If you’ve tried or trying to monitor the new Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.18 product version with the Citrix SCOM Management Pack for XenApp and XenDesktop, you are familiar with it’s challenges. Our good friend Stoyan faced the similar challenge recently, and to give everyone out there a helping hand, he noted his solution down for everyone to refer to! Here’s how Stoyan solved the challenge:
Challenge
All of you, who are using this management pack know that the latest version available at the time of writing (v3.14) supports max. Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.16. The thing is that Citrix released their most recent version of XenApp and XenDesktop (7.18) a couple of months ago.
So if you have done an upgrade to this version without coordinating this your Operations Team first, then most certainly you are in a situation, where your Citrix XAXD environment is not monitored by SCOM. So, how to solve this? Before answering this, let’s us first shortly describe how the management pack discovers the XAXD Delivery Controller.
In order for the management pack to identify a particular server as Citrix XAXD Delivery Controller and create an instance of this class (ComTrade.Citrix.XenDesktop.DeliveryController.ComputerRole.Discovery ) in SCOM, the management pack does a registry based discovery by checking the value of the following registry key on your delivery controller:
If you have done an upgrade and you are in this situation, then the value of the “VersionMajor” key should be either “1808” or “1903”.
I personally contacted Citrix many times regarding this topic and asked about the progress on the development of the new management pack version. Unfortunately, I was told that is not sure when it will be released, nobody could give any estimation. Unable to find detailed information on the discovery I gave up looking for a solution.
Workaround
Shortly after the last Contact to Citrix, while answering SCOM related questions on the Microsoft Social Technet Forums I came across a thread, describing the exact same problem and introducing possible workaround:
It seems that the registry discovery run by the management pack uses a GreaterEqual expression to check the value of the VersionMajor registry key and the value does not match the predefined values for the previous XAXD Versions, the discovery discards the results. That being said, the workaround would be to edit the value of the key and enter a value, corresponding to the older versions, which on its turn should allow the discovery to run fine, identify the managed system as XAXD Delivery Controller and create an instance of the ComTrade.Citrix.XenDesktop.DeliveryController.ComputerRole.Discovery class.
According to the post the value, which can be used to trigger the discovery of the delivery controller is “7”.
Test results and important notes
Besides the user, who presented this in the forum (huge thanks for this), who confirmed that the workaround works just fine for the “1903” version, I can also confirm that it works with the “1808” version also. There were no side effects of changing the value of the key on the delivery controller and the XAXD environment in general. Still, please be aware of the following important points:
First of all, this only a workaround, not a real solution the problem. Considering this you need to be very careful with changing the value of the registry key and remember that this on your own risk.
Always backup your registry first before doing any changes. This is very important rule and fully applies also in this case.
Make sure you revert the values of the VersionMajor registry key before doing further upgrades or uninstalling Xen App XenDesktop.
Make sure you revert the key back to its original value also before upgrading the Citrix SCOM Management Pack for XenApp and XenDesktop, in case a new version is released.
Conclusion
The Microsoft System Center Operations Manager Community is very comprehensive and is an origin of many helpful ideas and solutions. The Microsoft SCOM Social Technet Forum in particular is a place, where you can seek help for technical problems, but is also a source of wide range of information on important and interesting topics. This particular one is the best example for this. Hopefully it will help you out in getting your Citrix XAXD 7.18 environment monitored again!
In this troubleshooting tip, Ruben talks about fixing the error you might encounter after you install the Management Pack for SQL version 7.0.15.
Introduction
After we updated the MS SQL Management Pack to 7.0.15 several servers threw alerts that monitoring isn’t working any more.
The error message stated that a WMI query did not return any value.
Details
Shortly after we updated the Management Pack to 7.0.15 we received error messages from a couple of SQL Servers.
The WMI query that is triggered by the DiscoverSQL2012DBEngineDiscovery.vbs did not return any valid instances.
Furthermore, on the SQL Server the SQL Server Configuration Manager could not be started anymore and terminated with the error that it could not connect to the WMI provider.
