Happy New Year 2009

Dear System Center Fans,

Good day and thanks for the support in year 2008. Please continue to support us in year 2009.

Happy New Year 2009!!!

Poo, Paul and the rest of the team.

System Center Presentation Video

Guys, good day.

Just presented a session in System Center Solution Summit 2008 in Malaysia.

Attched the video file:

There are:

1) How to add ESX to SCVMM 2008
2) How to perform VMotion in SCVMM 2008
3) Powershell with SCVMM2008

http://cid-147d10eebd539097.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/SCUG

Cheers

DPM 2007 SP1 - What you want to know to install it today

Its being a while, playing with DPM 2007. Knowing that this is a great product - yet still get some feedback about it, eg: Only be able to backup data within a forest.

Now, with DPM 2007 SP1 launch, not long ago. One of the features that impress me - be able to backup Windows servers that supported acorss different forest with a trust!

For sure in an environment, there are reasons for different forest - this is now, a solution.

Another that make me install immediately - you can also make DPM your file server! Yes, it is not recommended - but for branch offices, for sure it will lower down TCO. However, you will need to run some commands in the powershell to activate it.

Set-DPMGlobalProperty –AllowLocalDataProtection $true [-DPMServerName]

For Exchange, it is now be able to backup SCR! Do visit my Exchange blog for more information.

To know more before you install? visit this URL:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd347836.aspx

Just installed it and works smoothly. What are you waiting for?

Verify SQL connection from your machine

Everyone know System Center products are heavily rely on SQL server, we must prepare the SQL server first in order to proceed with the System Center products installation. Sometimes we would like to verify the connectivity between System Center servers and SQL servers, since we are not SQL server expert, how we gonna achieve that by using tools or is there any other primitive way (such as ping, or telnet command in command prompt) to troubleshoot that?

Here, I would like to share with everyone a good tip.

Create a blank text file on your desktop using Notepad, and then rename the text file extension from 'txt' to 'udl'. Double click the udl file, a Data Link Properties windows will prompt out. Here we go! Now we are able to test out the SQL connectivity by using this small interface! Is that cool?

Although this is not a big news, I doubt a lot of developers knew about this, and I got this tip from my best friend Koh Nyap Hong. He is a great developer and thanks for him to share this tip with me. Now, I would like to share this tool with all IT Professionals, this will be a very useful tool for you to troubleshoot some basic SQL errors.

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.2 RTM is now Available!

MAP 3.2 RTM is now available!! This RTM released has expanded its assessment capabilities to SQL Server 2008, ForeFront/NAP, Microsoft Online Services migration, as well as providing a Power Savings assessment.

MAP 3.2 assessment areas now include:

• SQL Server 2008 Migration Proposals and Reports (NEW)
• Forefront/NAP Readiness Proposals (NEW)
• Microsoft Online Services Migration Surveys, Proposals, and Reports (NEW)
• Power Savings Proposals (NEW)
• Server Migration Reports and Proposals (Windows Server 2008 and "virtualized guests by hosts" reporting) (NEW)
• Server Consolidation Reports and Proposals (Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Hyper-V)
• Desktop Security Assessment to determine if desktops have anti-virus and anti-malware programs installed and up-to-date, or if the Windows Firewall is turned on
• Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 Hardware Assessment Reports and Proposals

If you are interested to download or if you would like to know more about it, please visit the website below:
Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit

SRS Server Validation Error while installing Operation Manager Reporting

We tried to install Operation Manager Reporting on Windows 2008, but during the installation, the wizard showed the error "SRS Server Validation Error". We spent quite sometimes to do troubleshooting and verify the step-by-step installation procedures (inclusive SQL 2005 & SQL 2005 SP2 installation), but we found nothing wrong with those procedures. Furthermore, the SQL Reporting Service Configuration did not return any error and every components are showing healthy status.

After hours of troubleshooting, I found that the IIS 7.0 does not allow executable script and program to run on the SQL reporting virtual directory. After we make some permissions changes on the SQL reporting virtual directory, the installation then can be completed with no error.

