Category Archives: Management Pack

OMS and System Center: What's New in August 2018

In August have been announced, by Microsoft, a considerable number of news about Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center. Our community releases this monthly summary that gives you a comprehensive overview of the main news of the month, in order to stay up to date on these news and have the necessary references to conduct further study.

Operations Management Suite (OMS)

Azure Log Analytics

As already announced in the article The management of Log Analytics from the Azure portal Microsoft has chosen to abandon the OMS portal, in favour of the Azure Portal. The date announced for the final withdrawal of the OMS portal is the 15 January 2019. As a result of this choice also creation of new workspace of Azure Log Analytics can be performed only from the Azure Portal. Trying to create a new workspace from the old OMS portal you will be redirected to the Azure portal to complete the task. Have not made any changes to REST API and PowerShell to create workspaces.

Even the Advanced Analytics Portal is incorporated into the Azure Portal. At the moment you can access this portal by logging on to Logs (preview) available in the workspace of Log Analytics.

Figure 1 - Advanced Analytics available in the Logs (preview) from the Azure Portal

 

Azure Automation

Managing updates through Azure Automation Update Management sees the addition of a new option for the deployment of the updates. When creating or editing an update deployment is now an option the Reboot, that allows you to control whether and when reboot systems. For more information please visit the official technical documentation.

Figure 2 – Reboot option available in the update deployment

In the functionality of Change Tracking the following changes have been made:

  • To track changes and make the inventory of the files in the Windows environment now you can use: recursion, wildcards, and environment variables. In Linux there is already the support for recursion and wildcards.
  • As for the changes that are processed in files, both Windows and Linux, introduced the ability to display the content of the changes.
  • Introduced the possibility to reduce the frequency with which Windows services are collected (frequency is expressed in seconds and runs from a minimum of 10 seconds to a maximum of 30 minutes).

Agent

This month the new version ofOMS agent for Linux systems fixes some bugs and introduces an updated version for several core components, that increase the stability, the safety and improve the installation process. Among the various news is introduced the support for Ubuntu 18.04. To obtain the updated version of the OMS agent you can access to the official GitHub page OMS Agent for Linux Patch v 1.6.0-163. In the case the OMS agent for Linux systems has been installed using the Azure Extension and if its automatic update is active, this update will be installed independently.

Figure 3 – Bug fixes and what's new for the OMS agent for Linux

 

Azure Site Recovery

For Azure Site Recovery was released theUpdate Rollup 27 introducing new versions of the following components:

  • Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Unified Setup/Mobility agent (version 9.18.4946.1): used for replication scenarios from VMware to Azure.
  • Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Provider (version 5.1.3550.0): used for replication scenarios from Hyper-V to Azure or to a secondary site.
  • Microsoft Azure Recovery Services agent (version 2.0.9125.0): used for replication scenarios from Hyper-V to Azure.

The installation of this update rollup is recommended in deployments where there are components and their respective versions below reported:

  • Unified Setup/Mobility agent version 9.14.0000.0 or later.
  • Site Recovery Provider (with System Center VMM): version 3.3. x. x or later.
  • Site Recovery Provider (for replication without VMM): version 5.1.3100.0 or later.
  • Site Recovery Hyper-V Provider: version 4.6. x. x 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 the specific KB 4055712.

 

In Azure Site Recovery was introduced support for enabling disaster recovery scenarios Cross-subscription, for IaaS virtual machines, as long as belonging to the same Azure Active Directory tenant. This feature is very useful because often you have environments that use different Azure subscriptions, created primarily to have greater control of costs. Thanks to this new support you can more easily reach business continuity requirements creating disaster recovery plans without altering the topology of the Azure subscriptions in your environment.

Figure 4 - VM replica configuration to a different subscription target

 

Azure Site Recovery now can integrate with Veritas Backup Exec Instant Cloud Recovery (ICR) with the release of Backup Exec 20.2. Using ICR, Backup Exec users are able to configure replication of VMs on-premises to Azure and easily operate the DR plan if necessary, reducing the Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and the Recovery Time Objective (RTO). Instant Cloud Recovery requires a subscription Azure and supports Hyper-V and VMware virtual machines. For more details and references you can see thespecific announcement.

Azure Backup

In this interesting article there is the procedure to monitor all workloads protected by Azure Backup using Log Analytics.

System Center

System Center Configuration Manager

Released the version 1806 for the Current Branch (CB) of System Center Configuration Manager that introduces new features and major improvements in the product.

Among the main innovations of this update there is a new feature called CMPivot. It is a new utility available in the Configuration Manager console that can provide information in real time about connected devices in your environment. On this information you can apply filters and groupings, then perform certain actions.

Figure 5 – Features and benefits of CMPivot functionality

For a complete list of new features introduced in this version of Configuration Manager, you can consult theofficial announcement.

 

Released the version 1808 for the branch Technical Preview of System Center Configuration Manager. This update introduces the ability to perform a gradual release of software updates automatically. The button that allows you to configure this operation is shown in figure below and can be found in the console nodes All Software Updates, All Windows 10 Updates, and Office 365 Updates.