Solution
Rebuilding provider on the affected SQL Servers.
Start the command prompt (cmd)
Navigate to (cd) “C:\ProgramFiles(x86)\MicrosoftSQLServer\110\Shared\” where 110 depends on the g the SQL server version installed on that machine
Run the following command: mofcomp sqlmgmproviderxpsp2up.mof
Ruben is back again with another Powershell banger! This time he presents you a Powershell script that will automatically detect and remove the SQL Express Instances from SCOM monitoring and save you from unnecessary overhead of removing them manually!
Introduction
SQL Express Databases are a widely used storage for settings in applications or as data storage for small amount of data. Except of backups in cases it is not required to manage those databases.
The MS SQL Server Management Pack for SCOM discovers any edition. Thus, we can spot Express databases from the SCOM Console.
Unfortunately, the Management Pack can’t monitor Express databases and lots of unfixable alerts are thrown.
It is possible to either set filter strings to prevent the discovery for all Express instances by name.
This does not work if the Express is named as MSSQLSERVER.
MSSQLSERVER is also the default for SQL Standard and other editions.
Only choice then is to override object by object manually, or?
PowerShell solution
With a bit of PowerShell it is possible to override the discovery rules for Express editions no matter which name they have. – Put this script into your regular maintenance scripts to keep your SCOM free from Express instances:
# Defining Override Management Pack. - It needs to be created before starting.
$overrideMP = Get-SCOMManagementPack -DisplayName 'Custom.SQL.Server.Express.Removals'
# Get all Windows Servers Instances, needed as lookup to disable the specific computer object
$winSrvClass = Get-SCOMClass -Name Microsoft.Windows.Server.Computer
$winSrvInstances = Get-SCOMClassInstance -Class $winSrvClass
# Get Express instances For SQL 2005 to SQL 2012
$classSQL2to8 = Get-SCOMClass -Name Microsoft.SQLServer.DBEngine
$instancesSQL2to8 = Get-SCOMClassInstance -Class $classSQL2to8
$expressSQL2to8 = $instancesSQL2to8 | Where-Object {$_.'[Microsoft.SQLServer.DBEngine].Edition'.Value -eq 'Express Edition' }
$computersSQL2to8 = $expressSQL2to8.path
# Finding the computer objects which host SQL 2005 to SQL2012, store them in ArrayList
$targetComputers = New-Object -TypeName System.Collections.ArrayList
$computersSQL2to8 | ForEach-Object {
$tmp = ''
$check = $false
$check = $winSrvInstances.DisplayName.Contains($_)
if ($check) {
$number = $winSrvInstances.DisplayName.IndexOf($_)
$tmp = $winSrvInstances[$number]
if ($tmp -ne '') {
$targetComputers.Add($tmp)
}
}
} #end $computersSQL2to8 | ForEach-Object { }
# Disabling the Dicovery Rules for those computers which host SQL 2005 to SQL 2012
$discoveryRuleList = @(
'Discover SQL Server 2005 Database Engines (Windows Server)'
'Discover SQL Server 2008 Database Engines (Windows Server)'
'Discover SQL Server 2012 Database Engines (Windows Server)'
)
foreach ($discoveryRuleItem in $discoveryRuleList) {
$discoveryRule = Get-SCOMDiscovery -DisplayName $discoveryRuleItem
$targetComputers | ForEach-Object {
Disable-SCOMDiscovery -Instance $_ -Discovery $discoveryRule -ManagementPack $overrideMP
}
}
#Removing the objects from SCOM. - This can take some Time!