Below are the steps for editting the virtual directory permissions:

1. In IIS Manager, open the Sites folder, and then open the folder of the Web site that contains the report server virtual directory.
2. Select the report server virtual directory.
3. In the IIS area, double-click HTTP Handlers.
4. In the Actions pane, click Edit Handler Permissions.
5. Click Script, and then click OK.

If the above matter cannot help you, try to verify your SQL reporting service status by using Reporting Service Configuration, make sure all components and services are in healthy status.

Managing Open Source in Operation Manager x64 Environment

In enterprise data center environment, some of the customer might interested on managing Open Source servers using Operation Manager.

Microsoft Connect introduced a Cross Platform Extensions for Operation Manager, which provide open source dll runtime to Operation Manager for querying the open source systems and as well as various open source system's Management Pack.

Previously this Cross Platform Extensions can only be able to run on 32-bit Operation Manager, but Microsoft Connect one again introduced a new Cross Platform Extensions Beta Update Yesterday!! Now, Operation Manager that run on 64-bit platform will also be able to manage open source system with this new update!

Currently, the Cross Platform Extensions only be able to manage the following open source platform:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
• Suse 10.1
• HP UX 11.31
• Solaris 10
• AIX 5.3 (New in Beta Update)

If you guys are interested on managing open source using Operation Manager 2007, register yourself and downlaod the installer from Microsoft Connect site!

• 
  

Paul's Sys-Center Shared

Dear all,

Thanks for visiting and supporting System Center Product Blog. I will share out my video & files at SkyDrive in the future. Feel free to grab those video & files for your kind perusal.

Paul's Sys-Center Shared

If you guys are interested on contributing to community, feel free to contact us. Cheers.

Managing SCVMM 2008 using SCOM 2007

Since System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is still in beta stage, is there a way for Operation Manager 2007 to manage it? We are trying to sort it out and try to make it become possible...

Finally, we've found the VMM 2008 Management Pack for Operation Manger is actually resided in the VMM's bits itself, this is amazing!

By the way, before you can install the VMM 2008 management pack into Ops Manager, below are few prerequisites management pack you need to load:

• Windows Server Internet Information Services Library
• Windows Server Internet Information Services 2003
• SQL Server Core Library
• SQL Server 2005 (Discovery)
• SQL Server 2005 (Monitoring)
  

Below is the video for installing SCVMM 2008 management pack into SCOM 2007. For those virtualization fans, share this with your friends.

DPM - Virtual Tape

One of our participants on the DPM class is asking if we can test out the Tape functionality in DPM without installing a real Tape Library? Yes you can.

Thanks to FireSteamer.

You can download and use it for 30 days trial from:

http://cid-147d10eebd539097.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/Tools/VirtualTape

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator Installation Prerequisites

I just tried to install MAP on virtual machine. I found that there are few components you need to install before installing MAP on your system.

Below are the list of required components:

• .Net Framework 2.0
• Microsoft Office 2007 or Microsoft Office 2003 with SP2
• SQL Express or SQL Server
  

The installation steps is pretty straight forward. Just you need to specified the database (there is a wizard provided by MAP to help you go through this process) if you run an assessment project.

Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator Available NOW!

A Great news for SCCM & Virtualization Fans!

Since Windows Server 2008 & Windows Vista SP1 are hot topic right now, you might think of migrating your current environment to this new technology. But how well you know about your current environment if you do not have proper IT Assessment process in place?

With the release of Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator, you may now make use of this tool to gather and organizes system resources and device information from a single computer. Another good news, you do not need to worry about deploying the agent to every system on your network (because most of the assessment tool need a agent on remote system to gather device information), and it is AGENTLESS!!

If you are interested, just visit the sites below and gather the information needed:

Download MAP 3.1: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=111000

Read more about MAP: http://www.microsoft.com/MAP

View demos on Team Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/MAPBLOG/

If you guys got any comment on this tool, feel free to feedback to us!