Figure 6 – Phased Deployment creation button

For more information about configuring Phased Deployments in Configuration Manager, you can refer to the Microsoft technical documentation .

I remind you that the releases in the Technical Preview Branch allows you to evaluate in preview new SCCM functionality and is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

 

System Center Operations Manager

Released the updated version of Microsoft System Center 2016 Management Pack for Microsoft Azure (version 1.5.20.18).

There are also the following news:

 

Evaluation of OMS and System Center

Please remember that in order to test and evaluate for free Operations Management Suite (OMS) you can access this page and select the mode that is most appropriate for your needs.

To try out the various components of System Center you must access theEvaluation Center and after the registration you can start the trial period.

OMS and System Center: What's New in July 2018

Microsoft announces constantly news about Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center. As usual our community releases this monthly summary that provides a general overview of the main new features of the month, in order to stay up to date on these topics and have the necessary references to conduct further exploration.

Operations Management Suite (OMS)

Azure Log Analytics

The possible integration of Azure Data Factory (ADF) with Azure Monitor lets you send usage metrics to Operations Management Suite (OMS). The new solution Azure Data Factory Analytics, available in the Azure marketplace, can provide an overview of the State of health of the Data Factory, allowing you to go into detail of the information collected. This can be very useful for troubleshooting. It is also possible to collect metrics from different data factories to the same workspace of OMS Log Analytics. For configuration details required to use this solution, you can see the official documentation.

Figure 1 – Overview of the new Azure Data Factory Analytics solution

In Log Analytics, query execution introduces the ability to easily select the workspace on which to execute the queries.:

Figure 2 - Selection of the workspace on which to perform the Log Analytics query

The same possibility is also introduced in Azure Application Insights Analytics. This feature is useful because in each query tab you can select the specific workspace, avoiding having to open Log Analytics in different browser tabs.

In case they are collected custom logs in Azure Log Analytics, a separate category was created called "Custom Logs", where they are grouped.

Figure 3 – Grouping of custom logs in the specific category

For workspace of Log Analytics present in the region of West Europe, East US, and West Central was announced the availability in public preview of Metric Alerts for logs. The Metric alerts for logs allow you to use data from Log Analytics as metrics of Azure Monitor. The types of supported logs has been extended and the complete list is available at this link. For more information please visit the official documentation.

Azure Backup

In Azure Pricing Calculator, the official Microsoft tool for estimating the cost of Azure services, has been made possible to obtain a more accurate estimate of the costs of Azure Backup, allowing you to specify different retention range for the Recovery Points.

Figure 4 – New parameters to make a more accurate estimate of costs of Azure Backup

 

Azure Site Recovery

For Azure Site Recovery was released theUpdate Rollup 26 introducing new versions of the following components:

  • Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Unified Setup/Mobility agent (version 9.17.4897.1): used for replication scenarios from VMware to Azure.
  • Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Provider (version 5.1.3400.0): used for replication scenarios from Hyper-V to Azure or to a secondary site.
  • Microsoft Azure Recovery Services agent (version 2.0.9122.0): used for replication scenarios from Hyper-V to Azure.

The installation of this update rollup is recommended in deployments where there are components and their respective versions below reported:

  • Unified Setup/Mobility agent version 9.13.000.1 or later.
  • Site Recovery Provider version 5.1.3000 or later.
  • Hyper-V Recovery Manager 3.4.486 or later.
  • Site Recovery Hyper-V Provider 4.6.660 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 the specific KB 4344054.

Azure Automation

Regarding Azure Automation has been introduced the possibility to configure the Hybrid Runbook Workers so that they can execute only runbooks digitally signed (the execution of unsigned runbooks not fail). The procedure to be followed is reported in this section of the Microsoft's article.

System Center

Following the first announcement of the Semi-Annual Channel release of System Center, took place in February with the version 1801, this month has been released the new update release, System Center 1807.

The update release 1807 introduces new features for Virtual Machine Manager and Operations Manager, while for Data Protection Manager, Orchestrator and Service Manager contains fixes for known issues (including bug fixes present in the UR5 for System Center 2016, released in April).

What's new in Virtual Machine Manager 1807
  • Supports selection of CSV for placing a new VHD
  • Display of LLDP information for networking devices
  • Convert SET switch to logical switch
  • VMware host management: VMM 1807 supports VMware ESXi v6.5 servers in VMM fabric
  • Support for S2D cluster update
  • Support for SQL 2017
What's new in Operations Manager 1807
  • Configure APM component during agent install or repair
  • Linux log rotation
  • HTML5 Web console enhancements
  • Support for SQL Server 2017
  • Operations Manager and Service Manager console coexistence

For further details please visit the Microsoft official documentation:

System Center 1807 can be download from System Center Evaluation Center.

For all System Center products (DPM, SCORCH, SM, SCOM and VMM) you can now Update existing deployments going from SQL server 2016 to SQL server 2017.

Please remember that the release belonging to the Semi-Annual Channel have support for 18 months.

