Microsoft System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) connection by using either the UI or a Windows PowerShell command, the connection is unsuccessful. Additionally, you receive the following error message:

Connection address must be a fully qualified domain name.

This problem may occur when the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) contains a hyphen (-) in the last part of the name.


Issue 2

• When a Windows Azure subscription contains a high-memory (A6 or A7) Windows Azure virtual machine, Azure functionality is not available in Microsoft System Center 2012 App Controller.

Additionally, you receive the following error message:

Retrieved data is incomplete.

When you click More details, you receive a "Service Unavailable" message. You may also receive a "Requested value 'A6' was not found" message.


Issue 3

• When you try to use App Controller together with a proxy server, you receive the following error message:

(407) authentication required.

Note App Controller does not use configured proxy settings.


Issue 4

• When you view the network properties of a deployed virtual machine and then click OK, the network connection is set to None. For example, the network connection field is empty and does not show the current network adapter.

 

Issue 5

• When you move quickly between virtual machines in a list and then click the Properties task, the properties page for the previously selected virtual machine is displayed.

 

Issue 6

• When you deploy an Azure virtual machine when the User must change password at next logon option is selected, you receive the following error message:

Bad Request

 

 

App Controller (2012 SP1) Setup Update (KB2823452)

  

Issue 1

 

• App Controller cannot be installed if the Microsoft SQL Server database server name starts with a number.

 

See Installation of App Controller to a Remote SQL Server fails with Exception Error Code: 0x80131500

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2802110/ ) for more information.

 

 

Issue 2

 

• Setup incorrectly reports that the SQL Server database has insufficient disk space.

 

 

Issue 3

 

• Setup on a non-English operating system is unsuccessful when it tries to enable Internet Information Services (IIS)

 

 

Data Protection Manager (DPM 2012 SP1) Update (KB2853210)

 

Issue 1

 

• When you use a tape library that has many slots, the Microsoft System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager database becomes bloated over time.

 

Issue 2

 

• When you try to set up library sharing when you use Data Protection Manager SP1 Update Rollup 2 (UR2), you receive the following error message:

 

Failed to execute RBACRolePermissionOnStoredProcScript.sql on DPMServer\Database

 

Issue 3

 

• When you run a Windows PowerShell script that retrieves the protection groups, the console crashes.

 

Issue 4

 

• The VMM Helper Service stops responding, and no virtual machines are backed up. A restart enables the backups to continue.

 

 

Operations Manager (SCOM 2012 SP1) Update (KB2852565)

 

Issue 1

 

• The Audit Collection Services (ACS) dtPrincipal tables sometimes are missing a user's domain name.

 

Issue 2

 

• If you decide to see more than two days' worth of data in a Service Level Dashboard view, the data is displayed from the Daily Aggregated data and does not contain the last two days' worth of data.

 

Issue 3

 

• The Health Service stops collecting performance data on Windows Server 2008 R2.

 

Issue 4

 

• The web console crashes when the Active Alerts view and the Windows Computer State view are accessed at the same time when Internet Explorer 9 is used.

 

Issue 5

 

• A memory leak may occur in the console when the performance widgets dashboard is left open.

 

Issue 6

 

• When the Operator role is used, many 26319 events are generated. This causes performance problems.

 

Issue 7

 

• Health Service availability reports are incorrect because of duplicate entries in the HealthServiceOutage table.

 

Issue 8

 

• When the Orchestrator Integration pack is under a high-load scenario, a software development kit (SDK) process deadlock may occur.

 

Issue 9

 

This update includes fixes to the following Advisor Connector issues:

• Group opt-in
• Microsoft System Center 2012 Operations Manager gateway and Microsoft monitoring
• Windows PowerShell cmdlets
• Health state
• Microsoft Knowledge Base article links in Operations Manager console alerts

Operations Manager (SCOM 2012 SP1) - UNIX and Linux Monitoring (Management Pack Update)

Issue 1

• The Solaris agent cannot be installed on Solaris 11.1 because it does not find the prerequisite OpenSSL package.

Issue 2

• Knowledge editing pages are not displayed when monitors that were created by the Shell Command templates are edited.

Issue 3

• Log files that are encoded in schemes other than ASCII cannot be monitored.

You can choose to install these updates either automatically through Windows Update (recommended) or manually by clicking on the relevant download links from the official KB article on UR3 here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2836751

As always though, make sure to read through the installation instructions for each product and understand what's involved.

SCOM - KB2775511 Causes Unwanted (and nasty) Event ID 2115, Heartbeat Failures and Grey States

I've just seen this one landing by RSS into my inbox from the official System Center Operations Manager Engineering Blog posted by Microsoft's J.C. Hornbeck about a hotfix that you may (or may not) have deployed to your SCOM/OpsMgr management servers that essentially brings them to deadlock resulting in heartbeat failures, grey states and heaps of Event ID 2115 entries in your Windows Event logs.

The KB2775511 hotfix rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server is the culprit and if you've deployed it onto your SCOM management servers, you'll need to remove it ASAP.

Update 15th November 2013: I've just seen a comment on this post below informing me that Microsoft have released a hotfix for this exact problem.  Check it out here:

SCOM 2012 or SCOM 2007 R2 throws a "Heartbeat Failure" message and then goes into a greyed out state in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Here's what the OpsMgr engineering team have to say:

"Removal of KB2775511 will correct the issues introduced. The OpsMgr team recommends that Operations Manager users refrain from installing KB2775511 until this deadlock issue is resolved. New information will be posted as it becomes available."

Better to be safe and sorry with this one and to check out your servers today to ensure this hotfix rollup hasn't been installed. It's also worthwhile to forward this information onto any customers or colleagues that have their own deployments of SCOM so they can check for themselves.

SCOM 2012 SP1 Install Error with SQL 2012 SP1 CU4 (KB2833645)

I'm back in action this week with another SCOM project and have come across an issue when deploying a new SCOM 2012 SP1 environment onto a new SQL 2012 SP1 server with the latest Cumulative Update 4 (KB2833645) deployed to it.

With CU4 installed on the SQL 2012 SP1 server, when you go to install your first SCOM 2012 SP1 management server and arrive at the "Configure the Operational Database" dialog box, after you input your server name and instance name (for where you want to deploy the OperationsManager database), you'll quickly see the following error and screenshot:

The installed version of SQL server is not supported. Verify that the computer and installed version of SQL server meet the minimum requirements for installation. Please see the supported configurations document for further information.

