Irish Community Launch Event for Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1

If you're working with Microsoft products and are based in Ireland, then the Citywest Hotel & Conference Centre is the place to be on Thursday 28th November. The Windows and System Center Community over here are holding an event to launch the recently released Windows Server 2012 R2, System Center 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 offerings from Microsoft.

It's an MVP driven event and will have some great speakers presenting content across two tracks on the day. You can learn more about and register for the event at the official website here:

http://techcamp2013.wordpress.com/

 Here's the agenda (some sessions may be subject to change):

Time	Windows Server & System Center	Windows 8.1 & Device Management
08:00-9.00	Registration
09:00-09:40	Keynote   Speaker: Dave Northey, Microsoft   Learn how the entire package from Microsoft fits together
09:45-11:00	Windows Server 2012 R2 Speaker: Aidan Finn, MVP What does WS2012 R2 bring to virtualisation, cloud, storage and networking?	Windows 8.1 in the Business Speaker: Damian Flynn, MVP How Windows 8.1 Pro and Enterprise can enhance user experience an enable BYOD.
11:00-11:30	Break Get a drink/snack & meet the sponsors.
11:30-12:45	System Center Virtual Manage Manager & Hybrid Cloud Speaker: Damian Flynn, MVP Start deploying and taking control of the entire data center with VMM 2012 R2!	Windows 8.1 Devices Speaker: Paul Shanahan, Microsoft Devices are a central ingredient to the “Windows 8.1 in the business” story. What are Microsoft and partners doing?
12:45-13:30	Lunch Get something to eat & meet the sponsors
13:30-14:45	System Center Service manager & Self-Service/Automation Speaker: Paul Keely, MVP See how System Center can automate repetitive processes, optimise time planning for IT, and change the business.	Windows Intune Speakers: David McCormick & Patrick Herlihy, Microsoft Windows Intune is a much bigger solution than you think, including branch offices, BYOD, and covering all kinds of devices (Windows & others).
14:45-15:00	Break Refuel for the afternoon push & meet the sponsors.
15:00-16:15	System Center Operations Manager & Service Management  Speaker: Kevin Greene, MVP It delivers a service, but just how is that service performing?	System Center Configuration Manager Speaker: Niall Brady, MVP Take control of every device in your enterprise like you’ve always dreamed, but keep the users happy with self-service?  That’s not possible, right? Wrong!

System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 Update Rollup 4 Available - (but not for SCSM)

Microsoft have just announced the availability of Update Rollup 4 (UR4) for System Center 2012 SP1 but there have been some issues with the SCSM component of the update and it had to be pulled back. See this update from Microsoft's Christian Booth:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2013/10/22/service-manager-2012sp1-ur4-availability.aspx

SCOM and SCVMM both get a number of fixes in this update and it looks like definitely worthwhile rolling out, but you might want to hang on a while and keep an eye out for any gothca's that people might post about over the coming week or two. As is the case with previous UR's, these will start coming down through Windows Update over the next few days, so make sure you're ready for it or at least have it staged for testing through WSUS or ConfigMgr.

Here's a link to the full description for Update Rollup 4 (UR4):

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2879276

You can also manually download the relevant bits that you're interested in by using the above link.

Session Recording Available - What's New in System Center 2012 R2 - Operations Manager?

A few weeks ago, I presented at the System Center Universe DACH event in Bern, Switzerland and the recording of my "What's New in System Center 2012 R2 - Operations Manager?" session has just been made available.

You can download it from here (it's a large file so right-click and 'Save As' is best):

What's new in System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2? (EN) - Kevin Greene

Along with that presentation, I was involved in two other sessions that were great fun to be a part of - you can get them both from the links below:

SCVMM Networking: From zero to hero Part 1/2 (EN) - Thomas Maurer, Damian Flynn, Michel Lüscher, Kevin Greene

Sponsor Session by OpsLoxix: Trivial Persuit Q&A with Microsoft Employees and MVPs (EN) - Maarten Goet, Cameron Fuller

Finally, if you want to immerse yourself in more System Center nerdiness, then you can check out the entire list of session videos from here:

http://www.systemcenteruniverse.ch


Enjoy!

Awarded MVP in System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management for a 2nd Year!

Today I've been honoured with the award of Microsoft MVP for System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management (SC CDM) for the 2nd year running.

This is a massive deal for me as the benefits of the MVP program and the interaction with the brilliant technical minds of the community that surrounds it is invaluable to IT Pro's and consultants working in the Microsoft space. These past 12 months as an MVP sure have flown by and I remember my pal Marnix Wolf telling me this time last year to "Hold onto your seat because it's gonna be a blast" - he was so right!

This year alone, I've had the opportunity to travel to Seattle, Las Vegas and Switzerland with another trip back over to Microsoft HQ in Seattle booked for next month! The amount of work you have to put in blogging, tweeting, writing books, working the forums and presenting at events to obtain and hold onto an MVP is not easy (most of it is carried out on your own time after the day job is finished) but it's certainly worth it.

