This morning Anderson delivered the opening keynote to nearly 5,000 IT professionals, highlighting how customers around the world are already using System Center 2012, available today for evaluation and purchase.
A replay of his keynote is available here.
News highlights include:
- System Center 2012 is generally available now for evaluation and purchase.
- Windows Server “8” has been officially named Windows Server 2012. The new “cloud optimized OS,” due out later this year, will make the Microsoft private cloud even more powerful.
Windows Server 2012 will be available later this year. - New Microsoft Certification Program for the Cloud
Until January 31, 2013, Exam 70-659 may be taken in place of 70-247 to count towards the Private Cloud certification.
More to come.
Kind Regards
Arne Peleman
If you have access to the web and want to follow the MMS twitter army.
Here’s direct links to a couple special Hashtags:
MMS 2012: http://www.hashtags.org/mms2012
MMSFUN: http://www.hashtags.org/mmsfun
Kind Regards,
Arne Peleman
Join the Private Cloud Roadshow in Brussels (25 April) and Ghent (26 April)
Join experts Kurt Roggen (MVP) and Mike Resseler (MVP) for the Private Cloud Roadshow.
In this half day you will learn more about private cloud infrastructure setup and how you can monitor this. Learn how to create your private clouds and how to deploy standardized applications or services into these clouds. And as a final session you will learn how you can provide automation in your private cloud.
There are 2 options to attend (same content, different location):
25 April 2012 in Brussels
26 April 2012 in Ghent
![clip_image003[1]](http://scug.be/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/arne/clip_5F00_image0031_5F00_3AD16BF2.jpg "clip_image003[1]")
This TechNet event is free of charge and Microsoft will be giving away one Nokia Lumia 800 Windows Phone in each location.
Detailed agenda:
13:00 : 13:30 Welcome & Coffee
13:30 : 14:30 Building your Private Cloud Infrastructure
Learn how to build your Private Cloud infrastructure, by dealing with Fabric Management (Compute/ Hypervisors, Storage, Network), which will serve as the basis for the Private Cloud that you will be creating. We will discuss how to deploy, configure and manage each of these different elements in your datacenter.
14:30 : 14:50 Break
14:50 : 16:30 Creating, Monitoring & Operating your Private Cloud
Learn how to create your private clouds and how to deploy standardized applications or services into these clouds. Learn how to monitor your clouds and how to can handle change requests. All this key area's will be addressed to give you an idea of what is happening in a private cloud after it is up, running, and into production.
16:30 : 16:50 Break
16:50 : 18:00 Automating & Delivering Services in your Private Cloud
Learn how you can provide automation in your private cloud. Discover also how your cloud services can be offered and consumed using different self-service portals and what their differences are.
18:00 : 19:00 Networking & Drinks
Today Microsoft announced the Release of System Center 2012.
Please go watch the recording of the web cast to learn more!
You can Download all evaluation software.
With System Center 2012 RC versions available Microsoft has also implemented some licensing changes.
Here you can download the System Center 2012 licensing FAQ
More licensing info
I will point out some most important changes for you.
Currently the various System Center products (SCCM, SCOM, SCSM, DPM, …) can be purchased individually or as bundles.
This is what changes with system center 2012
Server Management Licensing
With System Center 2012 there will be 2 Flavors.
- Standard: For lightly or non-virtualized private cloud workloads
- Datacenter: Maximizes cloud capacity with unlimited Operating System Environments (OSEs) for high density private clouds
System Center 2012 server management licensing maximizes your private cloud value while simplifying purchasing.
- License required only for endpoints being managed. No additional licenses needed for management servers or SQL Server technology
- Consistent licensing model across editions. Processor based license, covering up to two processors targeted at most common hardware configuration
- Same capabilities across editions differentiated by virtualization rights. All server management licenses include the same components and the ability to manage any private cloud workload
Client Management Licensing
System Center 2012 client management licensing provides simple, cost-effective options to manage and protect client systems. Client management licenses are available in three offers:
-
System Center 2012 Configuration Manager: System Center 2012 Configuration Manager is available on a per-user or per-OSE basis as well as in the Core CAL and Enterprise CAL suites.