Remove-SCOMDisabledClassInstance
# Get Express instances for SQL 2014
$classSQL2014 = Get-SCOMClass -Name 'Microsoft.SQLServer.2014.DBEngine'
$instancesSQL2014 = Get-SCOMClassInstance -Class $classSQL2014
$expressSQL2014 = $instancesSQL2014 | Where-Object {$_.'[Microsoft.SQLServer.2014.DBEngine].Edition'.Value -eq 'Express Edition' }
$computersSQL2014 = $expressSQL2014.path
# Finding the computer objects which host SQL 2014, store them in ArrayList
$targetComputers = New-Object -TypeName System.Collections.ArrayList
$computersSQL2014 | ForEach-Object {
$tmp = ''
$check = $false
$check = $winSrvInstances.DisplayName.Contains($_)
if ($check) {
$number = $winSrvInstances.DisplayName.IndexOf($_)
$tmp = $winSrvInstances[$number]
if ($tmp -ne '') {
$targetComputers.Add($tmp)
}
}
} #end $computersSQL2014 | ForEach-Object { }
# Disabling the Dicovery Rule for those computers which host SQL 2014
$discoveryRule = Get-SCOMDiscovery -DisplayName 'MSSQL 2014: Discover SQL Server 2014 Database Engines'
$targetComputers | ForEach-Object {
Disable-SCOMDiscovery -Instance $_ -Discovery $discoveryRule -ManagementPack $overrideMP
}
#Removing the objects from SCOM. - This can take some Time!
Remove-SCOMDisabledClassInstance
# Get Express instances for SQL 2016
$classSQL2016 = Get-SCOMClass -Name 'Microsoft.SQLServer.2016.DBEngine'
$instancesSQL2016 = Get-SCOMClassInstance -Class $classSQL2016
$expressSQL2016 = $instancesSQL2016 | Where-Object {$_.'[Microsoft.SQLServer.2016.DBEngine].Edition'.Value -eq 'Express Edition' }
$computersSQL2016 = $expressSQL2016.Path
# Finding the computer objects which host SQL 2016, store them in ArrayList
$targetComputers = New-Object -TypeName System.Collections.ArrayList
$computersSQL2016 | ForEach-Object {
$tmp = ''
$check = $false
$check = $winSrvInstances.DisplayName.Contains($_)
if ($check) {
$number = $winSrvInstances.DisplayName.IndexOf($_)
$tmp = $winSrvInstances[$number]
if ($tmp -ne '') {
$targetComputers.Add($tmp)
}
}
} #end $computersSQL2016 | ForEach-Object { }
# Disabling the Dicovery Rule for those computers which host SQL 2016
$discoveryRule = Get-SCOMDiscovery -DisplayName 'MSSQL 2016: Discover SQL Server 2016 Database Engines'
$targetComputers | ForEach-Object {
Disable-SCOMDiscovery -Instance $_ -Discovery $discoveryRule -ManagementPack $overrideMP
}
#Removing the objects from SCOM. - This can take some Time!
Remove-SCOMDisabledClassInstance
Ruben is back with another awesome blog post, and I have no doubt this one is going to help a lot of people!
We all know the hassles of migrating your SCOM from one version to another, and it involves a lot of manual efforts. And especially so when you choose the side-by-side upgrade path. Making sure you have all the Management Packs re-imported, all overrides are intact, making sure all permissions to various users you’ve assigned over the years are still in place, etc just to mention a few examples. We’ve all wished how great it would be if you could run some kind of script and it’ll do it all for us. Well, this is exactly what Ruben has made available for us! Here, take a look:
Preface
Migrating from SCOM 2012 R2 to SCOM 1801 isn’t a stressful job as both environments can live in parallel.
This blog gives examples how to migrate the configuration from A to B by trying to leverage PowerShell whenever possible / reasonable.
Please apply the PowerShell code only if you feel comfortable with it. If there are questions, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line.
Introduction
Although it is possible letting the agent do duplicate work in the sense of executing code in management packs, sending data to different management groups can cause excessive resource consumption on the monitored computer.
I suggest:
Migrate configuration to 1801 from 2012 R2 (blog topic)
Test with a very small amount of machine of different types (Application Servers, Web Servers, MSSQL, Exchange, Domain Controllers)
Move the remaining, majority to 1801
Change connectors to ticket systems, alert devices other peripheral systems
Remove the agent connections from 2012 R2 (see below for details)
Monitor the new environment for a while, if all fine decommission 2012 R2
Requirements
1801 is setup fully functional and first agents have been deployed successfully.
