The data warehouse jobs in SCSM are very important as they are responsible for maintaining the DW databases, synchronising the management packs between the operational and DW management groups, extracting, transforming and loading data, and processing cubes. These are all the jobs that should be enabled and should be running on their defined schedule. If any of these jobs don’t run successfully, data cannot be loaded into the DW, could.. Read More
SCOM – Updated Unsealed MP Backup Management Pack
There has been a community MP around for some time now that provides an automated mechanism for backing up your unsealed management packs in a SCOM management group. This was always a must have MP as a deleted management pack is not recoverable, so a backup copy of the management pack is your only failsafe. The original version of this backup management pack was available on SystemCenterCentral, however it has.. Read More
System Center 2012 R2 – Update Rollup 11
I’ve been a little bit quiet recently on the blogging front for a number of reasons, and I missed advising of the release of UR10, however I’m now back and can immediately advise that UR11 is now available for System Center 2012 R2. UR11 doesn’t include updates for all the products in the System Center suite, so go take a look and see if any apply to you at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3184867… Read More
System Center 2012 R2 – UR9 Released!
Yesterday, UR9 for System Center 2012 R2 was released and is now available. It brings fixes and features to Operations Manager, Service Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, Data Protection Manager, SPF and WAP. The descriptions and download links for the updates are available here, https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3129757. Happy updating!! David
SCOM – Top Microsoft Support Call Solutions
Microsoft has rather a lot of customers using System Center Operations Manager, and therefore there have been rather a lot of calls raised with Microsoft Support for assistance in resolving different issues. Over the years, many support tickets have been raised for the same or similar issues, so Microsoft have kindly published the top support calls, and their resolutions! This is well worth adding to your SCOM favourites…. https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/topsupportsolutions/2015/12/19/top-support-solutions-for-system-center-2012-operations-manager-7/ .. Read More
Updated System Center Visual Studio Authoring Extensions
Today, Microsoft has released an updated version of the System Center Visual Studio Authoring Extensions, which includes support for Visual Studio 2015!! I know a lot of people who have been waiting for this for a long time, so it’s great news that you can now download the latest version of VSAE from, http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30169 It’s the same straight forward 2 minute installation as it always has been, and provides everything you.. Read More
SCSM – Grooming
Data grooming in Service Manager is extremely important, yet most of the time it happens in the background and few people know what grooming is being done, and how it is being performed. Due to it’s importance, for both data consistency and performance, Scott Walker (Senior Support Escalation Engineer at Microsoft) has posted three articles on why grooming is needed, what grooming is performed, and how it can be checked!.. Read More
System Center 2012 R2 – UR8 Released!
For those that missed it, UR8 for System Center 2012 R2 is now available and brings fixes and features to Operations Manager, Service Manager, Orchestrator, Virtual Machine Manager, SPF and WAP. The descriptions and download links for the updates are available here, https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3096378. However, the Service Manager UR seems to be missing from this page but is available here, https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3096383. Happy updating!! David
SCOM – Monitor Power Plan Setting
All Windows computers have a power plans that affect how the computer behaves, and this should be set appropriately for each individual computer. For example, on a laptop you may select the “Power saver” plan which will save as much energy (battery life) as possible, but will also decrease the performance of the system. But, on a server, you would probably want to select the “High Performance” power plan, to.. Read More
SCSM – Exporting Work Items with Action Log
It is a fairly regular occurrence that I get asked to export a selection of work items from SCSM into a CSV, or something similar, so they can be reviewed. What isn’t so regular is that I get asked to include the full Action Log with the export of the work items! I did get this request recently however, as an auditor required it for a number of random incidents,.. Read More