The month of February was full of news and there are different updates that affected the Azure management services and System Center. This article summarizes to have a comprehensive overview of the main news of the month, in order to stay up to date on these topics and have the necessary references to conduct further exploration.
Azure Monitor
Multi-resource support for metric alerts
With this new feature, you can configure a single metric alert rule to monitor:
- A list of virtual machines in an Azure region.
- All virtual machines in one or more resource groups in an Azure region.
- All virtual machines of a subscription, present in a given Azure region.
Azure Automation
The runbook Update Azure Modules is open source
Azure Automation allows you to update the Azure PowerShell modules imported into an automation account with the latest versions available in the PowerShell Gallery. This possibility is provided through the actionUpdate Azure Moduleson the page Modules of the Automation Account, and is implemented through a hidden runbook. In order to improve diagnostics and troubleshooting activity and provide the ability to customize the module, this has been made open source.
Support for the Azure PowerShell module Az
Azure Automation introduces support for the PowerShell module Az, thanks to which you can use the updated Azure modules within runbooks, to manage the various Azure services.
Azure Log Analytics
New version of the agent for Linux
This month the new OMS Agent version for Linux systems solves a specific bug during installation. To obtain the updated OMS agent version you can access at the GitHub official page.
Availability in new region of Azure
It is possible to activate a Log Analytics workspace also in the Azure regions of West US 2, Australia East and Central Australia. In this way the data is kept and processed in this regions.
Azure Site Recovery
New Update Rollup
For Azure Site Recovery was released theUpdate Rollup 33 introducing new versions of the following components:
- Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Unified Setup (version 9.22.5109.1): used for replication scenarios from VMware to Azure.
- Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Provider (version 5.1.3900.0): used for replication scenarios from Hyper-V to Azure or to a secondary site.
- Microsoft Azure Recovery Services Agent (version 2.0.9155.0): used for replication scenarios from Hyper-V to Azure.
The installation of this update rollup is possible on all systems running Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Service providers, by including:
- Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Provider for System Center Virtual Machine Manager (3.3.x. x).
- Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Hyper-V Provider (4.6.x. x).
- Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Provider (5.1.3500.0) and later.
The Update Rollup 33 for Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Unified Setup applies to all systems that have installed the version 9.17.4860.1 or later.
For more information on the issues resolved, on improvements from this Update Rollup and to get the procedure for its installation is possible to consult thespecific KB 4489582.
Protection of Storage Space Direct cluster
In Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is introduced, with the Update Rollup 33, also the support for the protection of Storage Space Direct cluster, used to realize Guest Cluster in Azure environment.
Azure Backup
In Azure Backup has been released the feature of Instant Restorefor the virtual machines in Azure, that allows using the stored snapshots for the VMs recovery. Also it is given the option to configure the time of retention for the snapshots in the backup policy (from one to five days, the default is two days). This increases control over the protection of the resources, adapting it to specific requirements and depending on the criticality of the same.
Figure 1 – Retention period of the snapshot
System Center Configuration Manager
Released versions 1902 and 1902.2 for the Technical Preview Branch
Among the main new features of this release is included the ability to manage more effectively the restart notifications on systems managed by Configuration Manager.
For full details of what's new in this release you can consult this document. Please note that the Technical Preview Branch releases help you to evaluate new features of SCCM and it is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.
System Center Operations Manager
Management Packs
Following, are reported the news about the SCOM Management Packs:
- Microsoft System Center 2016 Management Pack for Microsoft Azure version 1.6.0.7
- Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server 2017+ Reporting Services version 7.0.12.0
- Log Analytics Management Pack forSCOM 1801 version7.3.13288.0 and SCOM 2016 version7.2.12074.0
- System Center Management Pack for Windows DNS Server version 10.0.9.3
Evaluation of Azure and System Center
To test and evaluate free of charge the services offered by Azure you can access this page, while to try the various System Center components you must access theEvaluation Center and, after registering, you can start the trial period.