We know from the official documentation that SQL 2012 SP1 is fully supported so the easy fix here is to just uninstall Cumulative Update 4 (KB2833645) from your SQL 2012 SP1 server as shown below

Once this has been removed, you can then go back to your SCOM installation and carry on successfully.

Conclusion

My guess is that since SQL 2012 SP1 CU4 has only been released in the last few weeks, we'll need to wait until it's officially supported from the start of the SCOM installation phase to get around this error. In hindsight, it's my own fault in that I always want to have the latest updates deployed to my servers before I put them into production and I was probably a little over-zealous this time :)

SCOM 2012 Hyper-V Management Pack Extensions Released by the Community

This is a quick cross-reference post from Kevin Holman's excellent System Center blog about a new community released management pack (MP) for Microsoft's Hyper-V 3.0 on Windows Server 2012.

The current official Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 MP is quite basic and poor and this new extensions one gives us an extra dimension of Hyper-V monitoring till Microsoft decide to revamp their own official one. You'll still need to deploy the official Hyper-V MP along with the Windows O/S and Cluster MP's, all of which can be found on the Management Pack Wiki Page.

Here's Where To Get It

You can download the new Hyper-V Extensions MP for free on Codeplex here:

Hyper-V Management Pack Extensions 2012

Also Check Out..

I'd recommend that you take a read of Kevin Holman's original post to see exactly what's on offer from this MP (includes screenshots):

http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2013/06/22/opsmgr-2012-hyper-v-management-pack-extensions-published.aspx

Enjoy!

SCOM - New MP Available for the DHCP Role on Windows Server 2012!

Microsoft have just released the new management pack (MP) for the DHCP role on Windows Server 2012. This MP has support for DHCP clustering and failover functionality that Windows Server 2012 brings to the table.

You can download this new MP here:

System Center Management Pack for Windows Server 2012 DHCP

Note: Unfortunately this new MP won't discover your older Windows Server 2003/2008 DHCP servers so you'll be stuck with the original (and badly written in my opinion). If that's what you're looking to monitor, then click here to download the DHCP 2003/2008 MP.


This new MP follows hot on the heels of the recently released MP's for:

• Windows Server Base O/S
• Exchange Server 2013 
• Windows 8 Client O/S
• DNS

These recent releases along with the change in MP quality control are coming to us thick and fast now thanks to the internal initiative in Microsoft led by Daniel Savage and his team. You can keep tabs on all of the MP's currently available as well as the ones that are soon due for release on the TechNet MP Wiki here:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/16174.microsoft-management-packs.aspx

SCOM 2012 - Exchange 2013 Management Pack Is Now Available!

Microsoft have just made available the new Exchange 2013 MP for SCOM. The big news with this MP is that the Microsoft Exchange Correlation Service that was present in the Exchange 2010 MP is now no more!

I haven't had a chance to give this a good test run (that chance should come next week hopefully), but for now, you can take a look at the official TechNet Blog Post on the release here:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2013/05/14/exchange-2013-management-pack-released.aspx

The technical documentation for the MP can be reviewed here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee758046(v=exchg.150).aspx

Finally, download the MP here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39039

Microsoft are always interested in peoples feedback on their MP's so if you have any 'constructive' feedback to give, add a comment to this post and I'll pass it onto the team who've developed it.

SCOM - Updated Windows Server Management Pack Released (version 6.0.7026.0)

Just seen an e-mail coming in notifying us that the SCOM Windows Server MP has received an update. Here's what's changed since the last release:

• Fixed a bug in Microsoft.Windows.Server.2008.Monitoring.mp where the performance information for Processor was not getting collected.

• Made monitoring of Cluster Shared Volume consistent with monitoring of Logical Disks by adding performance collection rules. (“Cluster Shared Volume - Free space / MB”,”Cluster Shared Volume - Total size / MB”,”Cluster Shared Volume - Free space / %”,”Cluster Disk - Total size / MB”,”Cluster Disk - Free space / MB”,”Cluster Disk - Free space / %”)

• Fixed bug in Microsoft.Windows.Server.ClusterSharedVolumeMonitoring.mp where the Cluster disks running on Windows Server 2008 (non R2) were not discovered.

• Fixed bug 'Cluster Disk Free Space Percent' and Cluster Disk Free Space MB' monitors generate alerts with bad descriptions when the volume label of a cluster disk is empty.

• Added feature to raise event when NTLM requests time out and customers are unable to use mailboxes, outlook stops responding, due to the low default value for Max Concurrent API registry Key (HLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters) , which is a ceiling for the maximum NTLM or Kerberos PAC password validations a server can take care of at a time. It uses the “Netlogon” performance counter to check for the issue.

You can download the new MP version and its associated guide from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9296

SCOM 2012 - SP1 UR2 Web Console Error with Savision LiveMaps

Last Thursday, Marnix Wolf did up an excellent blog post about an error that started occurring after Update Rollup 2 for SCOM 2012 SP1 was deployed into environments that had Savision LiveMaps deployed. Essentially, when  SP1 UR2 and that particular release of LiveMaps don't like each other very much, you are presented with the following error details:

An Unexpected Error Has Occurred
System.Reflection.ReflectionTypeLoadException: [ReflectionTypeLoad_LoadFailed]

Check out the post by Marnix on what he did to determine the cause (take particular note of his technique for performing trace logging of SCOM 2012 as this is an invaluable way of determining root cause of issues inside your SCOM infrastructure):

http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/2013/05/om12-sp1-rup2-web-console-error.html

Before you dig deep into troubleshooting this yourself or thinking that Savision haven't got a solution to the problem - fear not, they have now!

I've just seen this on their website while looking for a solution to this problem myself:

http://www.savision.com/resources/news/fix-om12-sp1-ur2-web-console

They've released updated versions of the LiveMaps Summary Widget MP's that will alleviate the error above.

Hopefully this will save some people a bit of time and effort if they come across this problem.

Winners of the Mastering SCOM 2012 Book Competition!

A while back I ran a competition on this blog that required people to download and evaluate System Center 2012 in return for the chance to win a copy of the 'Mastering System Center 2012 - Operations Manager' book that I was involved in last year.

We had a target of 250 downloads to reach and eventually a few weeks ago we hit that target. Due to work commitments (and authoring another book), I've been 'slightly' delayed in announcing the winners of the competition!

To pick the winners, I used the same method that Hans Vredevoort had on his excellent Hyper-V.nu blog a while back  and asked my eldest son to pick two numbers from the full list of entrants that I had collated together into an Excel spread-sheet.

