[ Teknoglot ]

Microsoft has released an update to the MSMQ (version 3) management pack.

System Center Pack for: Message Queuing 3.0
Version: 6.0.6615.0
Released on: 12/14/2009

Message Queuing (also known as MSMQ) is a server application that enables applications to communicate across heterogeneous networks and systems that may be temporarily offline or otherwise inaccessible. Instead of an application communicating with a service on another computer, it sends its information to Message Queuing, which sends the information to a Message Queuing service on the target computer where it is made available to the other application. Message Queuing provides guaranteed delivery, efficient routing, security, and priority based messaging.

Now, what’s really interesting is what you will find in the MP Guide under “Supported Configurations”.

The Message Queuing Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 is designed to monitor Message Queuing version 3 only.

The Message Queuing Management Pack supports the following platforms:

· Windows Server 2003

· Windows XP

The Message Queuing Management Pack also supports monitoring clustered MSMQ components.

Text coloration is obviously added by me to highlight the interesting part.

Finally MSMQ monitoring seems to be cluster aware, which might mean that the home-made pack i did to have those (numerous) queues covered could be passed on to the scrap-heap. This is also confirmed under “Changes in This Update”.

The December 2009 update to this management pack includes the following change:

· Fixed a problem when working with an instance of MSMQ in a Cluster. The MP is now able to discover and monitor public and private queues in a cluster.

· Fixed a problem when discovering the local and cluster instance of MSMQ. The MP is now able to discover and monitor both instances.

The confusing double RunAs profiles seems to have been cleaned up too (you only have to worry about one now) as well as fixing some sloppy mistakes in the previous scripts (no Option Explicit? C’mon Microsoft! You write the best practices, try to stick to them.) and generally improving display and documentation.

Gonna import this to our staging environment today and let it roll during the holidays.

Cheers! Oh, and happy holidays!

Download and documentation:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1D2B4398-8BC2-4A43-850C-852EBB0D983B&displaylang=en&displaylang=en

Microsoft has released an updated MP for SCCM SP2 (v6.0.6000.2, released on 10/28/2009) for OpsMgr R2.

The update basically contains support for x64 that was missin in the previous release.

The Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 Management Pack adds support for monitoring Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 in a 64-bit environment with Operations Manager 2007 R2 or Operations Manager 2007 SP1 with hotfix (KB971541) installed. This enables the Configuration Manager 2007 SP2 Management Pack to work with either the 32-bit or the 64-bit Operations Manager 2007 agent. Except for the 64-bit support, the other features and guidance for Configuration Manager 2007 Management Packs remain intact.

(coloration added by me)

Read more and download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=a8443173-46c2-4581-b3b8-ce67160f627b

What do you do when you cannot delete a file or folder on a windows server?

Check the file permissions! And if that doesn’t help?

Check the share permissions! Yes, if it is a shared folder. And if that doesn’t help?

Check the file ownership! Great! But then what?

Well, the file could be in use, and then you would have to shut the locking process down and perhaps kick a user out. In a really bad scenario it could also be a symptom of a broken filesystem, a reserved filename (like “lpt1” or “PRN”) or even an invalid name (silly things like a space in the beginning or the end of a filename).
Another possible reason could actually be that the path to the file or folder is too long. You won’t actually get an error telling you that the filepath exceeds the 255 characters Windows can handle but a simple “Acces Denied”.

There are some, more or less tedious, work-arounds for the problem. Like renaming, starting from the root, all the directories to shorter ones or using the old DOS (8.3, like “dokume~1.doc”) names that windows can auto-generate for you. Personally, I have two favourite ways of handling this.

1. Map the parent-directory of the file/folder you are trying to access/delete as a network drive and access your files that way.
   This is particularly useful if the folder you are trying to access a DFS-share or perhaps a share on the central fileserver filepaths like “\\servername01\Central Projects\Central Services\IT Department\Develop Methods for Automatically Deploying New Central Servers\2.2.1 Auto-Deploying SQL-Server 2005 Cluster\Documents\Preparations\Whitepapers\SQL Server 2005 Failover Clustering White Paper.doc”
2. Create a new share to a folder further down the hierarchy. This works locally too if you are logged on to, say, SRV01, you create a new share on “D:\Fileshares\Central Projects\Central Services\IT Department\Develop Methods for Automatically Deploying New Central Servers\” called “Autodeploymethods” and access it from “\\SRV01\Autodeploymethods\”. That way the filepath doesn’t exceed 255 characters.

