The following is a special guest blog from Silect

We are pleased to announce the General Availability of MP Author version 8.2. We’ve made lots of updates and improvements to our family of products for SCOM. Here’s a summary of the changes to MP Author:

• Support for SCOM 1801
• When sealing and deploying and MP, deploy the sealed MP, not the unsealed.
• Remember the last SCOM version used when creating an MP, as it should be the default next time. Improve display and logging of the versions of reference MP that are loaded.
• Groups can now be created without dynamic membership rules.
• Improved impersonation when browsing remote registries.
• When parsing scripts for class names, parameters, etc. allow both single and double quotes.
• When displaying lists of targets, ensure the list shows abstract and singletons if needed.
• Several dialogs and message boxes now allow you to not show them again (once you know what they are telling you, you can select a “Don’t Show This Again” check box.)
• Discoveries can now be enabled for a group from within the wizard.
• Alert, Event, Performance and State views can now be filtered by a group.
• Editing event, performance, service or process rules/monitors will work correctly even if the machine being browsed doesn’t have the items previously selected.
• Performance monitors now support two and three-state monitors using simple values, average values, delta values, or consecutive samples.
• Script monitors and rules allowed overrides on the parameter values but did not use the override value. This has been corrected.
• Setting a description for an element which does not have a display name failed. The new behaviour is to set the missing display name (to the actual name) at the same time.
• Do not require hosted classes with no key properties to be singletons because the hosting class may have key properties.
• Improve handling of reference MPs which don’t exist or are the wrong version.
• Allow registry and WMI queries to work if they contain characters which are significant in XML (like < or >).
• The script class wizard will no longer allow users to change the class name, if the class name was determined from the script (if they don’t match, the discovery will fail).
• Numerous bug fixes, UI and performance improvements

System Center Operations Manager 1807 overview

System Center 1807 announcement is available here.

What’s new in System Center Operations Manager 1807 is available here.

How to Upgrade to System Center Operations Manager 1807 is available here.

The content in this blog describes the features and scenarios enabled in System Center Operations Manager 1807

HTML5 dashboards

Users can create and manage PowerShell Widgets in their HTML5 dashboards. While authoring the PowerShell widget, user needs to provide the PowerShell script which would be executed and visualized in the widget. This widget enables users to leverage PowerShell scripting to retrieve and visualize custom data (more details on PowerShell widget is available here).

Users can visualize effective configuration for a server/object in the objects drill down page. This allows users to view the configuration of a rule/monitor with respect to a server or an object.

More details on viewing effective configuration of a monitored object is available here.

Operators can create/manage HTML5 dashboards in MyWorkspace. This feature allows operators to create and visualize dashboards (only with the data they have access to) in the form they like (more details on creating dashboards in My Workspace is available here).

User can Visualize Network Node dashboard and Network Interface dashboard for Network Node/interface from the Objects drill down page. This allows users to consume more relevant data while trouble shooting a network node or interface.

User can navigate to the objects drill down page of the alert and change the resolution of an alert from within the alert down page. This allows users to act on an alert while troubleshooting the same.

More details on the changes to alerts drill down page is available here.

User can select/change the size of the icon in topology widget, allowing flexibility to have bigger icons for NOC view scenarios.

More details on changes to topology widget is available here.

Schedule Maintenance Mode view in Web Console

This feature enables users to create and manage schedule maintenance mode from within the web console.

More details on creating/managing schedule maintenance from web console is available here.

User can choose to enable/disable APM component while installing agent

This feature allows more flexibility to the users by providing an option to enable/disable APM component in the agent.

User can enable/disable APM component while installing agent through Discovery wizard (more details are available here).

User can enable/disable APM component through the agent repair wizard (more details are available here).

User can enable/disable APM component through the new parameter added for the below cmdlets:

Install-ScomAgent

Example:

• Without APM: Install-SCOMAgent -DNSHostName “NEB-OM-1536628.smx.net” -PrimaryManagementServer $PrimaryMS -NoAPM
• With APM:       Install-SCOMAgent -DNSHostName “NEB-OM-1536628.smx.net” -PrimaryManagementServer $PrimaryMS)

Repair-ScomAgent

Example:

• Without APM: Get-SCOMAgent -DNSHostName “NEB-OM-1536628.smx.net” | Repair-SCOMAgent -NoAPM
• With APM:       Get-SCOMAgent -DNSHostName “NEB-OM-1536628.smx.net” | Repair-SCOMAgent)

Support for SQL 2017 with SCOM 1807

With SCOM 1807, SQL 2017 is supported if it is upgraded from SQL 2016. Fresh installation of SQL 2017 with SCOM 1807 is not supported with SCOM 1807.