Malaysia Community Launch in KL

Hi guys,

Thanks for coming to the launch. It reaches ~100 participants. As promised, this is the slide that I used in the presentation - Managing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

http://cid-147d10eebd539097.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/Malaysia%20Community%20Launch

Long live community.

Cheers.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Pre req

As announced System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 is in BETA.

Something to share on the pre-req:

1) SCVMM 2008 to install in Windows Server 2008 only

2) To install self service portal; For IIS, you will need:
a) Web Server (IIS) Role with Common HTTP features, Static Content, Default Document, Directory Browsing, HTTP Errors, Application Development, ASP.NET, .NET Extensibility, ISAPI Extensions, ISAPI Filters, Security, Request Filtering.
b) You will also need to add role service: IIS 6 Management Compatibility

You can install VMM Server, VMM Console as well as Self Service Portal in the same machine. However, if managing a big virtual infrastructure, you might want to split them.

Malaysia Partner Technical Community - CDP for Exchange

Dear Microsoft Malaysia partners,

Thanks for joining the session. As promised, the slide and video be able to download from:

http://cid-147d10eebd539097.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public/PTC

Hope you enjoy. Do send me a private e-mail if you to join our SystemCenter group.

Cheers

DPM and SCVMM how-to Video

Lots of our readers comments on how to get the video we posted in this blog.

http://cid-147d10eebd539097.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Public

Thanks to SkyDrive, which we can now post it to the web.

Branch DP connections limitation

There are a lot of ppl questioning, what is the actual limit for SCCM branch distribution point? how should i design it to fit into my customer environment?

For your information, if you run Branch DP on Windows XP or Windows Vista client, you will only have concurrent limit of 10 users. But if you run Branch DP on Windows Server, you will not have the limitation for 10 users and the server's license model will apply on it, such as CALs, Per Server, Per Seat etc.

Hope the above information can give you some hints on SCCM design.

SMSMap & SCCM 2007 Capacity Planner

Recently I've found one interesting website called SMSMap. This website basically provide tools called SMSMap and SCCM 2007 Capacity Planner.

SMSMap is a tool similar like Active Directory Topology Diagrammer, it allows you to simplified the process of drawing the Visio diagram for your SCCM structure. Whereas SCCM 2007 Capacity Planner is a tool for you to plan out your SCCM structure for your organization (This tool is very useful, so far there is no official release from Microsoft regarding capacity planning for SCCM).

Below is the link for the website I mentioned above:
http://www.tondtware.com/downloads.html

Lastly, many thanks to Jeff Tondt for giving me permission to allow me to post his site link in my blog. Currently, Jeff Tondt is a Senior Consultant II for Microsoft Consulting Services. He focused on the System Management solution and he is SMS & SCCM expert.

Install DPM Agent manually

In the recent class and projects, lots of the students and customers would like to install DPM once they implement a server - this is a good news.

However, how can we do so? There are two things here: Install DPM Agent manually and associate it with DPM Server.

To install DPM Agent manually, there are few ways - install it with SCCM/SMS, distribute via Active Directory group policy or even install it manually.

1) In a DPM source CD, locate Microsoft DPM\DPM\Agents\RA\2.0.5820.0\i386 (use AM64 if install in a 64 bit machine)

2) run DpmAgentInstaller.exe /q .

Now, the agent is installed. To enable firewall exeption,

1) type :\Program Files\Microsoft Data Protection Manager\bin\ SetDpmServer.exe – dpmServerName .

To associate the DPMA with DPM server,

2) On the DPM server, from the DPM Management Shell prompt, type Attach-ProductionServer.ps1 .

DPM Error 324

Recently, we are doing a DPM Proof of Concept with Microsoft.

Everything works fine with DPM Server installation, DPM Agent push. However, the second day, the agent is not be able to communicate with DPM Server with an error 324.

The detail of the error sounds like:

The agent operation failed because the DPM Agent Coordinator service did not respond.
To troubleshoot this, according to Microsoft website, you will need to:

1) Check the recent DPMAC source records in the application event log on .

2) Verify that the DPM server is remotely accessible from.

3) If a firewall is enabled on the DPM server, verify that it is not blocking requests from .