The result of his picks mean that Reidar Johansen...

 

and  Stanislav Zhelyazkov are the two lucky winners.

 Well Done Guys!

If you didn't win, I'd still highly recommend that you get your hands on the hard copy of the book from here or the e-copy from here. Adding it to your technical library will do you no harm at all if you're serious about System Center 2012 and want to ramp up your SCOM 2012 knowledge.

I'll be in touch shortly with the two winners and a massive THANK YOU to everyone who participated in boosting System Center 2012 awareness and evaluating it in their environments.

SCOM - Update to MPViewer Tool (Version 2.2.2)

If you've been reading this blog over the last few months, you might have noticed a post that I did called: SCOM - Essential Community MPs, Scripts & Tools to Enhance Your Deployments. In this post I mentioned some excellent free tools developed originally by Microsoft's Boris Yanushpolsky that form a part of nearly every SCOM deployment I work on. I also mentioned that these tools received an overhaul by Microsoft's Daniele Muscetta to make them compatible with SCOM 2012.

News just in is that Daniele has given the MPViewer tool an update to resolve some bug issues and if you haven't used this tool yet, then I'd highly recommend downloading it along with the OverrideExplorer and Proxy Settings ones. They'll save you a heap of time in the long run with your SCOM troubleshooting and deployments.

Check out the download link to these tools here: Boris’s OpsMgr Tools – Updated

OpsMgr 2012 Unleashed Book

I've just arrived home from the commute to work today (still can't believe it's snowing at the end of March!) and found that this had arrived by post for me

As someone who has been working on pretty much nothing else but SCOM/OpsMgr for the past 3 years, the two previous versions of this book - System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed and System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Unleashed - played a massive role in helping me understand how to deploy and administer this complex monitoring and management tool.

When I heard that the latest version for SCOM 2012 was available for pre-order months ago, I wasted no time in getting out the credit card and purchasing it in both 'dead-tree' and then kindle formats. This blog post isn't a review of the book in any way, shape or form but simply just some quick observations along with some advice to anyone out there who's working on SCOM.

The book is a massive 1500 pages of front-to-back content that gives you expert tips and advice in every chapter. As someone who has tried their hand at writing a SCOM 2012 book that came close to 700 pages, I can assure you it's no mean feat to put together this amount of good high-level content.

When you check out the members of the authoring team whose efforts combined to bring us this book, it's a "who's who" of the SCOM and System Center world:

Lead Authors

Kerrie Meyler - System Center Cloud and Datacenter MVP
Cameron Fuller - System Center Cloud and Datacenter MVP
John Joyner - System Center Cloud and Datacenter MVP

With

Pete Zerger - System Center Cloud and Datacenter MVP
Jonathan Almquist - Scomskills.com
Alex Fedotyev - AppDynamics.com
Scott Moss - System Center Cloud and Datacenter MVP
Oskar Landman - System Center Cloud and Datacenter MVP
Marnix Wolf - System Center Cloud and Datacenter MVP

Technical Editor

Kevin Holman - Microsoft TSP (owner of probably the best SCOM blog on the internet!)


So with this kind of SCOM authoring firepower bursting out of the 1500 pages, I don't even need to read through this book to tell you that it's a quality resource that you absolutely have to add to your library if you're serious about SCOM.

Side Note (and slight groupie story...)

I've just noticed that a link to one of my posts on SCOM 2012 APM got a mention and plug in the "General Resources" section of the OpsMgr 2012 Unleashed book and wanted to say a huge and sincere THANK YOU to whoever it was from the writing team above that took the time to read over my post and feel it worthy of a mention. It wasn't that long ago that I attended MMS 2011 and won a signed copy of the OpsMgr 2007 R2 Unleashed book from Cameron Fuller whilst attending (what still is so far for me) the most fun and interesting SCOM presentation I've ever seen. Reading that book on the plane back to Dublin, I never thought a few years later I'd have a mention in it's successor and it's an honour to be included.

Guest Blogger on TechNet UK - 10 Top Tips to Make OpsMgr 2012 Rock!

Recently, I was asked to create some content for a guest blogger slot on Microsoft's TechNet UK site and yesterday saw the post I wrote on some tips and best practice recommendations go live.

If you want to learn more and maybe pick up a few useful pointers to help you with your SCOM / OpsMgr 2012 deployments, then check out my post from the link below:

 10 Top Tips to Make OpsMgr 2012 Rock!


Enjoy :)

SCOM - Official System Center MP Catalog Wiki

A couple of years ago I created a blog post with a link to an 'Unofficial System Center Management Pack Catlog' that a member of the community had put together as a central location to get access to all the download links for non-Microsoft developed management packs. This post proved pretty popular and I still refer to it a lot myself when looking for a particular MP on a deployment.

You can check out this post here:  'Unofficial System Center MP Catalog'

In the last week or so, Microsoft's 'MP Supremo' - Daniel Savage created a new Wiki page that lists all of the existing and soon to be released Microsoft Management Packs along with each and every one of the download links to get quick access to them.

And before anyone mentions it, I know we have the Pinpoint Site that also has a central location for these MP's, but if we as members of the System Center community can ensure that this Wiki is maintained and the links kept up-to-date, then this can be the 'de facto' location for us to get quick access to these management packs.

The new Wiki can be accessed from this link: 'Microsoft Management Packs'

Once again, well done to Microsoft and in particular Daniel and his team for putting the effort into the management pack experience and ensuring that all our queries and issues with them are getting resolved. This type of initiative can only add to the overall value of System Center 2012 in the long run.

**Update April 2015**
I've just come across another useful blog post on SystemCenterCore.com that lists all management packs for both SCOM and SCSM and comes with a really handy MP Elements table and download link for each one.

Check the library out here - http://systemcentercore.com/

SCOM - Essential Community MPs, Scripts & Tools to Enhance Your Deployments

It's well known that System Center Operations Manager (SCOM/OpsMgr) is a complex product that can take a long time to master and be comfortable with. Without the right SCOM tools and resources to work with, then it can sometimes be like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube in the dark!

If you're responsible for delivering and managing SCOM either in-house or to your customers, you will also then know that just about every SCOM deployment is going to be different from the last one. The reason for this is that not every environment will require the same management packs and type of monitoring. For me though, there are a few management packs and scripts that I will nearly always install to every SCOM deployment and I thought it's about time that I shared them.