Windows PowerShell 5.1 is required on the 2012 R2 and on the 1801 server
Service Accounts used in 2012 R2 will be re-used. – If they are different in 1801 it is no big obstacle to change them if they are overwritten by one of the import steps.
Usually SCOM will alert if there is misconfiguration such a lack of permission somewhere.
Migration
Below now the steps separated in the different parts. – No guarantee for complete- or correctness.
Management Packs
Migrating to a new environment is always a great chance to perform cleanup and apply the lessons you’ve learned in the old one.
Review
Export all Management Packs from the current SCOM environment and review.
For your convenience use Excel to open the CSV file. Import only those Management Packs which bring measurable benefit.
Overrides
Standard Approach
If you have followed best practices you have created Override Management Packs for each Management Pack to store your customizations. Export those and import them into your new environment.
Note: Verify that the overrides work as expected.
Green field approach
In case you have stored the all overrides only in one Management Pack or want to be more selective follow these steps
Create a new Override Management Pack for that specific MP and name it properly.
Export the Microsoft.SystemCenter.Notifications.Internal mp in the old and new management groups – do not modify these, they are our backup copies
Make a copy of both files and rename them to something meaningful like Microsoft.SystemCenter.Notifications.Internal.ManagementGroupName_backup.xml
Make a note of the MP version number of the Microsoft.SystemCenter.Notifications.Internal MP from the new management group. In my case it was 7.2.11719.0
Open up the Microsoft.SystemCenter.Notifications.Internal.xml file for the old management group and change the version number to that of the new management group MP version + 1. In my case I changed it from 7.0.9538.0 to 7.2.11719.1. This is so the MP imports properly in the new management group
Exporting Configuration with PowerShell
Open a PowerShell console on the 2012 R2 Management Server and use the following cmdlets to store the information to C:\Temp\ResolutionStates.json
<# The cmdlet 'Get-SCOMRunAsAccount' can't extract credential information. A free cmdlet, written by Stefan Roth is required for that. – Import it to your 2012 R2 environment before proceeding with the following lines.
https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/RunAsAccount/1.0 #>
Run As Profiles usually come with Management Packs and therefore not handled here.
Note:
Run As Profiles are the binding component between Run As Account and the Object (e.g. a Computer / Health State) they are used. Please check the configuration in the 2012 R2 environment to setup the mapping and distribution manually.
Datawarehouse Retention Settings
Datawarehouse retention settings are configured with a cmdline tool named dwdatarp.exe. It was released in 2008 and works since then.
We discussed about the common misconceptions regarding failover for Windows agents in SCOM in the previous post (part 1). In this part, as promised, Stoyan Chalakov is going to be discussing about the failover for Linux machines monitored by SCOM. Here goes:
Linux/UNIX agent failover and Resource Pools – debunking the myth – Part 2
While answering questions on the Microsoft Technet Forums, I noticed that are lots of questions on topics, which are repeating, or which often are not that well understood. So I had a discussion with Sam (Sameer Mhaisekar) and we decided that it would be very beneficial if we write short blog posts on those topics.
One such topic is agent failover in SCOM and the difference between a Windows and Linux/UNIX agent. In order to understand how the Linux/UNIX agent failover works, one need to first become acquainted with the concept of Resource Pools in Operations Manager.
Sam already wrote the first part on this subject, where he explains the basic of Resource Pools and gives also example of how the failover of the Windows agent work in SCOM. He also referenced 3 very important articles about Resource Pools in SCOM, which are you need to read before getting to Linux/UNIX agent failover.
Before jumping to failover, it is important to mention some important facts about the architecture of Linux/UNIX agent.
The Linux/UNIX agent is very different from the Windows one and hasn’t been changed since Operations Manager 2012. One of the most important functional difference, compared to a Windows agent is the absence of a Health Service implementation. So, all the monitored data is passed to the Health Service on a management server, where all the management pack workflows are being run. This makes it a passive agent, which is being queried (using the WSMan protocol, Port 1270) for availability and performance data by the management servers in the Resource Pool.