-
System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection: System Center 2012 Endpoint Protection (the next version of Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010) is available as a per-user or per-device subscription as well as in the Core CAL and Enterprise CAL suites. The subscription includes all antimalware updates and product upgrades during the subscription period.
-
System Center Client Management Suite: The System Center 2012 Client Management Suite is available on a per-user or per-OSE basis as well as in the Enterprise CAL suite. It is composed of Data Protection Manager, Operations Manager, Service Manager, and Orchestrator.
Core CAL and Enterprise CAL Suites will continue to be the most cost effective way to purchase client management products.
In my opinion a good move from Microsoft. You get an entire suite for the price of a single product.
Kind Regards
Just 1 more week to benefit from a 15% discount on your ticket for TechDays 2012: the Early Bird pricing ends on December 21. Registrations are coming in strong, so be sure to secure your spot before we sell out!
Top Speakers
We are happy to confirm speakers like:
- In the Developer track: Alex Turner, Brian Keller, Bart De Smet, Gill Cleeren, Jeff Prosise, Maarten Balliauw, Matt Milner, Ben Riga, Steve Sanderson, Nikhil Kothari, Rob Miles, Tarek Madkour, Wade Wegner
- In the IT Pro track: John Craddock, Kurt Roggen, Ilse Van Criekinge, Adam Hall, Corey Hynes, Kim Oppalfens, Mike Resseler, Dan Holme
International speakers are teamed up with our local experts to give you a top content mix.
TechDays program: 80% of agenda is finalized
This year promises to bring a lot of new content from Microsoft. Looking at the next versions of tooling, languages, OS and management you know this is not a standard TechDays event. Our content is split into current and upcoming technology.
Deep Dives (February 16)
Peter Himschoot and Jurgen Postelmans (U2U) will be delivering a full day .NET 4.5 and Visual Studio (Dev11) Futures for Web Development Deep Dive covering all the latest and greatest in .NET 4.5, focusing on Web Development with ASP.NET, HTML5 and WCF.
Rhonda Layfield will be delivering a full day deep dive covering all the different tools and techniques to deploy Windows 7, she will also cover the upcoming Windows OS deployment tools.
Mike Resseler & Tom Shinder will deliver a full day covering private cloud topics, including Management and Operations of your private cloud infrastructure.
About TechDays 2012
Join our 10th anniversary edition in a new location (Kinepolis Imagibraine - Braine l'Alleud) and learn about:
• Windows & Internet Explorer
• Windows Server 8 & Hyper-V
• Windows Phone 7 development
• System Center 2012 & Windows Intune
• Tooling and languages with Visual Studio, C# and VB Futures
• Next generation apps
• Cloud development with Windows Azure Platform
• Web development with HTML5, JavaScript and ASP.NET
• ...
> REGISTER NOW
Hope to see you at the TechDays 2012!
Questions? Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook or simply via e-mail.
What’s new in November?
- Exchange! Advisor is pleased to announce the roll-out of Microsoft Exchange analysis. We have added 24 alerts to monitor the performance and configuration of Exchange in your environment.
- In the midst of all that Exchange work, we also beefed up our troubleshooting documentation for the agent and gateway, including some information about those connection issues you’ve been seeing. You can check out the updated information in System Center Advisor Troubleshooting
.
Register now for the Belgian Techdays 2012 and profit from the 15% Early Bird discount.