System Center Configuration Manager

Released the version 1807 for the branch Technical Preview of System Center Configuration Manager. The main novelty in this release is l & #8217; introduction of the new Community hub, through which you can share scripts, reports, configuration items and more, about Configuration Manager. Through the community hub, accessible from the SCCM console, you can introduce into your environment solutions provided by the community.

Among the new features in this release are also:

  • Improvements to third-party software updates
  • Co-managed device activity sync from Intune
  • Approve application requests via email
  • Repair applications
  • Admin defined offline operating system image servicing drive
  • Improvements to run scripts

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

In order to configure the connection between Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center Operations Manager you must import the following new management packs, version-specific:

This change to the MPs was made necessary to allow proper communication with new APIs of OMS Log Analytics, introduced after moving towards the Azure Portal of Log Analytics.

Figure 5 - SCOM Wizard for the OMS onboarding

It is reported the new wave of System Center Operations Manager management packs released for SQL Server, now lined up to version 7.0.7.0:

In July were also released the following Management Packs for the Open Source software, version 7.7.1129.0, which include the following news:

Apache HTTP Server

  • Supports Apache HTTP Server version 2.2 and 2.4
  • Provides monitoring of busy and idle workers
  • Provides monitoring of resource usage – memory and CPU
  • Provides statistics for virtual hosts such as “Requests per Minute” and “Errors per Minute”
  • Provides alerting for SSL Certificate expiration

MySQL Server

  • Supports MySQL Server version 5.0, 5.1, 5.5, 5.6, and 5.7
  • Supports MariaDB Server version 5.5, and 10.0
  • Provides monitoring of databases
  • Provides monitoring of disk space usage for server and databases
  • Provides statistics for Key Cache, Query Cache, and Table Cache
  • Provides alerting for slow queries, failed connections, and full table scans

The following new MPs have also been released by Microsoft:

  • MP for Active Directory Federation Services version 0.2.0
  • MP for Active Directory Federation Services 2012 R2 version 1.10172.1
  • MP for Microsoft Azure version 5.20.18

Please also note the new community version (1807) of the Azure Management Pack, issued by Daniele Grandini.

Evaluation of OMS and System Center

Please remember that in order to test and evaluate for free Operations Management Suite (OMS) you can access this page and select the mode that is most appropriate for your needs.

To try out the various components of System Center, you can access theEvaluation Center and after the registration you can start the trial period.

OMS and System Center: What's New in June 2018

In June have been announced, by Microsoft, a considerable number of news about Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center. Our community, through these articles released monthly, want to provide an overview of the main news of the month, in order to stay up to date on these arguments and have the necessary references for further information.

Operations Management Suite (OMS)

Log Analytics

Recently it was officially announced that the OMS portal will be deprecated, in favour of the Azure Portal. In this article are examined the aspects related to this change and what you should know to avoid being caught unprepared.

Figure 1 - Notifications in the OMS portal

Azure Backup

Azure Backup is enriched with an important new feature that allows you to natively protect SQL workload, running in IaaS virtual machines that reside in Azure. In this article are showed the benefits and the characteristics of this new feature.

Figure 2 – Protection of SQL Server on Azure VMs with Azure Backup

Released an updated version of the’Azure Backup agent (MARS), which can be obtained by accessing this link.

Using Azure Backup there is the possibility of generating the reports needed to be able to easily check the status of resource protection, details on the different backup jobs configured, the actual storage utilization and status of its alert. All this is made possible by using Power BI, allowing you to have a high degree of flexibility in the generation and customization of reports. In this video, recently published, there is show how to configure a Power BI workspace for sharing reports of Azure Backup within your organization. To analyze the steps required to configure the reporting of Azure Backup you can refer this article.

Figure 3 – Sharing PowerBI reports of Azure Backup

Azure Backup introduces the ability to protect workloads running on Azure Stack environment. The tenant who use the Azure Stack solution can then have a short term protection directly on the Azure Stack environment and can make use of Azure Recovery Service vault for long term retention and to perform offsite. For more details on this you can consult therelease announcement.

Figure 4 – Azure Stack Tenant backup with Microsoft Azure Backup Server

Azure Site Recovery

In Azure Site Recovery (ASR) was announced in "general availability (GA)" the ability to configure the Disaster Recovery (DR) of Azure Virtual Machines. Configuring the replication of virtual machines in different regions of Azure, you have the ability to make applications resilient to a fault affecting a specific Azure region. This feature is available in all the Azure regions where you can use ASR. Azure is the first public cloud to offer a native solution for Disaster Recovery for applications that run in IaaS.

During the preview, Microsoft has taken into account the different feedback from the customers and added to the solution, the following import capabilities:

We highlight these useful references regarding this solution:

Security and Audit

The solution Azure Network Security Group Analytics will be replaced by Traffic Analytics that was released in General availability (GA). This solution, fully cloud-based, allows you to have an overall visibility on network activities that are undertaken in the cloud environment. For more details about you can see "How to monitor network activities in Azure with Traffic Analytics"

System Center

System Center Data Protectrion Manager

In environments where System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) is connected to Azure Backup service was introduced the ability to view all the items protected, details on the use of storage and information about the recovery points, direct from the Azure Portal, within the Recovery Service vault. This feature is supported for SCDPM 2012 R2, 2016 and for Azure Backup Server v1 and v2, as long as you have the latest version of Azure Backup Agent (MARS).