Now. When designing fileservers, you really should think about how deep the filepaths may get. This is especially true on DFS-shares since you might have to deal with the full FQDN too, and not only the actual folder structure. Many big corporations I know uses “codes” for departments and assign a project ID (quite simply a number or maybe an abbreviation) to each project and uses theese for the fileshares too. Another scenario that could lead to similar problems are intranet sites where users can create and manage their own subsites and where filenames and folders are not stored in a database.

I have only seen this phenomena on Windows systems so far, and I’ve actually used a linux Live-CD on occasion when admin access is denied.

Read More:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320081

This update hasn’t showed up in the MP Catalog yet, but the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Update can be downloaded here.

Besides SUSE 11 support, here’s the short overview.

The System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Update adds fixes for a defunct process issue on Unix/Linux Servers, as well as, adds support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions) and Solaris Zone support.
Feature Summary:
The System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Cross Platform Update supports the monitoring of Unix/Linux Servers including:

• Monitoring of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 servers (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions)
• Support of Solaris Zones
• Fix for defunct Process issue
• The Cross Platform Agent may not discover soft partitions on Solaris systems. Therefore, the disk provider may be unloaded, and the Cross Platform Agent may stop collecting information from the system disks.
• The Cross Platform Agent may not restart after the AIX server reboots.

The latest versions of all the Operations Manager 2007 R2 Unix/Linux agents are included in this update.

Perfect timing, I must say, since I really need this today.

Update:
This is no small MP-update, which probably is the reason that we do not find it in the MP Catalog, but a ~250MB OpsMgr R2 Software Update. You need to run this on all Operations Manager Servers (RMS/MS, GW?) since it actually updates many of the agent Cross Platform binaries. It does add a new MP för SUSE 11 that you have to import from disk if you need it.

So, the installation goes somewhat like this:

1. Install the Software Update (pick the right Architecture) on all OpsMgr R2 Servers
2. Import the SUSE 11 MP if necessary
3. Re-discover your Unix/Linux machines.

Files updated in this update for R2:

• .\Microsoft.Enterprisemanagement.UI.Administration.dll (Version 6.1.7043.1)
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.aix.5.ppc.lpp.gz
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.aix.6.ppc.lpp.gz
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.hpux.11iv2.ia64.depot.Z
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.hpux.11iv2.parisc.depot.Z
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.hpux.11iv3.ia64.depot.Z
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.hpux.11iv3.parisc.depot.Z
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.rhel.4.x64.rpm
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.rhel.4.x86.rpm
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.rhel.5.x64.rpm
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.rhel.5.x86.rpm
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.sles.10.x64.rpm
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.sles.10.x86.rpm
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.sles.9.x86.rpm
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.solaris.10.sparc.pkg.Z
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.solaris.10.x86.pkg.Z
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.solaris.8.sparc.pkg.Z
• .\AgentManagement\UnixAgents\scx-1.0.4-248.solaris.9.sparc.pkg.Z

Files added:

• Microsoft.Linux.SLES.11.MP

All in all, the update contains the following fixes:

• KB969342
• KB973583
• Q954049
• Q956240

I’ve wrestled a bit with a critical status on one of the Organization States at a clients site that wont go back to green despite all the underlying monitors have gone back to green. And apparently I am not alone on this one. Others, like me, has read and re-read the MP-guide i search for a monitor/rule/discovery for overrides forgotten, and I don’t know how many times I’ve made a small change and tried resetting the health once again. Anyhow.
Marius Sutara posted an answer on TechNet forums last week with a “fix” (-ish), or rather the acknowledgement that the problem is not a 40c. The problem might be related to other MP as well, but I’ve only seen it on the new Exchange MP so far. In that same post, Pete Zerger provided some links to two nifty little tools that will help you reset the health of the monitor.