Thanks to everyone in the MVP community for their help and advice over the last year and also thanks to my friends and work colleagues at Ergo for giving me the opportunity to work exclusively on System Center for the last number of years- let's hope the next 12 months can be just as much fun!

Looking Back on System Center Universe 2013 Europe (SCU DACH)

So it's been just over a week since we flew back into Dublin from Bern, Switzerland where the inaugural European version of the massively popular System Center Universe (SCU) event took place. When we arrived at the hotel, we had a direct view across the road of the huge BERN EXPO Congress where the event would kick off the following morning.

Myself and Damian Flynn headed over to the Expo at 07:30 on the Monday morning and the place was buzzing with activity. We had an opportunity to catch up with some old friends and also to get a quick glimpse of the room where the Keynote was going to be held.

Travis Wright (formerly of Microsoft but just very recently announced as Partner, Director of Product Management with Cireson) kicked off with an excellent keynote called "Cloud and Me - BFFs!" - where he spoke about how the boundaries between cloud and on-premise computing were being slowly broken down and merged to deliver a unified service back to the business - much in the same way as organizations consume electricity without having to think about it's delivery as a service.

After the keynote, it was time for me to get ready as I had the pleasure of being asked to co-present a session called "SCVMM Networking: From Zero to Hero in Two Hours" with  Damian Flynn, Thomas Maurer and Michel Luescher. The session went really well and we had an excellent attendance with audience members willing and ready to have their brains melted with some of the Level 400 content that was being presented throughout!

 

 Even though our session was pretty deep, it was great to see 'just about' everyone who attended Part 1, come back for some more punishment in Part 2! The second session was delivered solely by Damian and Thomas with myself and Michel taking a back seat for that one.

After our sessions, I had a chance to attend some of the other presentations and one that stuck out for me that day was Cameron Fuller's - "Operations Manager Evolution: Taking Your Environment to the Next Level with Operations Manager". Every time I hear Cameron present, I learn a new tip or trick for SCOM.

When Day 1 was over, we had a networking party that evening with more than enough free drinks and food to keep everyone happy!

 It was great meeting other members of the System Center community here and talking tech over a few beers!

 On Day 2, I had my own slot presenting a session on "What's New in System Center 2012 R2 - Operations Manager?"

I had a great turnout for the session and all-in-all, it went pretty well (I think!). The 'Demo Gods' were kind to me and there was some great interaction and questions from the audience. Hopefully people gained a better understanding of what's coming for this new release of SCOM in the next few weeks.

You can download the recording from here (it's a large file so right-click and 'Save As' is best):

What's new in System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2? (EN) - Kevin Greene

Later that afternoon, Maarten Goet (OpsLogix) had organised a really fun "Microsoft & MVP ask-the-experts" session which he co-presented with Cameron Fuller. The guys had put together a number of 'Trivial Pursuit' type questions based on System Center that pitched the audience against the 'Experts' and I think it's fair to say, that just about everyone attending that session (presenters included), learnt something new and interesting!

To close out the event, at the end of Day 2, Cireson hosted a great closing party in the Kornhauskeller restaurant where everyone had more than their fair share of drinks and food (again!).

The irony wasn't lost on some of us that during the few days we were over there, it was announced that the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) was going to be cancelled. I'd attended MMS for the past three years and it was certainly a conference you looked forward to going to each year (and no, it wasn't just because it was hosted in Las Vegas!)

If there was ever going to be an event that can fill the void left for a System Center conference such as MMS, then it's my belief (along with a growing number of other System Center community members) that SCU is it. Built for the Community, by the Community. Its name alone attracts the best of the best of presenters and each year it's held, it gets bigger and bigger.

You can get access to all the slide decks and video recordings of SCU DACH from the official website here: http://www.systemcenteruniverse.ch/

System Center Universe kicks off again in on January 30th 2014 in Houston, Texas and there will be another European event towards the end of next year too. Stay tuned to http://www.systemcenteruniverse.com/ for all the info!

Heading over to System Center Universe Europe (DACH)

This afternoon, I'm sat in Dublin airport waiting on my buddy Damian Flynn to navigate his way through the big city traffic (he's used to a more rural type of motoring experience) so we can head over to Switzerland and present at the System Center Universe DACH conference.

I'm really looking forward to meeting up (again this year!) with my System Center community friends and also to have the opportunity to hear some of them present on the latest and greatest technologies around systems management and cloud. There's a really impressive line up of speakers coming from far and wide - including Cameron Fuller with his first appearance as a public speaker outside of the USA.