More details on upgrading Operations Manager 1807 database to SQL Server 2017 is available here.

XPlat log rotate

Under error scenarios, the SCX log fills up quickly, which eventually consumes all available free space on the system disk. As a result, the system becomes unresponsive unless the logs are cleaned up manually. To address this issue, we have introduced log rotate feature for SCX agent. This will help to rotate old logs of SCX agent and save disk space.

More details on Log rotation for Linux agent is available here.

We have updated Operations Management Suite connection onboarding wizard in System Center Operations Manager to communicate with the new APIs.

This change has been necessitated by Log analytics (and the rest of OMS services) moving to Azure portal and the OMS portal being retired, more details on OMS portal moving to Azure is available here.

For configuring new connections to Operations Management Suite with System center Operations Manager, you need to import the product version specific management packs (links given below). If you have already configured connection to OMS with SCOM then you do not need to import these management packs, however if you reconfigure your existing connection then you need to import this management pack.

New Operations Management Suite onboarding wizard in System center Operations Manager:

Download links:

• For System Center Operations Manager 1801, download the management pack from here.
• For System Center 2016 Operations Manager, download the management pack from here.
• For System center 2012 R2 Operations Manager, download the management packs from here.

System Center Operations Manager continues to be the tool relied upon by enterprise customers for IT operations and monitoring. Global Service Monitor in SCOM provides the ability to monitor the availability of external web-based applications from multiple locations across the globe. As of November 07, 2018, we will retire the Global Service Monitor and recommend that customers transition Global Service Monitor users to next generation web application monitoring capabilities allowing them to take advantage of our Azure hosted services for these capabilities, powered by Azure Application Insights.

Application Insights is an extensible Application Performance Management (APM) service for monitoring applications on multiple platforms. It offers greater control, and richer alerting, diagnostics, dashboarding and reporting capabilities over an interactive data analytics platform. With the transition to Azure Application Insights, customers stand to benefit in the long term from Azure monitoring investments including improvements in reliability and performance.

GSM Customers will be notified of the retirement through an alert in the SCOM console sent down from the GSM. If you are a GSM customer, during your transition, you do not need to change your tests; Application Insights supports the tests GSM supported (single URL ping and multi-step web tests), the frequency of the tests and locations supported are the same as well. The migration script (Link to Migration Script) will provision your tests with the same configuration in Application Insights. The migration script will also provision alert rules based on what you are currently using in SCOM . Please use the migration script to migrate your GSM tests to Application insights by the end of October 2018. Post migration, SCOM customers can use the Azure Management Pack (CTP version) (Link to Azure MP) to integrate with Application Insights and view the alerts from their tests in Application Insights in the SCOM console.

We thank the SCOM customers for their usage of the GSM service. This transition provides yet another value to System Center customers as they continue to be able to take advantage of Azure management offerings. Should you have any questions, please contact your account team or Microsoft Support.

FAQ

1. What is GSM?

System Center Global Service Monitor is a cloud service that provides a simplified way to monitor the availability of external-web-based applications from multiple locations around the world. See https://technet.microsoft.com/library/jj860368(v=sc.12).aspx.

2. What is Azure Application Insights?

Application Insights is an extensible application performance monitoring service in Azure, supporting applications on a variety of platforms. See https://azure.microsoft.com/services/application-insights/

3. Does my price increase because of this transition?

GSM was provided as a software assurance benefit of your System Center purchase. When you migrate to Azure Application Insights, Microsoft will transition migrated tests and alert rules at no additional charge

4. Do I get any other Azure benefits as part of this transition?

No. Only the migrated tests, and the alert rules associated with them will be provided at no additional charge. All other Azure consumption will be subject to applicable pricing.

5. So, if I add more availability tests or use Application Insights for server-side monitoring, I will be charged?

Yes, that is correct. Only the migrated tests are provided at no additional charge. All other use is subject to applicable pricing.

6. What happens if I don’t migrate the tests?

Existing GSM tests will stop working after 11/07/2018. We strongly encourage you to migrate the tests and validate the alert rules in Azure well before that date.