In case you wonder why on earth I post when there’s allready a “solution” out there; Pagerank, baby!
Not for me, but for the forum post making it show up earlier on google.

I get this question every now and then and every time I find myself completely flabbergasted and having to look things up once again. To avoid wasting my time on the same question once again and perhaps help others doing the same, here’s a little guidance.

Don’t get me wrong now.
SQL Express has it’s applications and for a free database server, it’s not half-bad. Small development sites, minor, not that extremely important systems with lower performance and feature demands, minor website databases et cetera could do well with SQL Express.

Here’s my list of questions you have to ask to find if SQL Express is the correct choice.

1. Do your applications support SQL Express?
   If your application developers cannot say “Yes” to this, you’re out of luck. You could probably get their applications to run on SQL Express anyway, but application support if something goes bad will most likely be zilch.
2. Do your applications fit the hardware limitations?
   SQL Express is limited to 1GB RAM, 1 CPU and 4GB of databases. 1GB of RAM seems a bit tight to me for any production data. Also, on SQL Express 2005, according to Microsoft, you cannot run parallel queries.
   ”SQL Server Express can install and run on multiprocessor machines, but only a single CPU is used at any time. Internally, the engine limits the number of user scheduler threads to 1 so that only 1 CPU is used at a time. Features such as parallel query execution are not supported because of the single CPU limit.”
   If this is still true on SQL Express 2008, I don’t know and I haven’t found any information about it (yet).
   When answering this question, remember to calculate expected growth and possibly new databases/applications too.
3. Do your applications use database replication?
   If, so. Do the new server need to act as a publisher? If, yes, then you’re out of luck. SQL Express do handle database replication, but only as a subscriber. If you need to publish data, then you need a “bigger” SQL Edition.
4. Do you need Database Mail?
   SQL Express does not have Database Mail. You have to find other ways to code your notifications. This question has raised counter-questions from customers as to “What would I need Database Mail for?”. It is, evidently a feature not used by many. Personally, I find it useful. Clay McDonald has a nice blog-post on how to make SQL-triggers send mail on, for instance, inserts into a table using Database Mail. You could of course have it send mail on deletions as well. In my mind, this might come in handy in user-databases in CRM- or HR-systems. Every time an employee gets deleted from the database, the HR-admin could receive a notification.
5. Do you need the SQL Agent?
   Perhaps not. Maybe you feel comfortable with scheduling your database backups using the windows scheduler and homebrew scripts. Just make sure your monitoring software (or IT-personnel) discover when the script fails. An increasing amount of applications require the SQL Agent to schedule and monitor recurring tasks, like Microsoft’s App-V. Without the SQL Agent, the databases would grow ad infinitum. How about index maintenance? This is also possible to go by using your own scripts and the windows scheduler. SQL Express can do most maintenance tasks you would need using scripts and T-SQL. The SQL Agent just makes it simpler and more manageable. Once again, double-check this with the application developer.
6. Do you application use SSIS/DTS-jobs?
   This is not included in SQL Express. Maybe there’s a work-around, but I haven’t found it and I doubt it is supported by anyone.
7. Do you need to be able to troubleshoot performance problems?
   You can do this on SQL Express with a great deal of knowledge and timers. The SQL-profiler, the Performance Data Collection and the Database Tuning Advisor makes it easier. Specifically, the SQL-profiler comes in really handy when you suspect the application (not the system) to be the bad guy since you can trace the queries and pin-point where the performance-hit resides. Using the SQL-profiler I have been able to optimise indexes to and thus making database servers go from a 98% CPU Load to 3% CPU Load. I have also been able to pin-point specific queries and use them as “evidence” that the problem is bad/sloppy code rather than problems with the database server. Also, using the SQL-profiler.

There’s more, of course, but these point are the most common pit-falls in my experience. As you can see, there’s three “do you need”-questions  and there are highly optional. Far from everyone use them and often because of lacking SQL Server knowledge. You don’t know what you can do. Still, the most important question is #1. Is SQL Express a supported database server for your applications. Hopefully, the developer knows the answer to this directly. No maybe’s. Yes or No.