This post will describe some of my favourite free community management packs (some old and some new) and scripts that I think are essential to the majority of SCOM deployments out there. Although not an absolute and definitive list of all of the excellent community resources that are available, I will list the ones here that I deploy (or plan to deploy if it's a newly released MP) on a regular basis.


Management and Maintenance Tasks

These management packs will add a number of really useful maintenance and management tasks to the Tasks action pane inside the SCOM Operations Console.

OpsMgr Self Maintenance Management Pack (by Tao Yang)

SCOM Task Collection MP (by Stefan Roth)



Upgrading or Migrating to SCOM 2012

This is an excellent MP that will essentially allow you to modify the SCOM Management Group (MG) name on your multi-homed agents. Ideal for when you are migrating from SCOM 2007 to SCOM 2012 and want to remove the old MG name when the new environment is ready.

 SCOM 2012 Extended Agent Info (by José Fehse)



Backing Up SCOM 2012

Tuning and customizing your SCOM environment is what takes the most amount of time during deployments and ensuring that these modifications are backed up and quickly recoverable is where this management pack comes in. A 'must have' MP in my opinion.

Backup Unsealed Management Packs (OpsMgr 2012 Edition from SystemCenterCentral.com)



Scheduled Maintenance Mode in SCOM 2012

In SCOM 2007 we could make use of the Scheduled Maintenance Mode utility that came bundled with the SCOM 2007 R2 Admin Resource Kit. Unfortunately, this great tool doesn't work with SCOM 2012 so Pete Zerger and Matthew Long from Infront Consulting came up with the perfect script to help you place groups of servers into maintenance mode whenever you wish.

 OpsMgr 2012: Group Maintenance Mode via PowerShell (from SystemCenterCentral.com)

Stefan Roth has just recently (December 2013) created a new Maintenance Mode tool for SCOM 2012 SP1 and higher that will allow you to schedule your maintenance windows in much the same way as the old SCOM 2007 R2 Admin Resource Kit tool. Check it out here:

SCOM 2012 – Maintenance Mode Tool V 1.0


Viewing MPs, Overrides and Proxy Setting Tools

When Boris Yanushpolsky originally developed his MPViewer, OverrideExplorer and Proxy Settings utilities for SCOM 2007, he immediately endeared himself to SCOM administrators around the world! Daniele Muscetta has taken these tools and given them an upgrade to work with SCOM 2012 and you can get information and downloads to both sets of tools from the link below. I use at least one of these tools in just about every SCOM deployment I'm involved with.

 Boris’s OpsMgr Tools – Updated (by Boris Yanushpolsky and Daniele Muscetta)



Additional SCOM Resources

The above tools and scripts are just a small portion of a huge number of resources available to you right now (and for free!) that have been developed by the greater System Center community. If some or all of these tools are new to you, then I'd highly advise you to take a good look around the websites and blogs of each of the authors above and when you've done that, then check out some of these links below for even more information to get you started on the right track:

ThoughtsOnOpsMgr (by Marnix Wolf)

Cameron Fuller's Catapult Systems Blog

Bob Cornelissen's Blog

Kevin Holman's System Center Blog

System Center: Operations Manager Engineering Blog (Official MSFT SCOM team blog)

System Center 2012 Operations Manager Survival Guide (Official SCOM Wiki page)

SystemCenterCentral.com (by Pete Zerger et al.)

MyITForum.com (by Rod Trent et al.)

SCOM 2012: Overview link blog (by Dieter Wijckmans)

SCOMfaq.ch (by Stefan Roth)

With these reference links and all of the MP's, scripts and tools, you should have more than enough information to truly enhance both your existing and new SCOM deployments.

Full List of New System Center Downloads - Feb 2013

Wow! February has been a real busy month in terms of new Microsoft downloads made available for System Center and Cloud Technologies. There's a mixture of Management (Monitoring) Packs for SCOM, technical documentation for SCCM and SCVMM , some new System Center tools and also additional guides and white papers around cloud technologies. See below for the complete list of February 2013 downloads:

SCOM Management Packs

System Center 2012 Management Pack for Network Load Balancing

System Center 2012 Management Pack for Windows Deployment Services

System Center 2012 Management Pack for Microsoft Windows Server File & iSCSI Services 2012

System Center 2012 Management Pack for Message Queuing

System Center Management Pack for Windows Server 2012 Cluster

System Center Management Pack for WSUS on Windows Server 2012

System Center Monitoring Pack for System Center 2012 - Configuration Manager


Technical Documentation and Reference Guides

Cloud Infrastructure Solution for Enterprise IT (Reference Guide)

Technical Documentation Download for Technical Scenarios for System Center 2012 SP1

Consumerization of IT (Reference Guides)

Technical Documentation Download for System Center 2012 Configuration Manager

System Center Operations Manager 2012: Network Devices with Extended Monitoring Capability (Reference Guide)

Technical Documentation Download for System Center 2012 – Virtual Machine Manager


Tools, Utilities and Extensions

System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Analyzer

System Center 2012 SP1 Configuration Manager Package Conversion Manager 2.0

System Center Data Protection Manager CSV Serialization Tool

System Center 2012 – Configuration Manager Component Add-ons and Extensions

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 - Application Compatibility Toolkit Connector

Microsoft System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 Configuration Manager - Clients for Additional Operating Systems

SCOM / OpsMgr - Hyper-V 2008 MP Issue

I've come across this problem a number of times over the last few months and know that a few of my other MVP colleagues have too so thought it'd be worth a quick blog post to help anyone out that comes across it.

Basically, if you have deployed the Hyper-V 2008 management pack and have a mixture of Hyper-V 2008 and Hyper-V 2012 hosts in your environment, then you will be hit with an error similar to this:

The Windows Event Log Provider is still unable to open the Microsoft-Windows-Hyper-V-Network-Admin event log on computer ‘ws2012-hyperv.kg.com’.
The Provider has been unable to open the Microsoft-Windows-Hyper-V-Network-Admin event log for 720 seconds.

Most recent error details: The specified channel could not be found. Check channel configuration.

One or more workflows were affected by this.

Workflow name: Microsoft.Windows.HyperV.2008.VirtualNetwork.PortConnectionMonitor

Instance name: Microsoft Network Adapter Multiplexor Driver - Virtual Switch

Instance ID: {63A20D0B-84E0-C128-C2E1-54F9B56B3EA8}

The key issue here is that there are specific monitors in the Hyper-V 2008 MP that look to access the event log highlighted above and in Windows Server 2012, this event log doesn't exist. The end result is that you will constantly have your Hyper-V 2012 agents showing up with a warning state in the SCOM console.