Figure 5 – Information from DPM outlined in Recovery Service vault

System Center Configuration Manager

It is usually released a technical preview per month in Configuration Manager, but this month, due to the considerable number of new features, they were released two.

The first is the version 1806 for the Technical Preview branch of System Center Configuration Manager. The main innovation introduced by this update is the addition of support for third-party software update catalogs. From the Configuration Manager console, you can easily subscribe to third-party software update catalogs, then publish updates via Software Update Point. These updates will be issued to the client by using the classic method of Configuration Manager to deploy software update.

Figure 6 – Access to third-party software update catalogs from the SCCM console

In addition to this new feature were released updates on:

  • Sync MDM policy from Microsoft Intune for a co-managed device
  • Office 365 workload transition in co-management
  • Configure Windows Defender SmartScreen settings for Microsoft Edge
  • Improvements to the Surface dashboard
  • Office Customization Tool integration with the Office 365 Installer
  • Content from cloud management gateway
  • Simplified client bootstrap command line
  • Software Center infrastructure improvements
  • Removed Network Access Account (NAA) requirement for OSD Boot Media
  • Removed Network Access Account (NAA) requirement for Task Sequences
  • Package Conversion Manager
  • Deploy updates without content
  • Currently logged on user information is shown in the console
  • Provision Windows app packages for all users on a device

The second is the version 1806.2 for the Technical Preview branch of System Center Configuration Manager, that mainly includes the following news related to the Phased deployment:

  • Ability to monitor the status natively, from the Deployments node.
  • Ability to create Phased deployment of applications and not just for task sequences.
  • Ability to carry out a gradual rollout during the deployment phase.

Also this preview contains updates regarding:

  • Management Insights for proactive maintenance
  • Mobile apps for co-managed devices
  • Support for new Windows app package formats
  • New boundary group options for optimized P2P behaviors
  • Third-party software updates support for custom catalogs
  • Compliance 9 – Overall health and compliance (Report)

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

Released an updated version of the Management Pack for OS Windows Server 2016 and 1709 Plus which includes several updates and issues resolutions. For further information you can consult this article.

Released the version 8.2 of the MP Author that includes several improvements. For a list of what's new in this version you can see theofficial announcement of the release.

Evaluation of OMS and System Center

Please remember that in order to test and evaluate for free Operations Management Suite (OMS) you can access this page and select the mode that is most appropriate for your needs.

To test the various components of System Center 2016 you can access theEvaluation Center and after the registration you can start the trial period.

OMS and System Center: What's New in March 2018

In March there have been several news announced by Microsoft on Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center. In this series of articles, which we make with monthly basis, are listed all the main innovations of the current month, accompanied by the necessary references to be able to conduct further studies.

Operations Management Suite (OMS)

Azure Automation

In Azure Automation new features have been officially released that allow you to:

  • Manage the distribution of updates (Update management).
  • Collect inventory information about the applications installed on systems (Inventory).
  • Track changes made on the machines (Change tracking).

The our article, posted in recent months, shows how to configure the Azure Automation Account to take advantage of these new features and reports the key features.

Figure 1 – Related solutions in Log Analytics


Azure Backup

Azure Backup introduces several new features that address the following aspects:

  • Large disk support: ability to protect disks of size up to 4 TB, both typologies: managed and unmanaged. The limit was previously of 1 TB.
  • Backup and Restore performance improvements: to reduce the execution time of the backup and restore will be retained snapshots, performed during the backup process, for 7 days.
  • Instant recovery point: the recovery point is made available instantly at the moment of creation of the snapshot made by the backup job, in a similar way to the checkpoint created by Hyper-V or VMware.
  • Distribute the disks of restored VM: during the restore process you are given the opportunity to choose where to place the disks unmanaged of virtual machines. This reduces the configurations, post restore activities, that would be required putting all disks within the same storage account .

To take advantage of these improvements you need to upgrade your subscription which owns the Recovery Service Vaults. The upgrade can be performed directly from the Azure Portal (there will be an appropriate notification in the dashboard of the Recovery Service vault ) or via PowerShell commands. For further information you can consult theMicrosoft's official announcement.

Figure 2 – Subscription upgrade process at the new stack

Microsoft has also announced that the Azure Backup service is now also available in the regions of Azure France (France Central and France South).

 

System Center

Microsoft has officialized the release of Windows Server 2019 which will be available to the public in the second half of 2018. In the same time will be made available System Center 2019 and it will have full support for Windows Server 2019 from the very first day of release.

System Center Configuration Manager

During the month has been released the version 1802 for the Current Branch (CB) of System Center Configuration Manager that introduces new features and major improvements in the product.