The first important thing that needs mentioning is that you cannot discover and monitor UNIX/Linux systems without configuring a Resource Pool first. When you start the SCOM discovery wizard you will notice that you cannot continue unless you have selected a Resource Pool from the drop-down menu.
Here a few important considerations regarding the Resource Pool that will manage the UNIX/Linux agents:
It is recommended and, in my opinion, very important to dedicate the management servers in the cross platform Resource Pool only to UNIX/Linux monitoring. The reason for this are the capacity limits, which Operations Manager has when it comes to monitoring UNIX\Linux and Windows and which needs to be calculated very accurately. I will try to explain this in detail. A dedicated management server can handle up to 3000 Windows agents, but only 1000 Linux or UNIX computers. We already revealed the reason for that – cross platform workflows are being run on the management server and this costs performance.
So, if you have also Windows agents, reporting to the dedicated management server, capacity and scalability calculations cannot be made precise and the performance of the management server can be jeopardized.
This fully applies and is a must for larger organizations where there are many Linux or UNIX computers (hundreds of systems) and their number grows. In smaller monitored environments, where you have a small (tens of systems), (almost) static number of cross platform agents, very often, dedicating management servers only for those systems can be an overkill. So, in such cases, I often use management servers, which are not dedicated and are members of the Default Resource Pools or are managing Windows agents. This of course, is only possible if the number of Windows agents is way below the capacity limits of the management group, which would leave enough system Resources on the management server for running the Linux/UNIX workflows.
It is very important to dedicate the management server in the cross platform Resource Pool only to UNIX/Linux monitoring. This means not only that you should not assign Windows agents to report to it, but also the server should be excluded also from the other Resource Pools in the management group (SCOM Default Resource Pools, network monitoring Resource Pools, etc.). The reason is the same – performance. If the management server participates in other Resource Pools, it will execute also other types of workflows.
To exclude the management server from the Default Resource Pools, you will need to modify their membership from automatic to manual. By default, each management server, added to the management group is automatically added to the Resource Pools that have an automatic membership type. For some of the Resource Pools this can be accomplished over the console, for others like the “All Management Servers Resource Pool” this can be done only with PowerShell:
When you do the capacity planning for your management group, make sure you don’t forget to calculate the number of UNIX or Linux computers a management server can handle in the case another member of the Resource Pool fails. Let me explain this with an example:
According to the official documentation (see the link above), a dedicated management server can handle up to 1000 Linux or UNIX computers. But, if you have two dedicated management servers in your cross platform Resource Pool and you aim for high availability, you cannot assign 2000 (2x 1000) agents to the Pool. Why? Just imagine what will happen with a management server if its “buddy” from the same Resource Pool fails and all its agents get reassigned to the one, which is still operational. You guessed right – it will be quickly overwhelmed by all the agents and become non-operational. So, the right thing to do if you would like your cross platform monitoring to be highly available, is to have 2 management for not more than 1000 agents, so that in case of failure the remaining server can still handle the performance load.
Last, but not least, make sure the management servers, which will be used for Linux/UNIX monitoring are sized (RAM, CPUs, Disk space) according to the Microsoft recommendations.
Now back to the agent failover topic…I think it got already pretty clear how the Linux/UNIX agent failover happens behind the scenes, but short summary won’t do any harm:
After the discovery wizard is started, a Resource Pool must be selected for managing the systems.
When the Resource Pool is selected, it assigns one of the participating management server to complete the actual discovery of the systems and take over the monitoring.
When the management server fails, the Resource Pool selects one of its other members to take over the monitoring.
Here a reference to what we said in the beginning that the UNIX/Linux agent is passive and is being queried by the management server. Because of this, it is not actually aware of what happens in the background and continues to communicate with the server, which has been now assigned to it.