Here's how you resolve the issue:

First up, click on the Authoring button from the wunderbar in the SCOM Operations console as below

Now click on the Monitors view and then select the Scope button up top to scope your search criteria. When the Scope Management Pack Objects window appears, choose the View All Targets option and then type Hyper-V in the Look For field as shown below and then click OK to continue

Back at the now scoped Monitors window, in the Look For field at the top of the screen, type Port Connectivity as shown in the screenshot below and then hit the Find Now button

 You should now be presented with the Port Connectivity monitor that forms part of the Microsoft Windows Hyper-V 2008 Monitoring management pack and this is one of the monitors that we need to disable for the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V servers

 If we double click on the Port Connectivity monitor to view its properties, we can see that its management pack is indeed the Microsoft Windows Hyper-V 2008 Monitoring one and that its virtual target is the Hyper-V Virtual Network class.

To confirm that this monitor is attempting to open the Microsoft-Windows-Hyper-V-Network-Admin event log that was mentioned in the original error message, we need to click on the Event Log (Unhealthy Events) tab as shown below. Hit the Close button to go back to the Monitors screen to disable this monitor.

Right-click on the Port Connectivity monitor, choose Overrides, select Disable the Monitor and choose the group or object of class that represents your Windows Server 2012 servers.

In this example, I've selected an Object of Class: Hyper-V Virtual Network and I am presented with all of the virtual networks that SCOM has discovered as shown below.

We can see in the screenshot that there are two entries here for Microsoft Network Adapter Multiplexor Driver - Virtual Switch and these two entries represent the two Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V hosts that I have deployed SCOM agents to. These are also the two servers that I constantly get the warning health state and alert about not being able to access the windows event log.

If I choose one of these entries and then hit OK, I will then be to the Override Properties window with the Enabled option set to False (as I had selected to disable this monitor earlier.) All that's left for me to do now is to add in a description for the override and choose an unsealed management pack to store it in - see below for details on what I've done

Once you've made the override, click on the OK button to close the Override properties window to return to the Monitors screen.

You will need to repeat this process again for one more monitor - this time selecting the Port Disconnectivity one as shown below

Once you have disabled both monitors for all Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V servers in your environment, then this alert will disappear and health states will return to a valid representation of the agents.

Hopefully, this will be resolved in the next update of the Hyper-V 2008 management pack and in the meantime, this post might have helped someone get past the alerts.

SCOM 2012 - NetApp Data ONTAP 3.1 MP Discovery Issues

I was working on a customer site today and came across this annoying discovery issue with the NetApp SAN Data ONTAP 3.1 Management Pack. This will most likely occur in every SCOM 2012 SP1 environment until you either apply the workaround below or until NetApp release Data ONTAP v3.2

After you install the NetApp Data ONTAP 3.1 management pack (check out Stefan's post here for some easy to follow instructions), you will probably find that shortly after adding in the NetApp controllers that they show up with a Critical health state.

If you have read the guide that comes with the NetApp ONTAP 3.1 MP, you can be forgiven for thinking that discovery of your controllers will happen automatically - as stated in the guide. As it turns out, Automatic Discovery of controllers in SCOM 2012 does not work and you will have to manually run the discovery task instead. The following NetApp kb article confirms this (you'll need to register first to read this):

https://kb.netapp.com/support/index?page=content&id=2017408&actp=LIST_RECENT&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1359463483322

This is where the fun starts!

Taking heed of the NetApp kb article above, when you go and manually run the controller discovery using the task from inside the SCOM 2012 Operations Console, after a few minutes, the Windows Event viewer OnCommand Application Event Log reports the following message: 'Operations Manager could not log into controller'

Log Name: OnCommand
Source: Data ONTAP MP
Date: 12/19/2012 12:51:40 PM
Event ID: 1022
Task Category: (1)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: PHCHBS-S5194.XY.DOMAIN.net
Description:
Operations Manager could not log into controller XX.XX.XX.XX. Using the Data ONTAP credentials manager for System Center Operations Manager, check that valid credentials have been entered for this controller, and if "Require HTTPS" is selected, verify that the controller is configured to accept HTTPS connections.
Address: XX.XX.XX.XX

These messages are logged every 15 minutes for each and every storage controller that is added into SCOM. When you've tired yourself out trying all different types of combinations to get the above error to go away (with https, without https, different user accounts etc.), then you'll be glad to know that NetApp have kindly provided a workaround to the problem along with a slight admission that this is a known issue with Data ONTAP 3.1 and that they will have it resolved in version 3.2!

This NetApp kb article has the information you need to get up and running (again, you will need to register first to view it):

https://kb.netapp.com/support/index?page=content&id=1014162&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1359463483322

I've copied the text from the kb article here for your convenience:

In the Run Discovery task GUI, use the option to run the task under a different domain admin user.

1. Create a new Run As action account. Go to Administration > Run As configuration > Accounts > Create Run As account.
2. Under Run As Account Type, select Action Account.
3. Make the new account the default action account. Go to Administration > Run As Configuration > Profiles > Default Action Account
4. Select the Default Action Account, select Properties, and change the Run As Account for the Management Server to the new account created under Create Run As Account.

After the above modification to the new default action account, the discovery will work as expected.

 

Note: In OnCommand Plug-in 3.2, running the Manage Controller Credentials within the context of the default Run As Account  and  issues such as this will be detected immediately when entering the credentials.

 

When you go to run the Discovery task manually again, make sure that you also specify an account in the Task Credentials section as below

 

 

Once the task is complete, you should see the following dialog box

 

 

That's all you should have to do now to ensure that your NetApp SAN and Storage infrastructure get discovered and managed in SCOM 2012 and after waiting for 10 or 15 minutes, you should see all of the LUN's, Volumes, vFilers etc. coming through inside the console.

SCOM 2012 SP1 Prerequisites - The PoSh Way

If like me, you're a System Center consultant and find yourself deploying SCOM/OpsMgr 2012 quite frequently (like once or twice a week), then you will know that acquiring and installing the software prerequisites can be a monotonous task. It's not that they are difficult, just a pain when you have to do it regularly as there are some files to be downloaded from the Microsoft download centre and then a number of Windows Server roles and features to be added too.

The order in which you deploy these prerequisites can also determine the number of additional tasks that you have to carry out to get IIS and .NET framework to work together properly. For these reasons, I wanted to share my quick and easy way of getting these prerequisites installed onto your servers.