This summarizes the areas impacted by this update:

Modern Management

  • Endpoint Protection workload transition in co-management
  • Management insights
  • Co-management reporting

Figure 3 – Co-management reporting

Microsoft 365 Adoption

  • Phased deployments
  • Windows AutoPilot Device Information report
  • Support for Windows 10 ARM64 devices
  • Surface Device Dashboard
  • Microsoft Edge browser policies
  • Report to show default browser for client machines
  • Windows 10 Servicing for a specific collection report
  • Improvements to Office 365 client management dashboard
  • Improvements for Windows Defender Exploit Guard
  • New settings for Windows Defender Application Guard

Streamlined Infrastructure

  • Configure Windows 10 Delivery Optimization to use Configuration Manager boundary groups
  • Add management points to your boundary group fallback relationships
  • Moving Distribution Points between sites

Improvements in Cloud Management Gateway

  • Cloud management gateway support for Azure Resource Manager
  • Install user-available applications on Azure AD-joined devices
  • Windows 10 in-place upgrade task sequence over the Internet

Improvements in Software Center

  • Approve application requests for users per device
  • Improvements to client settings for Software Center

Improvements in OSD

  • Improvements to Windows 10 in-place upgrade task sequence
  • Deployment Template for Task Sequences

Miscellaneous Improvements

  • Support for hardware inventory strings greater than 255 characters in length
  • Run scripts

Figure 4 – Run Script status

To see the complete list of new features and to get more details about it you can access the Microsoft's official documentation.

The update will be made available globally in recent weeks and will be displayed in the node "Updates and Servicing" in the SCCM console. To force the availability of this update you can use this PowerShell script.

For System Center Configuration Manager has been released the version 1803 for the Technical Preview branch. In addition to general improvements in the solution are introduced useful changes that can improve the Configuration Manager infrastructure. Furthermore, interesting improvements have been made to the Software Center. All the new features included in this update can be found in the article Update 1803 for Configuration Manager Technical Preview Branch.

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 Updates Publisher

System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP) is the Microsoft solution that allows you to manage custom third-party update. This month a new version of SCUP has been officially released and can be downloaded at this link. The new release introduces support for Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016. All details about this release can be found in the’official announcement.

System Center Operations Manager

Following, are reported the news about Management Packs of SCOM:

Evaluation of OMS and System Center

Please remember that in order to test and evaluate for free Operations Management Suite (OMS) you can access this page and select the mode that is most appropriate for your needs.

To try System Center products you can access to the’Evaluation Center and after the registration you can start the trial period.

OMS and System Center: What's New in February 2018

The month of February was full of news and there are different updates that affected Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center. This article summarizes in concise terms to have a global vision and it contains the necessary references to learn more about it.

Operations Management Suite (OMS)

Log Analytics

Everyone who uses Azure ExpressRoute will be glad to know that you can now monitor it by using the Network Performance Monitor (NPM). This feature has been in previews for a few months and has now passed in the state of general availability. Among the features of this monitor solution we find:

  • Ability to view interactively, using the topology view of NPM, the various components (network on-premises, circuit provider edge, circuit ExpressRoute, edge Microsoft, and the Azure VMs) and latency measured in each hop. This allows you to easily identify any performance issues in connectivity and quickly locate the problematic segment of communication.
  • Ability to view the bandwidth usage of primary and secondary ExpressRoute circuit . Thanks to drill-down is also possible to intercept the bandwidth usage for each vNet connected to the ExpressRoute circuit.
  • Ability to create queries and custom views thanks to the fact that all details of the solution are available in the repository of Log Analytics and therefore you can use the native search functionality and correlation to suit your needs.
  • Ability to diagnose various problems of connectivity present in ExpressRoute circuit .

Figure 1 – Azure ExpressRoute Monitoring

For more information about how to configure the ExpressRoute monitor with NPM please visit the Microsoft's official documentation.

Also in Network Performance Monitor (NPM) was introduced the Service Endpoint Monitor with the integration into the monitor and into the performance of your application also of the performance end-to-end of the network. This feature allows you to create different types of tests (HTTP, HTTPS, TCP and ICMP), that must be carried out in key points of the network infrastructure, so you can quickly identify whether the problem encountered is related to the network or is related to the application. Through the use of the network topology map the problem and its nature is easily locatable. This is a feature in public preview whose characteristics are described in detail in this article.

Agent

This month the new version ofOMS agent for Linux systems fixes some bugs and also introduces an updated version of the components SCX and OMI. To obtain the updated version of the OMS agent you can access to the official GitHub page OMS Agent for Linux Patch v 1.4.4-210.

Figure 2 – Bug fixes and what's new for the OMS agent for Linux

Azure Backup

In this article is described how to build the solution of monitor in Log Analytics for Azure Backup. With this monitor solution, you can control the main aspects of Azure Backup as the backup and restore jobs, backup alert and use of cloud storage. You can do all cross Recovery Service vault and cross subscription, being able to take advantage of the features built into Log Analytics, such as the automated opening of ticket via webhooks or through integration with ITSM. It is a community solution, and each contributed is obviously welcome.