Now is also the right time to make a couple of very import notes:
XPlat (cross platform) certificates
Part of the preparation of the environment for the monitoring of cross platform systems is the creation of self-signed certificate and its deployment to every management server, member of the Resource Pool. This will ensure that in case of failover each management server will be able to communicate with agent, using the same certificate.
High availability with Operations Manager Gateways as members of the Resource Pool (thanks to Graham Davies for the reminder)
What I forgot to mention in the first version of this post, but is of high importance for maintaining high availability of your Gateway Resource Pools (Resource Pool, consisting of Operations Manager Gateway servers) is the fact that two Gateways are not sufficient for achieving high availability. Why? You will find the answer in the article Kevin Holman wrote about Resource Pools in SCOM and how exactly they provide high availability This is also the same article Sam posted in the first part and it is must read if you have to plan for and manage Resource Pools and cross platform agent failover in Operations Manager:
Understanding UNIX/Linux agent high availability and failover is not a hard thing to do. Still, in order to properly plan for Operations Manager cross platform monitoring, there are some additional things like sizing and scalability that need to be considered.
Awesome, thanks a lot Stoyan! It was very informative and interesting read, as usual! 🙂
You can get in touch with Stoyan on LinkedIn or Twitter, or visit his Technet profile.
This post describes how to create PowerShell SCOM Console Tasks in XML along three examples.
Introduction:
Console Tasks are executed on the SCOM Management Server. Three examples show how to create them using Visual Studio.
Task 1: Displaying a Management Server’s Last-Boot-Time [DisplayLastBootTime]
Executes a PowerShell script which displays the result in a MessageBox
Task 2: Show all new alerts related to selected Computer [ShowNewAlerts]
Passes the Computer principal name property (aka FQDN) to the script which then uses a GridView to display the alerts
Task 3: Listing the top N processes running on a Management Server [ListTopNProcesses]
An InputBox let the user specify the number (N) of top process on the Management server which is retrieved by script and shown via GridView
Requirements:
This blog assumes that you have created already a management pack before. If not, or if you feel difficulties please visit the section ‘Reading’ and go through the links.
The used software is Visual Studio 2017 (2013 and 2015 should work as well) plus the Visual Studio Authoring Extension. Additionally, the ‘PowerShell Tools for Visual Studio 2017’ are installed.
The Community Edition of Visual Studio technically works. – Please check the license terms in advance. – If you are working for a ‘normal company’ you will most likely require Visual Studio Professional.
Realization:
Initial steps in Visual Studio
à Create a new project based on Management Pack / Operations Manager 2012 R2 Management Pack template.
à Name it SCOM.Custom.ConsoleTasks
à Create a folder named Health Model and a sub folder of it named Tasks
à Add an Empty Management Pack Fragment to the root and name it Project.mpx.
Category Value specifies that this element is a console task
Presentation
ConsoleTask Target defines against what this task is launched. In this case it’s the Management Server. You can only see the task if you click on a View that is targeting the corresponding class. E.g.:
Console-ManagementServer-Tasks.gif
Parameters, Argument Name “Application” sets PowerShell.exe to be called for execution
Parameters, Argument <![CDATA … defines the file within this Visual Studio project that contains the PowerShell code to be processed when the task is launched ( not handled yet ).
LanguagePack
DisplayString maps the Console Task ID to a text that is more user friendly. This will be shown in the SCOM console
Within the Tasks folder create a PowerShell file named DisplayManagementServerLastBootTime.ps1
Content of DisplayManagementServerLastBootTime.ps1 :
$regPat = '[0-9]{8}'
$bootInfo = wmic os get lastbootuptime
$bootDateNumber = Select-String -InputObject $bootInfo -Pattern $regPat | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Matches | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Value
$bootDate = ([DateTime]::ParseExact($bootDateNumber,'yyyyMMdd',[Globalization.CultureInfo]::InvariantCulture))
$lastBootTime = $bootDate | Get-Date -Format 'yyyy-MM-dd'
$null = [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName('Microsoft.VisualBasic')
$null = [Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction]::MsgBox($lastBootTime,0,"""Last Boot time of $($env:COMPUTERNAME)""")
Deploy this Management Pack to the SCOM Server and test it. The following screenshot shows the expected result:
Console-DisplayLastBootTime.gif
Creating ShowNewAlerts task
Keep the content of ConsoleTasks.mpx unchanged. Add the new code into the proper places.