7. What happens if I don’t migrate tests using the migration script provided by Microsoft?

Only the tests which are migrated using the script, would be provided at no additional charge in Azure Application Insights.

This is an update for our customers who are hitting below exception while configuring Log Analytics workspace from SCOM console. This blog talks about workaround for this issue, please follow the mentioned steps.

Workaround:

–          Copy the Advisor dll (version 1.0.5) from this link to Console folder (C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center\Operations Manager\Console).

–          Try to configure your Log Analytics workspace connection and this time it will work.

–          Remove this Advisor dll from Console folder after Log Analytics configuration is done.

[Note]: If you will not delete Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory  from Console, then you will hit the above exception while adding subscription to Azure MP.

What is causing this exception?

This exception will only occur when you have Azure MP installed on your system.

The reason is both Azure MP and Advisor MP use different versions of Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory library.

When the intended version of this library isn’t found, Console throws FileNotFound exception

To bring Alerts/Performance data from Azure to SCOM, Azure Management pack can be used. Azure Management Pack guide talks in detail about the Azure Management Pack capabilities. Please refer that more details.

This blog will talk about how we can see the Alerts for Application Insights Availability Tests in SCOM console. Let’s start.

Install latest Azure Management Pack from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=50013.

Import the MP from Operations Console.

Now go to Administration Tab -> Microsoft Azure -> Add Subscription and connect to your Azure subscription with your credentials.

You will see your subscription id listed like above under Subscription ID.

Next step is to author management pack template to monitor Azure resources.

From the SCOM Console left pane select Authoring. Now Under Management Pack Templates select  Microsoft Azure Monitoring -> Add Monitoring Wizard and follow below steps.

Please ensure to create a New Management Pack for Azure Management Pack.

We are selecting only Application Insights components and web tests here.

In Application Insights, for a ping test/multi step web tests, users can choose to configure Classic Alerts/Metric Alerts for their tests.

We want to see  both Alertrules (Classic Alerts) and Metricalerts (metric alerts) for our Azure tests, so we select both these below.

Under components (Microsoft.insights), there is a list of metrics available which can be selected to Collect Data in SCOM.

But to collect this data, your application which is hosted in Azure should be instrumented to collect all this metrics. If your application isn’t instrumented t0 collect this metrics in Azure, Azure Management Pack cannot collect this data. In short, Azure MP will only collect/show metrics that you are collecting at in Azure.

Alert If checkbox below is to raise Alerts in SCOM for the Threshold value that is specified in Threshold column. Condition can be changed to Greater Than/Less Than as per requirement.

For example if you want to raise an Alert in SCOM when Receive Response Time is greater than 2 seconds, than we change the Threshold value of Receiving Response Time to 2.

After this complete the wizard by hitting Next >.

After this is done, depending upon how many resources you have under your subscription, Azure MP will load the resources in SCOM. Usually it’s less than a minute.

Go to Monitoring Tab and under Service State you will find all your Application Insights components and their Health State.

If you want to see Health State by the Resource Group, please select Resource Group State. In the below screenshot, all the Resource Groups, under my subscription are listed.

To see all the resources data consolidate at one place, go to Service State Tab.

If you want to see Active alerts for your resource group, then right click your Resource Group Name and select the Alert View.

It will show all the Active Alerts as below. Select the alert and Alert Description would be available under Alert Details.

You can select Alert Properties like any other Alert in SCOM for this Alert from Azure resource.

We have improved the Alert Description of Metric Alerts generated by Application Insights Ping test. The new Alert would look like following.

You can configure metric alerts in Azure Portal for your Availability Ping test like below.

Go to Application Insights -> Availability -> Add Test

Enter the required details and select the highlighted Alert type and Alert Status to create metric alerts. For these alerts, you will see the description as mentioned above.

For our customers who have SCOM 1801, they can use HTML5 dashboard for viewing the Alerts and Performance data from Azure in SCOM.

Please leave in comments what are the new features you would like to see in next release of Azure Management Pack.

Thanks,

Neha

Please share your feedback about SCOM at https://systemcenterom.uservoice.com/forums/293064-general-operations-manager-feedback

We have started releasing version agnostic management packs for our customers. In the past we used to release a new management pack when new version of Windows and Windows features will be available for monitoring. Customer will have to  install and manage different management packs for monitoring their workloads. Going forward the same management pack will work with difference Windows versions.