Windows Azure:
Introduction to Windows Azure
Deploying Applications in Windows Azure
Exploring Windows Azure Storage
Windows Deployment:
Advanced Deployment Scenarios Using the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010
Deploying the Core Optimized Desktop with MDT 2010 and SCCM
Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack: Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization 2.0 Overview
Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack: Microsoft Application Virtualization, Configuring Read-Only Shared Cache for VDI and RDS
System Center:
System Center Orchestrator Extensibility
First Look at Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2012
Application Monitoring in OpsMgr 2012
Monitoring key Microsoft workloads (Microsoft Exchange Server, SQL Server, and Windows Server) with OpsMgr 2012
Network Monitoring in OpsMgr 2012
Diagnose the Application Errors and Performance Issues with AVIcode
Getting Started with System Center Orchestrator
Getting Started with System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012
SCVMM Self-Service Portal 2.0 Business Unit/Infrastructure Requests/Approvals and VM Provisioning
Security:
Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE) with Office 365
DirectAccess and Unified Access Gateway (UAG) SP1: Better Together
Scripting:
Advanced Windows PowerShell Scripting
Following labs are still available.
SQL Server
Visualizing Data with Maps in SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services
Install a clustered instance of SQL Server 2008 R2 on Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster
SharePoint and Office
SharePoint2010 IT Pro Overview
Upgrade from Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007to SharePoint Server 2010
Lap around Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise Content Management
Infrastructure assessment for Office 2010 migration planning with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit
Virtualizing Microsoft Office 2010 with Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V)
Windows 7 deployment
Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack: Application Virtualization, Sequencing Lab
Streamline planning for Windows 7deployment with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning(MAP) Toolkit
Getting Started with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010
Zero Touch Installation Using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 and Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager
Windows 7: Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.6
Windows Server 2008 R2
What's New in Active Directory (V3.0)
Windows Server 2008 R2: Implementing BranchCache
Implementing Centralized Publishing using Remote Desktop Services (V3.0)
Windows Server 2008 R2: Implementing DirectAccess
System Center
Introduction to Opalis
Monitoring Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, SQL Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 with Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007
The labs can be found on http://technet.microsoft.com/nl-be/gg636841 or http://technet.microsoft.com/fr-be/gg636841
Yesterday Microsoft announced kb2288515 about Agent states in Operations Manager and System Center Essentials
I believe this is a very important kb which must be in the kb library of every SCOM admin.
Summary:
An agent, management server or gateway can have one of the following states:
Healthy – green check mark
The agent/management server is running normally.
Critical – red check mark
There is a problem on the agent/management server.
Unknown – gray agent. The check mark and agent name are grayed out.
The health service watcher on the root management server (RMS) that is watching the health service on the monitored computer is not receiving heartbeats from the agent anymore. It had been receiving them previously (and it was reported as healthy), but now it is not. This also means that the management servers are no longer receiving any information from the agent at all.
The computer running the agent might be down, or there might be connectivity issues. You can find more information on the Health Service Watcher view.
Unknown – green circle with no check mark
The status of the discovered item is unknown. There is no monitor available for this specific discovered item.
Resolutions can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2288515
Kind Regards,
Arne Peleman
A few weeks ago Microsoft kicked off the summer campaign, although looking outside doesn’t feels like summer.
During the summer months July and August Microsoft will send out 4 newsletters which have been pimped into a summer look and feel.
Just navigate to Here and start learning.
The following parts are already published
Still to come…
- The best of TechDays 2011
I’ll keep you Posted.
Success!
Arne Peleman
Hello all,
Last week Provance has released V1.2 SP1 of its IT Asset Management Pack and Data Management Pack. The download is available at community.provance.com in the resource section. The announcement details along with the fix/feature list are available on the home page of the Provance community. In addition to fixes some new features are available as follows:
Asset Management Pack Enhancements
· Track by Assignment
· New BFA Values displayed for Software Title and Versions
· BFA Details graphical display
Data Management Pack Enhancements
- New Operations
- o For Strings: Concatenate, Substring, Split
- o For Lists: Copy
- o Date/Time: Value
- o Boolean: Copy, Value
- Don’t Create if Blank
- PowerShell Support for Import
- o Includes Provance Data Management Shell
A number of blogs have been written about the new features with more blogs to come, see the News and Products blogs for more details.