Personally, I find that If you need a database server for production data, don’t go for SQL Express. Many customers have gone that way because “it’s free!” just to find themselves in the midst of a SQL Server upgrade and database migration a year later.

Don’t know how I missed this when writing the last post, but Microsoft released the MP for Windows Server 2008 NLB yesterday (28/4 -09). This is the initial release for Win2k8 NLB so I guess we just have to try it out then.

Quick Details

Feature Summary

• Monitor the NLB Node status.
• Based on the status of individual cluster nodes, determine the overall state of the cluster.
• Where an integration management pack exists, determine the health state of a cluster node by looking at the health state of the load balanced application, such as IIS.
• Alert on errors and warnings that are reported by the NLB driver, such as an incorrectly configured NLB cluster.
• Take the node out of the NLB cluster if the underlying load-balanced application becomes unhealthy, and add the node back to the cluster when the application becomes healthy again.

Requires OpsMgr 2007 SP1 or later, the Base Operating System MP for 2008, the QFEs for Windows Server 2008 and that you are not running the converted 2003 NLB MP. If you are running the old converted NLB MP, upgrade first. As an additional recommendation, Microsoft recommends in the MP Guide that you install the QFE for wmiprvse.exe problems on Windows Server 2008.

No support for Mixed-mode (2008 and 2003) clusters though.

I have seen this error popping up every now and then at multiple customer sites and haven’t really been able to solve it yet. It does not look like I am alone either.
The error message usually looks like this:

Error doing IIS Discovery

Error: 0x80070002
Details: The system cannot find the file specified.

One or more workflows were affected by this. 

Workflow name: Microsoft.Windows.InternetInformationServices.2003.DiscoverBase
Instance name: Microsoft.Windows.InternetInformationServices.2003.ServerRole
Instance ID: {A81E4808-4D05-9BFE-4043-DC668527F2D0}
Management group: MASKED

Or…

Error doing IIS Discovery

Error: 0x80070006
Details: The handle is invalid.

One or more workflows were affected by this. 

Workflow name: Microsoft.Windows.InternetInformationServices.2000.DiscoverWebSites26to50
Instance name: IIS Web Server
Instance ID: {D36DA76A-027F-8F3E-4160-115279A1E23A}
Management group: MASKED

I have been trying to figure out what file is missing and/or if the “invalid handle” is related. Possibly a file-handle? Could be but not neccesary since these two errors occur on different servers with increasing repeat-count (atleast once-a-day). The IIS MP does call the IIS*.VBS Scripts in %windir%\System32 but as far as I can tell, on the systems I have tried it on, the scritps return valid data. This does by no means mean that there is no error and evidently I am missing something. But what? Does anyone have a clue to this?

References and other victims:

• “Error Doing IIS Discovery” on Google
• “SCOM: IIS Discovery Probe Module Failed Execution” on Codejnki’s Blog
• “Error doing IIS Discovery Error: 0×80070006″ on TechNet Forums
• “IIS Discovery Probe Module Execution Failure” on Digital Support Forum
• “IIS Discovery Probe Module Execution Failure” on EggHeadCafe
• “IISDiscoveryProbe Error – any ideas?” on Microsoft Discusson Groups

And no, neither of these provides even a hint to a working solution.

Last friday, 24/4 -09,  Microsoft released an updated Management Pack for MSMQ 3.0.

Quick Details

Release History

• 6/3/2008 – Initial Release, version 6.0.6278.23. Refer to the MP guide for further details.
• 4/24/2009 – Undated release, version 6.0.6587.0. Refer to the MP guide for further details.

The MP Guide does not really say much about what’s updated and I don’t know how much more than the reporting they have fixed. I can just state the fact that support for clustered MSMQ 3 instances is still missing.

I recently added another 500MB of RAM to my computer… and there was much rejoice.

However, after a few days it started to behave erraticly when pressing the Fn+F12 combo (on a ThinkPad that means “Hibernate”). It simply refused to hibernate with the very intuitive error message “Insufficent System Resources Exist to Complete the API”.

Anyway. Microsoft has a fix for it, and you don’t have to call them to get it anymore either. Just follow the link below.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q909095