For Azure Backup was announced (in general availability) the possibility of creating consistent backups at the application layer for Linux virtual machines running on Azure. On Windows systems this is done using the VSS component, while for Linux VM it is made available one scripting framework through which you can run the pre-scripts and post-scripts to control the backup execution.

Figure 3 – Mechanism for realization of backup application consistent in VMs Linux on Azure

For more details on this you can consult theofficial announcement, while for more information about Linux virtual machine protection in Microsoft Azure, using Azure Backup, you can view the article: Azure Backup: the protection of Linux on Azure.

Azure Backup introduces the ability to protect natively Azure File Shares. This feature is currently in Public Preview and the main features are:

  • Chance, accessing Recovery Service vault, to make the discovery of storage acccount and detect files shares unprotected.
  • Large-scale protection: there is the possibility to back up multiple file shares contained in a storage account and apply a common security policy.
  • Instant and granular restore. The protection is based on file share snapshots and this allows you to quickly restore files selectively.
  • From the Azure portal you can explore the different restore point available to easily identify which files to restore.

Figure 4 – Backup of Azure File Shares

For further information you can consult theofficial announcement.

This month has been released a Mandatory Update for the Microsoft Azure Recovery Services agent (MARS). For all those who use Azure Backup you must install this update as soon as possible to avoid failures in backup and recovery tasks.

Azure Site Recovery

In Azure Site Recovery was made available a wait functionality, that allows to protect virtual machines having managed disk, in the replication scenario between different Azure regions, allowing greater flexibility for Disaster Recovery scenarios with systems in Azure.

Figure 5 – Enabling replication of a VM with Managed Disks

System Center

As announced in the last few months and as is already the case for the operating system and Configuration Manager, also the others System Center products, in particular, Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, and Data Protection Manager will follow a release of updated versions every 6 months (semi-annual channel). This month there was the first release with the version 1801 of System Center.

Figure 6 – Summary of what's new in version 1801 of System Center

To know the details of what is new in this release, please consult the official announcement. Please remember that for belonging to the semi-annual channel support is guaranteed 18 months.

System Center Configuration Manager

Released the version 1802 for the branch Technical Preview of System Center Configuration Manager: Update 1802 for Configuration Manager Technical Preview Branch.

This release introduces a considerable number of innovations on different areas, including: OSD, Cloud Management Gateway, features of Windows 10 and Office 365, Software Center and Site Server High Availability.

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

The feature called "Updates and Recommendations", introduced in SCOM 2016 for Management Packs from Microsoft, is useful to facilitate the process of discovery of appropriate MPs to monitor different workloads present in your infrastructure and keep them updated. This feature is enabled by well over 110 Microsoft workloads. Microsoft announced that it is extending this feature also for MPs produced and offered by third parties. In release 1801 of Operations Manager are currently covered MPs of the following external partners:

Figure 7 – Feature Updates and Recommendations with MPs of partners

As a result of the release of version 1801 of System Center were also made available the following new SCOM Management Packs:

System Center Service Manager

Released an new version of the Service Manager Authoring Tool.

Evaluation of OMS and System Center

Please remember that in order to test and evaluate for free Operations Management Suite (OMS) you can access this page and select the mode that is most appropriate for your needs.

To test the various components of System Center 2016 you can access theEvaluation Center and, after registering, you can start the trial period.

Integration between Service Map and System Center Operations Manager

Service Map is a solution that you can enable in Operations Management Suite (OMS) able to automatically carry out the discovery of application components, on both Windows and Linux systems, and to create a map that shows almost real-time communications between the various services. All this allows you to view the servers as interconnected systems that deliver services.

In System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) there is the possibility to define Distributed Application to provide an overall view of the health status of an application consists of different objects. The Distributed Application does not provide additional monitor functionality, but merely to relate the state of the objects in the system monitor, to provide the overall health status of the application.

Through integration between Service Map and System Center Operations Manager, you can automatically create in SCOM diagrams that represent the Distributed Application based on the detected dependencies from the Service Map solution.

This article will examine the procedure to be followed to activate this integration bringing back the main features.

Prerequisites

This kind of integration is possible if the following requirements are verified:

  • Environment System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2 or later.
  • Workspace OMS with Service Map solution enabled.
  • The presence of a Service Principal with access to the Azure subscription that contains the OMS workspace.
  • Operations Manager-managed servers and that send data to Service Map.

Supports both Windows and Linux systems, but with one important distinction.

For Windows systems you can evaluate the use of the scenario of integration between SCOM and OMS, as described in the article Integration between System Center Operations Manager and OMS Log Analytics and simply add the Dependencing Agent of Service Map on the various servers.

For Linux systems you cannot collect directly data of agents managed by Operations Manager in Log Analytics. It will therefore always required the presence of both the SCOM agent and the OMS agent. At the moment, in a Linux environment, the two agents share some binaries, but these are distinct agents that can coexist on the same machine as long as the SCOM agent is at least version 2012 R2. OMS agent installation on a Linux system managed by Operations Manager updates the OMI and the SCX SCX. We recommend that you always install the SCOM agent first and then the OMS agent, otherwise you need to edit the configuration file of OMI (/etc/opt/omi/conf/omiserver.conf) by adding the parameter httpsport=1270. After the editing you must restart the OMI Server component using the following command: sudo /opt/omi/bin/service_control restart.