For example: Customer want to monitor Windows Server 2016 and Windows 1709, they will only require one management pack for this. Once we add support for Windows Server 2019, the same MP would be updated to support Windows 2019 and 2016.

We have updated many important management packs which monitor windows workloads to version agnostic. Please find the list here.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/16174.microsoft-management-packs.aspx

We use a naming convention for our version agnostic management packs which is, minimum supported version and plus.

For eg, “Microsoft System Center Management Pack for Windows Server Operating System 2016 and 1709 Plus”.

Please use our feature Updates and Recommendation, which can help with :

• Install the required management pack for monitoring a workload running on agent.
• Recommend to update the management pack as soon as, newer version is available.

Thanks,

Neha

The existing alert closure experience for the alerts generated by monitors has been revamped to be more meaningful and provide better value.

If the alert was generated by a monitor, as a best practice, you should allow the monitor to auto-resolve the alert when the health state returns to healthy or close the alert manually when the health state returns to healthy (if auto-resolve is set to false).

If you close the alert while the object is in a warning, critical or unhealthy state, the problem remains unresolved, and no further alerts are generated, unless the health state for the monitor has also been reset (If the monitor is not reset, the same condition that generated an alert can occur again but no alert will be generated because the health state has not changed.)

This behaviour, which often led to a scenario where there is no active alert in the system while an underlying problem is not resolved. Closure of alerts generated by monitors without resolving the underlying problem is fixed with SCOM 2019. An alert which has been generated by a monitor cannot be closed unless the health state of the corresponding monitor is healthy.

Behavior in operations console

If you close an alert generated by a monitor (from the Operations Console “Active alerts” view) which is in a unhealthy state then the following message will be displayed and the alert will not be closed:

“Alert(s) in the current selection cannot be closed as the monitor(s) which generated these alerts are still unhealthy. For more details on the alerts which could not be closed, view the “Alert Closure Failure” dashboard in the Operations Manager Web Console”

To close this alert the health state of the monitor has to be reset, if “auto-resolve” for this monitor is set to true then the alert will be auto closed with the health state reset else the alert has to be manually closed after the health state reset.

Behaviour in Web console

If you close an alert generated by a monitor (from the “Alert Alerts Dashboard” or any dashboard or the alerts drill down page of the web console) which is in a unhealthy state then the following message will be displayed and the alert will not be closed:

Active alerts dashboard (closing 1 alert generated by monitor which is in a unhealthy state, by using the “Set resolution state” action)

Alerts drill down page (closing the alert generated by monitor which is in a unhealthy state, by changing the “Resolution State”)

To forcefully close these kind of alerts, reset the health state of the monitor from the task available in the alerts drill down page:

Or

Navigate to the new “Alert Closure Failure” dashboard available in the monitoring tree of the web console, this dashboard lists all the active alerts in SCOM which were unable to close because the monitor which generated these respective alert is still unhealthy. You can select the alert which you want to forcefully close and reset the corresponding monitor by using the “Reset Health” action.

Note: This dashboards displays all the active alerts which were unable to close, irrespective of the tool from where the alert closure has been triggered.

If an alert closure has been triggered from the third party tools/systems (incident management/ticketing systems…) and if the alert was unable to close as the corresponding monitor is still unhealthy then we will be passing an exception with the alert details which can be leveraged by third party tools/systems.

The following 2 APIs have been enhanced to enable this new behaviour (more detailed documentation on the changes to the below APIs will be published soon):

• https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-in/library/microsoft.enterprisemanagement.monitoring.monitoringalert.update.aspx
• https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh327241.aspx

While leveraging SCOM REST API, if you get the error message “The given key was not present in the dictionary.“ then it means that the request body is not being parsed correctly. For resolving this error, make sure that the Content-Type header is set to “application/json” and JSON.stringify() is called on the data value to convert it into string.

Below is a sample snippet of the script with the usage of Content-Type header and  JSON.stringify to resolve such errors:

window.onload = function () {
                $.ajax({
                        url: "/OperationsManager/data/performance",
                        type: "POST", 
       headers: {
                 "Content-Type": "application/json"
                },
                        data: JSON.stringify({
                        "duration":1440,
                        "id":"721BEA34-B0E4-DC97-5169-52808F731A6B",
                        "performanceCounters":[ 
                               {
                                       "objectname":"Health Service",
                                       "countername":"agent processor utilization",
                                       "instancename":""
                               }
                        ], 
                        }),