December 2008 - Posts

• InterOp Connectors Released

  InterOp Connectors Released I got this following email a couple of days ago. The InterOp Connectors have been released. This  should make the R2 version of Operations Manager a complete end to end solution... We are excited to announce the release of the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Interop Connectors (Beta 2) to Connect. This package contains the beta software for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Interop Connectors. The following Connectors are included: Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connector for Tivoli Enterprise Console Operations Manager 2007 R2 Connector for HP OpenView Operations Operations Manager 2007 R2 Universal Connector https://connect.microsoft.com/Downloads/DownloadDetails.aspx?SiteID=446&DownloadID=15675 Title Operations Manager 2007 R2 Interop Connectors - Beta 2 Release Date 12/19/2008 Size 122.95 MB Version 1.0.0.0 Category Build Milestone Beta 2 Posted Dec 22 2008, 03:52 PM by Operations Manager 2007 Filed under: None

• Savision Live Maps 3.0 has Gone Live

  Savision Live Maps 3.0 has Gone Live   Live Maps 3.0 has gone live (pun intended). I have written about this product and how valuable I think it will be for enterprises running Operations Manager 2007. If you are interested in seeing this product or have any questions about it feel free to contact us through our website or at sales'AT'infrontconsulting.com The official announcement.... We are proud to announce the release of Live Maps v3 for Operations Manager 2007. This version opens many new doors to all the data collected by System Center Operations Manager 2007. Business process availability monitoring or web enabled executive dashboards? Network topologies or live application diagrams? Live Maps v3 in combination with System Center Operations Manager 2007 brings you all that and more! Key New Features: Network and application topology maps Business process maps Executive dashboards All maps are dynamic and change-aware Network-link monitoring on any map Wizard and template based map creation Key Enhancements: Enhanced scalability of the Web and Authoring console Changed architecture for health state roll-up Upgrading Live Maps v3 can be installed next to v2. A migration tool will be posted soon. If you have a beta version of Live Maps v3 installed first uninstall this version and manually remove the v3 management packs before installing the new version. OpsMgr R2 Beta The Live Maps v3 OpsMgr Extension is not yet compatible with Operations Console of OpsMgr R2 beta. An R2 compatible version will be posted soon.   Posted Dec 18 2008, 04:51 PM by Operations Manager 2007 Filed under: None

• Savision 3

  Recently I have spent a considerable amount of time playing with Savision Live Maps 3. For those of you that aren't familiar with Live Maps, it's a great third party SCOM mapping and business workflow product.  In previous versions of the software you would build a custom map of the world, country, region, state etc, add your SCOM agents and or network gear manually to build your map. The new version of the software has a new dynamic list/group feature. This feature allows you to build your custom map at any level (from the world view down to the server rack view) and create a dynamic agent list to populate your map (using discovered SCOM objects). This is very helpful for organizations that have multiple data centers and want to create dynamic group of servers that live in these data centers. This way when the engineers build a new server (that meets the criteria you have set) and adds the SCOM agent not only will it get all the SCOM rules, monitors, etc they also get added to the Map. Live Maps not only has a Mapping feature but the ability to create Business Processes Workflows and Dashboards. You get the same same alerting, dynamic lists etc only in a standard workflow/flow chart type of view. There other features of this products that make it work looking at... They have a feature that will make an audible alert when a SCOM alert is generated. This is a feature many customers ask for as they are putting this map in a NOC type setting and they want their NOC to get an audible notification when there is an alert. The ability to embed maps. This allows you to drill in to your maps down to the Server Rack level. Granted you have to build the maps down to that level and populate them (using dynamic lists hopefully). What this does is allows your NOC to quickly and efficiently identify where the problem systems are. Live Maps 3 also includes the ability to use objects discovered by SCOM and put them in your map or business work flow. One last feature I want to mention is the ability to use custom Visio Diagrams or other JPEGs to build your map. This allows you to build custom Data Center maps for your business. Over all I am very pleased with this product and say it's a must have for any organization that is running Operations Manager. For a more detailed look at the product including Install and Config consider taking our Operations Manager Boot Camp where we have included a module on Savision. Posted Dec 09 2008, 10:28 AM by Operations Manager 2007 Filed under: None

• Making Windows Live Applications work on Server 2008

  Making Windows Live Applications work on Server 2008 After rebuilding my laptop back to Server 2008 32bit I wanted to install Windows Live applications (just Live Writer and Messenger). However the installer for these applications fails on the OS Check, stating the OS is not supported. I tried running the installer in compatibility mode however that didn't work either. After a little research I found a few posts saying that Messenger 8.1 worked on Server, so I went and downloaded it from here and installed it. It works like a charm. Live Writer was a different story. There is not standalone installer for Writer as there is for Messenger. In my former life (many years ago) I was a support engineer so I started thinking about ways to get this app installed (I like it for Blogging). I run a Windows Home Server and had a backup from the an older system that was successfully running Writer. The first thing I wanted to do was look at what was in the program folders, so I did a restore of the %Program files%\Windows Live\Writer to the same path on my new system. Just out of curiosity, once the restore was complete I ran the .exe for writer and it launched with no problem. I did no installation (as it failed) I simply copied the program files from one machine onto another and launched the application. Posted Dec 08 2008, 11:48 AM by Operations Manager 2007 Filed under: Computer and Internet

• 64 bit Server 2008

  64 bit Server 2008 As a colleague recently wrote in his blog 64bit Woes not Wows! I wanted to add my two cents. I rebuilt my laptop (Dell XPS M1710, with 4 gigs of RAM) to run Server 2008 x64 sometime around mid summer. I did this for two reasons; 1. I wanted to use Hyper-V to run VMs for client demos and 2. I find it the best way to learn a new OS. Well after months of trying to make it work I finally rebuilt this last weekend back to 32bit. The lack of Driver and software support drove this decision. The lack of driver support drove me crazy (no Bluetooth (well one that worked well), no scanner support, webcam etc). But the thing that drove me over the edge was lack of Microsoft Groove Support (among other pieces of SW I couldn't get running Live Writer, DVD playback SW etc). I understand why there's no 64bit Office applications (yet) although they run a 32bit version in a 64bit OS. Groove wouldn't install it simply threw an error saying that 64bit is not a supported OS... really? No 32bit emulation in a 64bit OS like the rest of Office? Also I found that with all the 32bit processes running; the whole system seem to run very slow and was constantly crashing WMI. I know, there are a lot of reasons this could have been happening, but since reverting back to 32bit I haven't experienced any of these problems. I like the idea of running a 64bit OS on my laptop and perhaps one of these days the drivers and software will catch up. Posted Dec 08 2008, 11:23 AM by Operations Manager 2007 Filed under: Computers and Internet