Blogs:http://www.provance.com/blog/
Not a Provance Customer or Partner?
There are a number of external Provance resources that can be of assistance.
Download an evaluation version of the Provance IT Asset Management Pack for Microsoft Service Manager HERE.
I hope this can help you.
Kind Regards,
Arne
Today on the Windows For Your Business blog, They announced the beta of the next release of Windows Intune.
Some key new features include:
- Simplify the task of distributing software and updates- In addition to Microsoft patches and updates, you can now use Windows Intune to deploy third-party applications and updates to your managed PCs.
- Manage all your software licenses. If you need a better way to manage all your software licenses, look no further. Now you can upload and track Microsoft Retail and OEM licenses and third-party license agreements in addition to Microsoft Volume License agreements.
- Get better hardware reporting . We’ve made it simple for you to view or create reports on hardware data—including manufacturer, chassis type, available disk space, installed memory, and CPU speed.
For a full list of features, check out the following content:
Each new update builds upon the prior version, so regardless of when you purchase the subscription, you’ll automatically get the latest and greatest features available in our commercial release.
Want to try out these cool new features? Then sign up for the Windows Intune Beta for a preview of the updates we’ve made to the service. Please note that the beta can be used on up to 10 PCs until 30 days after the update is commercially available and cannot be migrated to the commercial release.
If you are in the market for a management and security solution today, we encourage you to sign up for a free 30-day trial of our commercial release for 25 PCs to see how Windows Intune can help your business today.
Ready to buy after your 30 days? It’s easy to smoothly migrate your trial to a paid subscription. The commercial release is our fully supported offer and guarantees a financially-backed 99.9% uptime service level agreement.
Kind Regards
Arne
Deploy System Center Advisor
The System Center Advisor environment consists of a web service and on-premise software (a gateway to communicate with the service, and one or more agents to collect and analyze data). Perform the following steps to deploy Advisor in your environment:
- Review the System Center Advisor System Requirements.
- Read the Planning Considerations for System Center Advisor to build a topology that matches your environment. If you have a firewall in your environment, review the Firewall Information for System Center Advisor.
- Create an Account and Download the On-Premise Software and download the gateway and agent setup wizard.
- Install the gateway and agent. Use one of the following methods:
- Register a gateway (if this did not occur during gateway installation).
- Authorize Agents to Access the Gateway if you choose to limit access to the gateway during gateway installation.
- Configure the Gateway and Agent. (Optional)
- If you run into any issues, review Advisor Deployment Troubleshooting.
I was wondering how I could speed up the agent deployment. We have configuration Manager 2007. The SCA documentation states we can install the agent using command line.
Lets deploy the SCA On-Premise software Using SCCM 2007.
- Create a configuration Manager Package.
The data source contains the on-Premise software.
The Certificate is stored on a network Share: \share\key">\\<server>\share\key.
- Do not forget to copy the package to your distribution points.
- Create packages
- Install Gateway Agent Silent No Reboot
Command Line:
AdvisorSetup.exe "/l*v c:\temp\AdvisorLog.txt /qn INSTALL_AGENT=YES GATEWAY_SERVER=<SERVER FQDN>"
- Install Gateway Agent Silent No reboot
Command Line:
AdvisorSetup.exe "/l*v c:\temp\AdvisorLog.txt /qn INSTALL_GATEWAY=YES REG_CERT_PATH="\\<file server\Advisor Sources\Certificates\RegistrationCert.pfx"
Overview
The System Center Operation Manager 2007 Administration Resource Kit provides the following features to aid in management group administration:
- Scheduled Maintenance Mode - Ability to schedule and manage maintenance mode in the management group.
- Clean Mom - Helps remove all installed R2 components.
- MP Event Analyzer - MP Event Analyzer tool is designed to help a user with functional and exploratory testing and debugging of event based management pack workflows like rules and monitors.