This post will serve two purposes. Primarily, it's going to be my own central reference point for when I'm out doing deployments and secondly, it might just serve a useful purpose for others too.

In a Windows environment, if you want to get stuff done quickly and efficiently, then there's no better way in my opinion than to use PowerShell. People that know me, will also probably know that my PowerShell Kung Fu isn't great but that I've promised myself this year to ramp up on it. This post is the start of my New Years resolution and I've included some PowerShell scripts here that will download the relevant prerequisite software and install the roles and features for both Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2012 - depending on which O/S you are installing SCOM 2012 SP1 onto.

The Real Credits

Before I go any further, it needs to be noted that the scripts in this blog post are an amalgamated and modified version of the excellent scripts originally posted by Tim McFadden here and Steve Beaumont here. I take no credit for the original code and all I have done is to join the two of them together and add one or two very small changes to suit my own SCOM 2012 SP1 deployments. If you haven't already, then I'd encourage you to take the time to read through Tim and Steve's blog's as they contain loads of valuable information to help you along your way when working with System Center.

SCOM 2012 SP1 Prerequisites

If you are installing SCOM 2012 SP1, then here are the software prerequisites listed on TechNet based on server role:

System Requirements: System Center 2012 SP1 - Operations Manager

As you can see from the link above, some of the server roles only have one or two but with the Web Console role, there are quite a few prerequisites that need to be taken into account. If you were using the GUI to configure and deploy these prerequisites, you can be sure that at some point you'll miss something and have to go back to it once or twice before you get it right.

The Windows Server 2012 Scripts

These scripts are also scoped to each individual SCOM 2012 SP1 role that is deployed onto the Windows Server 2012 Operating System. The main differences though to the Windows Server 2008 prerequisites is that .NET Framework 4.0 can be installed directly using PowerShell in Windows Server 2012 and as such we don't need to download the .NET 4.0 redistributable. This makes integration with IIS easier and therefore less scripting is needed to quickly deploy the prereqs onto Windows Server 2012.

Windows Server 2012 - Management Server Role Only PreReq Script


#This section installs the .NET Prereq for Windows Server 2012#

Import-Module ServerManager
Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core

Click here to download this PowerShell script as a .PS1 file

Windows Server 2012 - Operations Console Role Only PreReq Script

#This section installs the .NET Prereq for Windows Server 2012#

Import-Module ServerManager

Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core

#This section will download the Report Viewer Distributable Prereq for Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2012 to a folder called C:\SCOM2012SP1Prereqs and will then install it automatically#

$dwnld = "C:\SCOM2012SP1Prereqs"

if (!(Test-Path -path $dwnld))

 {

 New-Item $dwnld -type directory

 }

$object = New-Object Net.WebClient

$RPTurl = 'http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/A/1/EA1BF9E8-D164-4354-8959-F96843DD8F46/ReportViewer.exe'

$object.DownloadFile($RPTurl, "$dwnld\ReportViewer.exe")

Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\ReportViewer.exe" -ArgumentList /q -Wait

Click here to download this PowerShell script as a .PS1 file


Windows Server 2012 - Web Console Role Only PreReq Script

#This section installs the .NET and IIS Prereqs for Windows Server 2012#

Import-Module ServerManager

Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core,AS-HTTP-Activation,Web-Static-Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Filtering,Web-Stat-Compression,AS-Web-Support,Web-Metabase,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Windows-Auth –restart

Click here to download this PowerShell script as a .PS1 file

 

Windows Server 2012 - Combined Management Server, Operations Console and Web Console Roles PreReq Script


#This section installs the .NET and IIS Prereqs for Windows Server 2012#

Import-Module ServerManager

Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core,AS-HTTP-Activation,Web-Static-Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Filtering,Web-Stat-Compression,AS-Web-Support,Web-Metabase,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Windows-Auth –restart

#This section will download the Report Viewer Distributable Prereq for Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2012 to a folder called C:\SCOM2012SP1Prereqs. Once the file has been downloaded it will automatically install#

$dwnld = "C:\SCOM2012SP1Prereqs"

if (!(Test-Path -path $dwnld))

 {

 New-Item $dwnld -type directory

 }

$object = New-Object Net.WebClient

$RPTurl = 'http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/A/1/EA1BF9E8-D164-4354-8959-F96843DD8F46/ReportViewer.exe'

$object.DownloadFile($RPTurl, "$dwnld\ReportViewer.exe")

Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\ReportViewer.exe" -ArgumentList /q -Wait

Click here to download this PowerShell script as a .PS1 file

The Windows Server 2008 Scripts

Although most people will be using the Combined Management Server, Operations Console and Web Console Prereq Script, I'll scope the rest of the scripts here to suit each individual SCOM 2012 SP1 role that's deployed onto Windows Server 2008. The reason for doing this is that the prereq's for each role can vary and obviously we don't want to be installing any more roles or features than we actually have to for a server. 

Windows Server 2008 - Management Server Role Only PreReq Script

#This section will download the .NET Framework 4.0 Redistributable Prereq for the SCOM 2012 SP1 Management Server role on Windows Server 2008 to a folder on the C:\ drive called SCOM2012SP1Prereqs and will then install it automatically #

$dwnld = "C:\SCOM2012SP1Prereqs"
if (!(Test-Path -path $dwnld))
 {
 New-Item $dwnld -type directory
 }
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
$RPTurl = 'http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/5/A/95A9616B-7A37-4AF6-BC36-D6EA96C8DAAE/dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe'
$object.DownloadFile($RPTurl, "$dwnld\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe")
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe" -ArgumentList /q -Wait

Click here to download this PowerShell script as a .PS1 file

Windows Server 2008 - Operations Console Role Only PreReq Script

#This section will download the .NET Framework 4.0 Redistributable Prereq for the SCOM 2012 SP1 Management Server role on Windows Server 2008 to a folder on the C:\ drive called SCOM2012SP1Prereqs and will then install it automatically #

$dwnld = "C:\SCOM2012SP1Prereqs"
if (!(Test-Path -path $dwnld))
 {
 New-Item $dwnld -type directory
 }
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
$RPTurl = 'http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/5/A/95A9616B-7A37-4AF6-BC36-D6EA96C8DAAE/dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe'
$object.DownloadFile($RPTurl, "$dwnld\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe")
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe" -ArgumentList /q -Wait

#This section will download the Report Viewer Distributable Prereq for the SCOM 2012 SP1 Operations Console role on Windows Server 2008 to a folder on the C:\ drive called SCOM2012SP1Prereqs and will then install it automatically #