I'm involved in (at least) two sessions over the next few days with the first one being tomorrow with a cameo appearance to talk about Windows Server 2012 R2 IPAM with Damian, Thomas Maurer and Michel Luscher in our session titled "SCVMM Networking: From Zero to Hero in Two Hours". The lads are by far the better virtual network guru's than me, so I should (hopefully) learn a thing or two from them as they do their magic!

On the Tuesday, I've got the chance to either impress or bore people with my very own session on "What's New in System Center 2012 R2 - Operations Manager". I've put the work into the demo's, tidied up the decks and now it's all in the hands of the "Demo Gods"! As a precaution (and learning from past experience here), I've recorded my demo's in case the internet decides to act up at 12:00 on Tuesday!

So that's it for now, I'll try to get a few blog posts out over the next few days on how things are going.

Download a Free White paper on Hybrid Cloud with NVGRE (WSSC 2012 R2)

A new white paper has just been made available by some MVP friends of mine on the complex topic of Hybrid Cloud NVGRE using Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2.

The whitepaper is available as a free download and was authored by System Center Cloud and Datacenter MVP's - Kristian Nese and Flemming Riis.

The technical reviewers of the paper included two other System Center Cloud and Datacenter MVP's -  Stanislav Zhelyazkov and Daniel Neumann. It also contained input from the Microsoft product group aligned directly with virtual networking and WSSC 2012 R2 so you know the technical content is going to be of a very high standard.

Check out Kristian's blog post from the link below to get your hands on the white paper today:

http://kristiannese.blogspot.no/2013/09/white-paper-hybrid-cloud-with-nvgre.html

Enjoy!

SCOM - New SQL Management Pack and Summary Dashboard Released

Microsoft has just released a new management pack update for monitoring SQL. We first got a preview of this management pack at the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS 2013) in Las Vegas during the Workloads: Managing Windows, IIS & SQL Technologies session and since then, we've been waiting in earnest for it's release - mainly because of the new SQL Server 2012 Summary dashboard that comes bundled with it.

The release of this MP is a bonus for me as it's just in time for me to be able to include it into my demo for my upcoming session at System Center Universe 2013 DACH.

Here's a screenshot of what the new dashboard looks like (keep in mind that this dashboard will only run on SQL 2012 databases):

The new MP comes with some additional monitors, rules and all round improvements - here's a list of them taken directly from the MP guide:

• Collect DB Active Requests count
• Collect DB Active Sessions count
• Collect DB Active Transactions count
• Collect DB Engine Thread count
• Thread Count monitor
• Transaction Log Free Space (%) monitor
• Transaction Log Free Space (%) collection
• Collect DB Engine CPU Utilization (%)
• CPU Utilization (%) monitor for DB engine
• Buffer Cache Hit Ratio monitor
• Collect DB Engine Page Life Expectancy (s)
• Page Life Expectancy monitor
• Collect DB Disk Read Latency (ms)
• Collect DB Disk Write Latency (ms)
• Disk Read Latency monitor
• Disk Write Latency monitor
• Collect DB Transactions per second count
• Collect DB Engine Average Wait Time (ms)
• Average Wait Time monitor
• Collect DB Engine Stolen Server Memory (MB)
• Stolen Server Memory monitor
• Collect DB Allocated Free Space (MB)
• Collect DB Used Space (MB)
• Collect DB Disk Free Space (MB)
• SQL Re-Compilation monitor
• SPN monitor improved
• Support for special symbols in DB names.
• Improved AlwaysOn seed discovery
• Run As configuration changes to support Low privilege for SQL Server 2012 Cluster
• Improved performance of AlwaysOn discovery
• Custom User Policy Discovery and Monitoring performance optimization
• Hid AG health object from Diagram view

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

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=10631

As always, make sure you read the guide from front to back (this is a big one!) and test the MP out first before deploying into production.

New System Center 2012 - Orchestrator Book Available Now!

This blog has been real quiet of late due to me putting the finishing touches to our upcoming "Mastering Windows Server 2012 R2" book, but I wanted to do up a quick post here to highlight another book which was authored by some really good friends of mine in the System Center community.

This book is based on System Center 2012 - Orchestrator and is an excellent place to go to learn about Microsoft's automation solution in the System Center suite. Here's an excerpt from the book's description:

"Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 simplifies the process of automating systems administration tasks. Originally a third-party product named Opalis, which Microsoft acquired in 2009, Orchestrator provides a simplified way of building complex automation. System Center Orchestrator is a complete solution that goes beyond basic automation.
"Microsoft System Center 2012 Orchestrator Cookbook" will teach you how to plan, create and manage powerful runbooks to help you automate mission-critical and routine administration tasks.
In this practical Cookbook you will learn how to master System Center 2012 by creating runbooks to control and automate every feature possible. You will start by learning how to efficiently install and secure System Center Orchestrator."

I've just purchased a copy and you can get your own copy of the book today in 'dead-tree' format from here or in electronic format from here.

Enjoy!

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.