Feature Summary: - Ability to schedule Maintenance mode for “run once”, daily, weekly, and monthly schedules
- Ability to removal all OpsMgr 2007 R2 files from a system
- Ability to debug event based management pack workflows
System Requirements
- Supported Operating Systems:Windows Server 2008;Windows Server 2008 R2;Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1;Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2
- Other Software:System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2
Instructions
- Download and unpack the binaries
- Open the Schedule Maintenance Mode v1.3 document and follow the instructions.
You can Download here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=e37ab90b-ec7b-4130-8e3f-9691a76530db&displaylang=en
Best of MMS 2011 will provide the best possible opportunity to learn about the latest IT Management products, solutions and technologies from Microsoft and how to apply them in your organization!
This 1-day event will provide you with an understanding of the latest technical updates on Desktop, Datacenter and Cloud management features and solutions from Microsoft.
You have the choice to either attend this event in person or follow it by using live-meeting.
Register In Person: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032487389&Culture=en-US
Register for LiveMeeting: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032487389&Culture=en-US
Original Source:
http://technet.microsoft.com/nl-be/ff628215
Cumulative Update 2 (CU2) for Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is available for download from the Microsoft Download website.
This cumulative update is a rollup of fixes for System Center Service Manager 2010 SP1. It supersedes SP1 Cumulative Update 1 (CU1) and contains a superset of the fixes that are provided in SP1 CU1. It can be applied to SP1 CU1 or directly to a Service Manager 2010 SP1 installation.
Included in this update are fixes for the following issues:
- Exception when you move between views in the UI
- Console stability fix while you switch between views
- Knowledge search performance improvements
- Console performance improvements
- Improvements to grooming
- A fix to the notifications infrastructure
- Added ability to see affected incidents in portal
- Active Directory Connector improvements
- Extending a large-volume class causes the Service Manager console to stop responding indefinitely
- Adding a 25th child item on a list results in an error
- Fact tables that are based on relationships with properties lose data after the relationship is deleted
You can download it from here:
Download the Cumulative Update 2 for Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010 Service Pack 1
Additional detail and installation instructions:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2542118/en-us
There is also an Authoring Tool management pack library update with this so make sure you update the management packs in your library wherever you have the authoring tool installed.
RTFM is will save you time.
Important If you have not installed Cumulative Update 1 (CU1), an additional step is required if you previously imported a custom management pack that defines a fact table that contains properties. In this case, you have to upgrade the custom management pack. To do this, follow these steps:
- Increase the management pack version.
- Reseal the management pack.
- Reimport the management pack.
The MPSyncJob job then automatically syncs the reimported management pack to the data warehouse on the next synchronization, and the affected transform procedures are updated.
On a computer that has the Service Manager Authoring Tool installed, update the management packs in the Library folder of the Authoring Tool. To do this, follow these steps:
- On the cumulative update download page, download the following file to the local computer on which the Authoring Tool is installed:
KB2542118_MPLibraryUpdate_AuthoringTool.exe
- Double-click the .exe file, and then wait for the files to be extracted.
- Locate the following folder:
%SystemDrive%\Microsoft System Center\Service Manager 2010\hotfix_KB2542118\AuthoringToolMPUpdate
Note This is where the management pack files were extracted.
- Copy all files from that folder to the following folder, replacing the existing files:
Authoring Tool installation drive\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft System Center\Service Manager 2010 Authoring\Library\
- If the Authoring Tool is running, restart it to load the updated management packs.
Note If you do not update the management packs in the Library folder of the Authoring Tool, and then you later try to open a management pack in the Service Manager Authoring Tool that references the updated management packs that are included with this cumulative update, you are prompted to specify the location of the updated management packs. The dialog box that is displayed may contain the following text:
Service Manager Authoring Tool
Referenced management pack not found:
[Name=Management Pack Name, Key Token=31bf3856ad364e35, Version=7.0.6555.101].
Click Ok to manually locate it.