$dwnld = "C:\SCOM2012SP1Prereqs"
if (!(Test-Path -path $dwnld))
 {
 New-Item $dwnld -type directory
 }
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
$RPTurl = 'http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/A/1/EA1BF9E8-D164-4354-8959-F96843DD8F46/ReportViewer.exe'
$object.DownloadFile($RPTurl, "$dwnld\ReportViewer.exe")
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\ReportViewer.exe" -ArgumentList /q -Wait

Click here to download this PowerShell script as a .PS1 file

Windows Server 2008 - Web Console Role Only PreReq Script


#This section will install all the Windows Server 2008 Roles and Feature Prereqs for the Web Console Role#
import-module servermanager
Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core,Web-Static-Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Filtering,Web-Stat-Compression,AS-Web-Support,Web-Metabase,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Windows-Auth,AS-HTTP-Activation –restart

#This section will download the .NET Framework 4.0 Redistributable Prereq for Windows Server 2008 to a  folder on the C:\ drive called SCOM2012SP1Prereqs and will then install it automatically#

$dwnld = "C:\SCOM2012SP1Prereqs"
if (!(Test-Path -path $dwnld))
 {
 New-Item $dwnld -type directory
 }
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
$RPTurl = 'http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/5/A/95A9616B-7A37-4AF6-BC36-D6EA96C8DAAE/dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe'
$object.DownloadFile($RPTurl, "$dwnld\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe")
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe" -ArgumentList /q -Wait

#This section will enable the ISAPI and CGI extensions for IIS and .NET 4.0 once the .NET 4.0 redistributable has been installed#
c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config /section:isapiCgiRestriction /[path=`'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll`'].allowed:True

Click here to download this PowerShell script as a .PS1 file


Windows Server 2008 - Combined Management Server, Operations Console and Web Console Roles PreReq Script


#This section will install all the Windows Server 2008 Roles and Feature Prereqs for the Web Console Role#
import-module servermanager
Add-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core,Web-Static-Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Filtering,Web-Stat-Compression,AS-Web-Support,Web-Metabase,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Windows-Auth,AS-HTTP-Activation –restart

#This section will download the Report Viewer Distributable Prereq for the SCOM 2012 SP1 Operations Console role on Windows Server 2008 to a folder on the C:\ drive called SCOM2012SP1Prereqs and will then install it automatically #

$dwnld = "C:\SCOM2012SP1Prereqs"
if (!(Test-Path -path $dwnld))
 {
 New-Item $dwnld -type directory
 }
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
$RPTurl = 'http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/A/1/EA1BF9E8-D164-4354-8959-F96843DD8F46/ReportViewer.exe'
$object.DownloadFile($RPTurl, "$dwnld\ReportViewer.exe")
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\ReportViewer.exe" -ArgumentList /q -Wait

#This section will download the .NET Framework 4.0 Redistributable Prereq for Windows Server 2008 to a  folder on the C:\ drive called SCOM2012SP1Prereqs and will then install it automatically#

$dwnld = "C:\SCOM2012SP1Prereqs"
if (!(Test-Path -path $dwnld))
 {
 New-Item $dwnld -type directory
 }
$object = New-Object Net.WebClient
$RPTurl = 'http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/5/A/95A9616B-7A37-4AF6-BC36-D6EA96C8DAAE/dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe'
$object.DownloadFile($RPTurl, "$dwnld\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe")
Start-Process -FilePath "$dwnld\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe" -ArgumentList /q -Wait

#This section will enable the ISAPI and CGI extensions for IIS and .NET 4.0 once the .NET 4.0 redistributable has been installed#
c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config /section:isapiCgiRestriction /[path=`'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_isapi.dll`'].allowed:True


The updated script can be downloaded from my GitHub repo here:

https://github.com/kgreeneit/scom/tree/main/SCOM-2012R2/prereq-scripts

Conclusion

Using the scripts above, you should be able to now deploy the prerequisites for SCOM 2012 SP1 in no time and maybe even utilise them as part of an automated service deployment in conjunction with SCVMM and Orchestrator - enjoy!

SCOM 2012 - Installing Service Pack 1 RTM (Part 3)

This is the final post in a short three part series on upgrading your SCOM 2012 environment to Service Pack 1 (SP1) RTM. Please ensure that you have read through the first two parts of this series before commencing with the steps in this one.

In Part 1, I detailed the pre-upgrade tasks that need to be carried out to prepare your SCOM/OpsMgr 2012 environment for upgrading to Service Pack 1 (SP1). In Part 2, I covered a walkthrough of the upgrade deployment process of your management servers, ACS collectors, Gateway servers and stand-alone consoles. This post will finalise the upgrade process of your agents, Web console (stand-alone) and Reporting server (stand-alone) roles.

Upgrading Push-Installed Agents

When you have upgraded your management servers, you can then deploy the SP1 update out to your existing SCOM 2012 RTM agents either via push install or manual install.

Some important notes taken again from the 'OM12SP1_Upgrade' guide before we continue with our agent upgrades though:

Note 1
When you upgrade an agent, the Operations Manager installer service runs and is not removed until after the completion of the upgrade. If the agent upgrade fails, you might have to re-install the agent because the installer service was not properly removed. If you attempt to upgrade the agent again and it fails, you should re-install the agent after you have completed upgrading all features of Operations Manager.

Note 2
If the agent is installed on a computer that has System Center 2012 Operations Manager (RTM)Operations console or web console installed, you must first uninstall the consoles before you upgrade the agents. You can do this by uninstalling System Center 2012 Operations Manager in Programs and Features. You can reinstall these consoles after upgrade is completed.

Note 3
If UAC is enabled, you must run the agent upgrade from an elevated command prompt.

Note 4
Information about upgraded agents might not appear in the Operations console for up to 60 minutes after performing the upgrade

Now that we have the formalities out of the way, we can continue on and get the agents upgraded. Firstly, we'll start with the existing SCOM 2012 agents that can be upgraded by using a push install.

To upgrade these agents using the SCOM 2012 Console, simply browse to the Administration tab in the wunderbar, expand the Administration view, expand Device Management and then click on the Pending Management view to see all of the agents awaiting upgrade. Highlight the ones you want to upgrade, then right-mouse click and choose the Approve option as below.

Note: As a general rule of thumb, Microsoft say not to do any more than 200 agents at a time but personally, I'd do no more than 100 agents at a time to have more control and to ease bandwidth.