Additional Content for ConsoleTasks.mpx for ShowNewAlerts:
Key points explanation for ConsoleTasks.mpx for ShowNewAlerts
Categories
Category Value specifies that this element is a console task
Presentation
ConsoleTask Target defines against what this task is launched. In this case it’s the Windows Computer. – This task is visible when in a View that shows Computer objects.
Parameters, Argument Name “Application” sets PowerShell.exe to be called for execution
Parameters, Argument <![CDATA … defines the file within this Visual Studio project that contains the PowerShell code to be processed when the task is launched ( not handled yet ).
Parameters, Argument “$Target/Property […]/PrincipalName$” gets the FQDN (principal name attribute) of the selected computer and makes it available for retrieving it in the script.
Content of ShowNewAlertsForThisComputer.ps1 :
param($ComputerName)
$allNewAlerts = Get-SCOMAlert | Select-Object -Property Name, Description, MonitoringObjectDisplayName, IsMonitorAlert, ResolutionState, Severity, PrincipalName, TimeRaised | Where-Object {$_.PrincipalName -eq $ComputerName -and $_.ResolutionState -eq '0'}
if ($allNewAlerts) {
$allNewAlerts | Out-GridView
} else {
Write-Host 'No new alerts available for the computer: ' + $ComputerName
}
Deploy this Management Pack to the SCOM Server and test it. The following screenshot shows the expected result:
Console-ShowNewAlerts
Creating ListTopNProcesses task
Keep the content of ConsoleTasks.mpx unchanged. Add the new code into the proper places.
Additional Content for ConsoleTasks.mpx for ListTopNProcesses:
Key points explanation for ConsoleTasks.mpx for ListTopNProcesses
Categories
Category Value specifies that this element is a console task
Presentation
ConsoleTask Target defines against what this task is launched. In this case it’s the Windows Computer. – This task is visible when in a View that shows Computer objects.
Parameters, Argument Name “Application” sets PowerShell.exe to be called for execution
Parameters, Argument <![CDATA … defines the file within this Visual Studio project that contains the PowerShell code to be processed when the task is launched ( not handled yet ).
Content of ListTopNProcesses.ps1 :
$null = [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName('Microsoft.VisualBasic')
$receivedValue = [Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction]::InputBox("""Enter the number of top processes to be shown""", """List top processes:""", "10")
Get-Process | Sort-Object -Property CPU -Descending | Select-Object -First $receivedValue | Out-GridView
Deploy this Management Pack to the SCOM Server and test it. The following screenshot shows the expected result:
Console-ListTopNProcesses.gif
Reading:
If you are new to management pack authoring I suggest the free training material from Brian Wren. – It was made for SCOM 2012 R2 but is still valid until today (current SCOM 1807 in year 2018).
And Ruben is back at it again! This time he has rather interesting topic, that is always hot for a SCOM admin – tuning your management packs! Out-of-the-box, SCOM creates a lot of alerts. I mean A LOT. Truthfully, not every one of those alerts is useful, or relevant to you. If you just let it be like that, you or your support teams would waste a lot of time working on unnecessary alerts instead of focusing on the ones that actually matter. That is why tuning any management pack you import must be tuned to only focus on the things that matter to you and your organization.
That is exactly what Ruben has come up with here. I’m sure this information will be critical for any SCOM admin. Here goes:
SCOM Management Pack tuning step by step
Preface
This post explains Management Pack tuning, the reasons why it is required and how it can be performed with the help of free tools and PowerShell.
Monitoring Console showing Alerts
Introduction
Every Management Pack contains rules and monitors to indicate a potential issue or expose an already existing problem. Another common type of rules are used to collect performance data.
