SCOM 2012

New SCOM DPM Dashboard Download Link

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A company named AIO Technology published a SCOM DPM dashboard a while ago. They recently removed it as they no longer offer this. I was the one that built this dashboard. I am posting about it here for anyone that may be looking to download it. You can now find this on TechNet Gallery here: http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/SCOM-DPM-Dashboard-8eef9b58

Information about the dashboard:

OVERVIEW

This dashboard shows the overall health of your Data Protection Manager (DPM) backups. It includes all DPM servers in your environment in a central location. Great for daily spot checking of your backup health and getting to the root of any problems faster.

Installing is as simple as importing into your Operations Manager (SCOM) server. You do need DPM management packs and central console deployed to your SCOM before installing this dashboard.

DPM Dashboard Example

FEATURES

  • Centralized health of all DPM servers
  • Protection Group health aggregate
  • Protected Data Source health aggregate
  • Storage Pool health aggregate
  • Tape/Tape Library health aggregate

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New Dashboard for SCOM 2012

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There is another cool solution from Coretech. Coretech has recently released a new Dashboard for SCOM 2012. This dashboard does a good job of presenting the health of your Business and IT Service in an easy to see format. It gives you a single place to show the health of the Distributed Applications and the … Read more

SCOM SMS Notifications not working

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ISSUE: We had a physical Multi-Tech Systems MTCMR-H5 modem connected to the SCOM server via USB to send out SMS messages. After initial configuration SMS notifications were not being sent. SCOM was generating multiple alerts about this. The alerts: Alert: Failed to send notification using server/device Source: Alert Notification Subscription Server Path: Not Present Last … Read more

Monitor Tomcat Running as a Windows Service with SCOM

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In this post I want to detail my experience monitoring Tomcat with SCOM 2012.  In my case the application servers were Windows Server 2008 R2 running Tomcat 7 as a windows service. When Tomcat is running as a windows service SCOM does not automatically detect the Tomcat instance. So this blog post will focus around monitoring Tomcat Running as windows service and the steps you have to take to get this working.

 

There are two other things you need to take care of that I do not cover in this post. These are:

 

#1 The application servers that are hosting your Tomcat need to have the Agent Proxy enabled.

See this link on how to do this:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh264858.aspx

or this link to enable proxy for all agents:

http://www.bictt.com/blogs/bictt.php/2012/08/24/scom-2012-enable-agent-proxy

 

#2 You will need to deploy BeanSpy to your Tomcat server first.

See step 5 of this post on how to do this:

http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2012/03/26/operations-manager-2012-scom-lab-testing-monitoring-for-jee-components-tomcat-on-windows.aspx

 

BeanSpy is a WAR file. WAR files are used  to deploy web applications to Tomcat.

BeanSpy is essentially a web application deployed to Tomcat that SCOM uses to gather data. 

 

After you deploy BeanSpy  verify that it is working. Access this URL:

 

http://TOMCATSERVERNAME:8080/BeanSpy/Stats

 

If an XML page such as the one in the following screenshot appears then we have verified BeanSpy is working.

 

clip_image001

 

You can also view BeanSpy by accessing the web manager using this URL:

 

http://TOMCATSERVERNAME:8080/manager

 

clip_image002

 

 

Here are the steps to configure SCOM to monitor Tomcat running as a windows service:

 

Download OpsMgr_MP_Tomcat.docx and SC2012OM_JEE_MP.msi. from:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29270

 

Run SC2012OM_JEE_MP.msi. This will extract all JEE management packs.

 

Now that the management packs are extracted. Import these JEE Monitoring packs into SCOM 2012 for Tomcat:

 

         Libraries monitoring packs:

             Microsoft.JEE.Library.mpb

             Microsoft.JEE.Templates.Library.mpb

 

         Tomcat monitoring packs:

             Microsoft.JEE.Tomcat.Library.mp

             Microsoft.JEE.Tomcat.5.mp

             Microsoft.JEE.Tomcat.6.mp

             Microsoft.JEE.Tomcat.7.mp

 

(NOTE: Only import MP’s for your version/s of Tomcat.)

 

As stated in the beginning of this post Tomcat running as a windows service will not automatically be discovered.

The following two screenshots demonstrate what you will see.

 

clip_image003

 

clip_image004

 

There are two options to discover the Tomcat servers when they are running as a windows service.

 

#1 Run your Tomcat instances as a process instead of a Windows service.

#2 Use some PowerShell scripts to discover the Tomcat instances.

 

In this post we are going to go with

 

Next you will need to use some PowerShell scripts to add the Tomcat servers. You will need these PowerShell scripts:

 

    JEEAppServerLibrary.ps1

    NewJEEAppServer.ps1

    RemoveJEEAppServer.ps1 

 

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Manually remove dependency from Microsoft.SystemCenter.SecureReferenceOverride

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I recently needed to uninstall the Exchange 2007 Management Pack from SCOM 2012. I could remove all the Exchange MP’s except Microsoft.Exchange.Server.2007.Library. This was getting stuck because the Microsoft.SystemCenter.SecureReferenceOverride was dependent on it. This was the message I would get when I tried to remove it. Here are the “Dependencies” properties from Microsoft.SystemCenter.SecureReferenceOverride. I did … Read more

Network device emulation in the cloud

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There has been discussion lately around running SCOM 2012 and other SC products in the cloud for DEMO and POC purposes. One problem with running SCOM in a cloud solution is not having access to network device/s. There is a solution to this. You can run a network device emulator. This is available as software … Read more