The process for activating the integration

The first step required is the import, using the System Center Operations Manager console, of the following management packs (now in Public Preview), contained within the bundle that you can download to this link:

  • Microsoft Service Map Application Views.
  • Microsoft System Center Service Map Internal.
  • Microsoft System Center Service Map Override.
  • Microsoft System Center Service Map.

Figure 1 – Start importing the Management Pack

Figure 2 – Install the Management Pack for the integration with Service Map

After completing the installation of the management pack you will display the new node Service Map, in the workspace Administration, within the section Operations Management Suite. From this node you can start the integration configuration wizard:

Figure 3 – Configuration of the OMS workspace where there is the Service Map solution

At the moment you can configure the integration with a single OMS workspace.

The wizard prompts you to specify a Service Principal for read access to the Azure subscription that contains the OMS workspace, with the Service Map solution enabled. To create the Service Principal you can follow the procedure in Microsoft's official documentation.

Figure 4 – OMS workspace connection parameters

Based on the permissions assigned to the Service Principal the wizard shows the Azure subscriptions and its associated OMS workspaces:

Figure 5 - Selection of the Azure subscription, OMS Resource Group and OMS workspace

At this point you are prompted to select which groups of machines in Service Map you want to synchronize in Operations Manager:

Figure 6 – Selection of the Service Map Machine Group to synchronize in SCOM

On the next screen you are prompted to select which servers in SCOM synchronize with information retrieved from Service Map.

Figure 7 – Selection of items of SCOM

In this regard, in order to make sure that this integration is able to create the diagram of the Distributed Application for a server, this must be managed by SCOM, by Service Map and must be present within the Service Map group previously selected .

Then you are prompted to select an optional Management Server Resource Pool for communication with OMS and if necessary a proxy server:

Figure 8 - Optional configuration of a Management Server Resource Pool and a proxy server

Registration takes few seconds after which the following screen appears and Operations Manager performs the first synchronization of Service Map, by taking the data from the OMS workspace.

Figure 9 – Addition of the OMS workspace successfully completed

The synchronization of Service Map data occurs by default every 60 minutes, but you can change this frequency going to act with an override on a rule named Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceMapImport.Rule.

Result of the integration between Service Map and SCOM

The result of this integration is visible from the Operations Manager console in the dashboard Monitoring. It is in fact created a new Service Map folder that contains :

  • Active Alerts: any active alert regarding communication between SCOM and Service Map.
  • Servers: list of servers under the monitor for which the information is synchronized from Service Map.

Figure 10 - Servers with synchronized information from Service Map

  • Machine Group Dependency Views: Displays a Distributed Application for each Service Map group selected for the synchronization.

Figure 11 – Machine Group Dependency View

  • Server Dependency Views: shows a Distributed Application for each server that synchronizes information from Service Map.

Figure 12 – Server Dependency View

 

Conclusions

Many reality that they are going to use, or have already implemented the Service Map solution also have on-premises an environment with System Center Operations Manager (SCOM). This integration will enrich the information in SCOM allowing you to have full visibility of applications and dependencies of the various systems. This is an example of how you can use the power provided by OMS actually even with SCOM, without renouncing to investments made on the instrument, such as the possible integration with IT service management solutions (ITSM).

OMS and System Center: What's New in November 2017

In November there have been several announcements from Microsoft concerning Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center. This article will summarize briefly with the necessary references to be able to conduct further studies.

Operations Management Suite (OMS)

Log Analytics

As already announced since 30 October 2017 Microsoft has launched the upgrade process of the OMS workspaces not yet updated manually. In this regard has been released this useful document that shows the differences between a legacy OMS workspace and a updated OMS workspace, with references for further details.

Solutions

Those that use circuit ExpressRoute will be glad to know that Microsoft announced the ability to monitor it through Network Performance Monitor (NPM). This is a feature currently in preview that allows you to monitor connectivity and performance between the on-premises environment and vNet in Azure in the presence of ExpressRoute circuit. For more details about the features announced you can consult theofficial article.

Figure 1 – Network map showing details of ExpressRoute connectivity

Agent

As usual it was released a new version of the OMS Agent for Linux systems that now takes place on a monthly basis. This release fixes bugs related diagnostics during agents onboarding. Are not being introduced new features. To obtain the updated version please visit the official GitHub page OMS Agent for Linux Patch v 1.4.2-124.

Protection and Disaster Recovery

Azure Backup always protected backups from on-premises world toward Azure using encryption that takes place using the passphrase defined during the configuration of the solution. To protect VMs in Azure the recommendation for greater security in the backup was to use VMs with disk-encrypted. Now Azure Backup uses Storage Service Encryption (SSE) to do the encryption of backups of virtual machines on Azure, allowing to obtain in an integrated manner in the solution a mechanism for the implementation of the backup security. This also will happen to existing backup automatically and through a background task.