The Management Pack author or the vendor decide which rules and monitors are enabled by default and which can be enabled via overrides from the SCOM Administrator.
Every environment is different so the judgement which rule or monitor is useful are not the same.
It is the best practice to disable all rules and monitors that don’t bring obvious benefit.
On the other hand, there might be rules and monitors that could be useful for you so you should enable them. The process of doing this is called ‘Management Pack tuning’.
For a few reasons it is important to Management Pack tuning immediately after importing.
Alerts that don’t have a noticeable impact just distract SCOM Administrators or Operators.
Performance data that is recorded but not analyzed consumes resources on the Database and makes SCOM significantly slower.
The more rules and monitors are active on the monitored computer the busier it is handling ‘monitoring’.
A nice side effect is that you’re doing documentation by doing so. It is easy to tell someone what is monitored and what not.
Invite subject matter experts to do the Management Pack tuning with you together.
This gives three direct benefits.
The experts, e.g. DBAs know what is monitored
The experts will tell you what it is needed from their perspective
You, the SCOM Admin can share the responsibility when it comes to the question ‘why did we not know about it before?’ or ‘why wasn’t there an alarm?’
Performing the tuning
As example we will use the Management Pack for the Windows Server 2008.
Note: Usually you only need to care about Management Pack files named monitoring. – Leave those called discovery untouched. Smaller Management Packs might just consist of a single file.
Preparation:
Download the Management Pack Windows Server Operating System and run the setup.
Keep the default location
C:\Program Files (x86)\System Center Management Packs\SC Management Pack for Windows Server Operating System
The script requires PowerShell v3 at minimum. – It is given by Windows Server 2012 by default, for older Windows Server versions please install the current Windows PowerShell version (at the day of writing it is PowerShell 5.1)
Store everything on a Management Server (E.g. C:\Temp\MPTuning).
Handling:
Create a new Override Management Pack for that specific MP and name it properly.
e.g. ABC.Windows.Server.Overrides
Administration Pane to create a Management Pack
Naming the Management Pack properly
Launch exe and load the Management Pack named Microsoft.Windows.Server.2008.Monitoring.mpfrom the default location and choose “Save to Excel”.
Management Pack Viewer
Name the file WindowsServer2008MonitoringExportfor instance.
Open Microsoft Excel and open the file, select the Monitors – Unit sheet and hide all columns except of A, D, H and O
In the Ribbon bar select Data and add a Filter. For column D choose only Enabled Monitors. Review and decide if they should be kept enabled. – From my perspective all are useful.
Excel sheet Monitors Unit showing filtered columns
Revert the selection so that Enabledis set to False. Review. I left them also as they are.
Switch to the Rulessheet and limit visible columns to A, C, D, K and O. Afterwards set the filter to show Enabled: True and Category: PerformanceCollection.
Excel sheet Rules showing filtered columns
Copy rules that seem to be not useful into a text file and name it txt
Text file WindowsServerManagementPack2008_RulesToBeDisable.txt
Note down the name of the Windows Server 2008 Monitoring Management Pack and the Override Management Pack.
Administration Pane showing Windows Server MP Name
Navigate to C:\Temp\MPTuning and open the PowerShell script MPTuining-RulesAndUnitMonitors.ps1 (with VSCode for example)
Place the file txtneeds to be there, too.
VSCode running script
Parameter
Value
Meaning
sourceManagementPackDisplayName
‘Windows Server 2009 Operating System (Monitoring)’
Management Pack that contains the rules and unit-monitors we will override
overrideManagementPackDisplayName
‘ABC.Windows.Server.Overrides’
Management Pack we created to store the our configuration changes (overrides)
itemType
rule
Sets that we will change rules
itemsToBeEnabled
False
Rules will be disabled
inputFilePath
WindowsServerManagementPack2008_RulesToBeDisabled
Name of the file that contains the rule names we specfied
Run the PowerShell script by hitting ‘Enter’
After a short while the overrides will appear in the Management Console
Authoring Pane Showing Overrides
Repeat the procedure for rules that you like to enable.