4) Verify that the time on the DPM server and the selected computer is synchronized with the domain controller. At a command prompt, type "net time /set" to synchronize the time with the domain controller.

However, it is not the case of ours, what we found out:
It is because of Windows 2003 SP2...

We will need to verify that the DPM server is a member of the Distributed COM Users group and that the group has DCOM Launch and Access permissions.

1) In Computer Management, expand System Tools, expand Local Users and Groups, and then click Groups.

2) In the Details pane, double-click the Distributed COM Users group.

3) Verify that the computer account for the DPM server is a member of the group.

For DCOM Launch and Access permission:

1) In Administrative Tools, open Component Services, Expand Component Services, expand Computers, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.

2) On the COM Security tab, under Access Permissions, click Edit Limits. Verify that the Distributed COM Users group is allowed both Local Access and Remote Access permissions.

3) On the COM Security tab, under Launch and Activation Permissions, click Edit Limits. Verify that the Distributed COM Users groups is allowed the following permissions:

• Local Launch
• Remote Launch
• Local Activation
• Remote Activation
  

Wait for sometime, the DPMA now be able to communicate with DPM Server.

It tooks us about 1-2 hours to solve it together with the customer.

Backup SCCM Site

If you want to backup your SCCM site, you may make use of SCCM Site Server Maintenance Task to accomplish this. Below is the steps to configure the SCCM Backup job:

1. In the SCCM console, navigate to System Center Configuration Manager / Site Database / Site Management / <site name> / Site Settings / Site Maintenance / Tasks.

2. Right-click the Backup Site Server task, and click Properties.

3. Specify how frequent you would like to backup your site in the the backup task properties, and click OK. Ensure that you schedule the backup task to run at an appropriate time.

Try to make use of SCCM native backup method. My 2 cents... :)

Windows Firewall exceptions for SCCM Client Push Installation

After you had enable Client Push Installation in SCCM, you found all the client machines failed to receive and install the SCCM agent. After you verify the log files, you may found out the Windows Firewall in client machine is blocking the Client Push Installation. Due to company policy, it is impossible for you to turn off the Windows Firewall on client machines...

Here we provide one good solution for IT Administrators to encounter issue above.

In order to successfully use SCCM Client Push Installation, you must add the following as exceptions to the Windows Firewall on every client machines:

• File & Printer Sharing
• Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)

After all things is done, lets rocks with SCCM Client Push Installation!

DPM - Installing DPM Agent

Before you protect your data/application on certain server, like other backup application, you will need to install its client agent. In DPM 2007, you will need to install DPM 2007 client.

For mass deployment, you can either deploy using AD GPO, SCCM 2007, install using DPM 2007 console or install manually.

In the following video, we will share on how to install using DPM 2007 console.

Video: How to install DPM 2007 agent.
Desc: This video will show on how to install DPM 2007 agent using DPM 2007 console.

DPM 2007 - Adding disk

Guys,

After successfully installed DPM 2007, you will need to add disk to allow DPM to protect data to store.

You wont be able to use removable storage for this usage, however, you can use ISCSI, the new technology as its disk spool, additional hdd, or SAN of course.

After you installed the nessasary hardware, you will need to add the disk to DPM.

Below the video on how to add disk

Video : How to install disk to DPM 2007.
Desc: After adding disk hardware, you will need to add the disk to allow DPM to store its protected data.

DPM 2007 - Intro with Video

Guys,

Long time never post any articles here. Recently, prepared a training for Microsoft Malaysia's customer. Managed to come out some video about DPM 2007.

Why DPM 2007? Yes this is Microsoft version of backup. Simple answer, because this is developed by Microsoft and it works well with Microsoft products! Windows, Files and Folders, Applications like SQL, Exchange +++. We will share the top reasons why DPM 2007 in our next posts.

Attached some video to share with you guys. We are producing more video. Come back to this blog for more stuff.

Video 1: Installing DPM 2007.
Desc: You will see the steps to install DPM 2007 here. Please search for another post on installing SQL for DPM manually.

Cheers