This will prompt you for some administrator credentials to allow the agent upgrade and once you enter these, you can click the Update button to begin the deployment

When the upgrade has completed, click Close to finish.

Upgrading Manually Installed Agents

Manually-installed agents are agents that were installed manually, either by using the Command Prompt window, or by using the MOMAgent.msi Setup Wizard. Use the following procedure to upgrade these agents.

1. Log on to the computer that hosts the agent with an Operations Manager Administrators role account for your SCOM 2012 management group.
2. Run Setup.exe from the Operations Manager installation media.
3. On the first page of the Setup Wizard, click Local agent. When the Welcome to the System Center Operations Manager 2012 Agent Upgrade Wizard page opens, click Next.
4. In the System Center Operations Manager 2012 Agent Setup dialog box, click Upgrade.
5. When the Completing the System Center Operations Manager 2012 Agent Setup Wizard page appears, click Finish.

Upgrading Unix/Linux Agents

From the SCOM 2012 Operations console, click on the Administration tab in the wunderbar, expand the Administration view and then click on the Unix/Linux Computers view.

From here, you can highlight/select all of the agents that you want to upgrade, then right-mouse click on them and choose the Upgrade Agent option to begin the process.

Upgrading the Web Console (stand-alone)

If you have a separate stand-alone Web console deployed (i.e. one that isn't on the same server as your management server) then you can follow this process to upgrade it. If your Web console is located on the same server as one of your management servers, then you will have already upgraded this role when following the Upgrade Management Server steps in Part 2 of this series.

Note:When you upgrade the web console, any customizations that were made to the web.config file after the web console was installed will be reset.

If you made changes after you set up your web console to either enable or disable Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), then the SSL settings will be reset during upgrade.

To resolve the issue, you must make changes to the registry key before you upgrade the web console, as follows: (always ensure to backup your registry before making changes and know that any incorrect modification here can cause havok with your system!)

1. Logon on to the web console with an account that has local administrator rights, and on the desktop, click Start, and then click Run.
2. Type regedit, and then click OK. The Registry Editor starts.
3. Navigate to the HKey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\System Center Operations Manager\12\Setup\WebConsole\ key.
4. To enable SSL, set the following:

HTTP_GET_ENABLED=0
BINDING_CONFIGURATION=DefaultHttpsBinding

To disable SSL, set the following:

HTTP_GET_ENABLED=1
BINDING_CONFIGURATION=DefaultHttpBinding

To upgrade a stand-alone Web console, follow these steps:

1. To begin the SP1 upgrade, logon to your SCOM 2012 Management Server with an administrative account and then browse to the location that you have mounted or extracted your SCOM 2012 SP1 RTM media to. Now right-mouse click on 'Setup' and choose the 'Run As Administrator' option
2. From the Operations Manager Service Pack 1 splash screen, choose the Install option to begin.
3. On the Getting Started, System Center 2012 - Operations Manager Upgrade page, review the features that will be upgraded, and then click Next.
4. On the Select installation location page, accept the default value of C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2012, or type in a new location or browse to one. Then click Next.
5. On the Prerequisites page, review and address any warnings or errors that the Prerequisites checker returns, and then click Verify Prerequisites Again to recheck the system.
6. If the Prerequisites checker does not return any warnings or errors, the Prerequisites, Proceed with Setup page appears. Click Next.
7. When the Ready to Upgrade page appears, review the upgrade summary, and then click Upgrade.

Upgrading the Reporting Role (stand-alone)

If you have separated the Reporting role in your SCOM 2012 management group to exist on a server that is not a management server, then use this procedure to upgrade a stand-alone Reporting server to System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1), Operations Manager.

Note:You should not run the upgrade on the Reporting server until after you have upgraded the management servers, gateways, operation consoles, and agents

1. To begin the SP1 upgrade, logon to your SCOM 2012 Reporting Role Server with an administrative account and then browse to the location that you have mounted or extracted your SCOM 2012 SP1 RTM media to. Now right-mouse click on 'Setup' and choose the 'Run As Administrator' option
2. From the Operations Manager Service Pack 1 splash screen, choose the Install option to begin.
3. On the Getting Started, System Center 2012 - Operations Manager Upgrade page, review the features that will be upgraded, and then click Next.
4. On the Select installation location page, accept the default value of C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2012, or type in a new location or browse to one. Then click Next.
5. On the Prerequisites page, review and address any warnings or errors that the Prerequisites checker returns, and then click Verify Prerequisites Again to recheck the system.
6. If the Prerequisites checker does not return any warnings or errors, the Prerequisites, Proceed with Setup page appears. Click Next.
7. When the Ready to Upgrade page appears, review the upgrade summary, and then click Upgrade.
8. Click Close when the upgrade has completed successfully

Complete Post-Upgrade Tasks

When you have ran the SP1 upgrade installer on all of your SCOM 2012 components, all that you have left to do is to finalise a number of post-upgrade tasks to ensure that everything works as it should do. Carry out these tasks in the following order:

1. Re-enable the Notification Subscriptions
From the SCOM 2012 Operations console, click on the Administration tab in the wunderbar and then expand the Administration and then the Notifications view. Click on Subscriptions and then right-mouse click on any of your disabled subscriptions and choose the Enable option to re-enable them again.

2. Restart or Re-enable the Connector Services (if needed)
Refer to the third-party documentation for any installed connectors to determine if the connectors are supported for SCOM 2012 SP1

3. Verify That the Upgrade Was Successful
Perform the following tasks to verify that the upgrade was successful:

• Check the health state of the management servers and agents in the Health Service Watcher state view. In the Administration workspace of the Operations console, ensure that the management servers and agents are healthy. In the Monitoring workspace, check if there are any alerts related to the management group health.
• Review the event logs of all the management servers for new errors.
• Sort alerts by the last-modified column to review the new alerts.
• Check the CPU utilization and disk I/O on your database servers to ensure that they are functioning normally.
• If the Reporting feature is installed, click Reporting, and then run a generic performance report to ensure that Reporting is functioning correctly.
• Re-deploy any agents that you uninstalled during the upgrade process.

4. Carry out the SCOM 2012 Post-Upgrade Sequence Tasks
Follow the post-upgrade sequence steps in my recent blog post here to ensure that integration with other System Center 2012 products is maintained.

Conclusion

If you have worked through all of the steps relevant to your environment that are outlined in this series, then you should now have a fully functional and upgraded SCOM 2012 Service Pack 1 deployment.