Microsoft, in order to bring more clarity with regard to pricing and licensing of Azure Site Recovery, updated the FAQ which you can see in the official page of pricing of the solution.

System Center

As is already the case for the operating system and System Center Configuration Manager, the other System Center products, in particular, Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, and Data Protection Manager will follow a release of updated versions every 6 months (semi-annual channel). The goal is to rapidly deliver new capabilities and to ensure a speedy integration with the cloud world, which is essential given the speed with which it evolves. In November was announced the System Center preview version 1711 which you can download at this link.

Figure 2 – Summary of what's new in System Center preview version 1711

To know the details of the new features in this release, please consult theofficial announcement.

System Center Configuration Manager

For System Center Configuration Manager current branch version 1706 was issued an important update rollup you should apply as it solves a lot of problems.

Released the version 1710 for the Current Branch (CB) of System Center Configuration Manager that introduces new features and major improvements in the product. Among the main innovations of this update definitely emerge the possibilities offered by the Co-management that expand the possibilities for device management using either System Center Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune.

Figure 3 – Features and benefits of Co-management

For a complete list of new features introduced in this version of Configuration Manager, you can consult theofficial announcement.

Released the version 1711 for the Technical Preview branch of System Center Configuration Manager. The new features in this update are:

  • Improvements in the new Run Task Sequence step.
  • User interaction when installing applications in the System context even when running a task sequence.
  • New options, in the scenario of using Configuration Manager associated with Microsoft Intune, to manage compliance policy for devices Windows 10 related to Firewall, User Account Control, Windows Defender Antivirus, and OS build versioning.

I remind you that the releases in the Technical Preview Branch allows you to evaluate in preview new SCCM functionality and is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

Released an updated version of the Configuration Manager Client Messaging SDK.

System Center Operations Manager

Released the new wave of the SQL Server Management Packs (version 7.0.0.0):

The Management Packs for SQL Server 2017 can be used for the monitor of SQL Server 2017 and subsequent releases (version agnostic), this allows you to avoid having to manage different MPs for each version of SQL Server. The controls for versions of SQL Server earlier than 2014 are included in the generic MP "Microsoft System Center Management Pack for SQL Server".

System Center Service Manager

Microsoft has published a series of tips and best practices to be followed during Authoring Management Pack of System Center Service Manager (SCSM).

Please remember that in order to test and evaluate for free Operations Management Suite (OMS) you can access this page and select the mode that is most appropriate for your needs.

OMS and System Center: What's New in October 2017

This article lists the main changes announced in October concerning Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center. This is a concise summary that contains the necessary references for further study.

Operations Management Suite (OMS)

Log Analytics

In Log Analytics in August was released a major update that introduces a number of changes, as the powerful new query language, the introduction of the new Advanced Analytics portal and greater integration with Power BI. For further information you can consult the specific article Log Analytics: a major update evolves the solution. During the month, Microsoft announced that from 30 October 2017 is started automatically the upgrade process of the OMS workspaces not yet updated manually. Everything will be done in a gradual way for region according to the schedule below:

Figure 1 - Scheduling for rollout of the upgrade of Log Analytics

Also starting from 16 October 2017 the new OMS workspaces are already build in the new mode and there is no possibility to create a legacy workspace. For further information you can consult the article Azure Log Analytics workspace upgrades are in progress.

Solutions

Thanks to the solution Azure Log Analytics Container Monitoring for the Service Fabric under Linux now you can:

  • Centralize and correlate logs that are related to containers.
  • For containers and nodes display in almost real-time metrics for CPU, memory, storage and network utilization.
  • Identify containers with excessive use of resources.
  • Control the use of process-wide resources (Docker container top).
  • See an inventory of the container node that contains information about the Orchestration.

Figure 2 – Container Monitoring solution for Linux Service Fabric

The presence of an Azure Resource Manager (ARM) template that lets you create a new Log Analytics Workspace and install during the deployment the OMS agent on all nodes of the Service Fabric cluster facilitates the activation of the monitor. At the end of the cluster deployment simply add to the workspace of Log Analytics the solution Container Monitoring available in Azure Marketplace, and in a few minutes will be available in Log Analytics information on the Service Fabric. For further information you can consult the article Azure Log Analytics Container Monitoring solution for Linux process Fabric.

By using the Azure Action Groups you can use the Log Analytics solution IT Service Management Connector Solution to automatically open incident in your product or service of IT Service Management (ITSM), if properly supported, against alert generated in the Azure environment. The steps to configure this new feature is documented in the ad Send your Azure alerts to ITSM tools using Action Groups.

Agent

Released a new version of the OMS agent for Linux systems that mainly has solved some bugs and introduced some useful improvements. For more details and to get the updated version please refer to the official GitHub page OMS Agent for Linux GA v 1.4.1-123

Figure 3 – Bug fixes and what's new for the OMS agent for Linux

Azure Automation

As for Azure Automation have been announced, currently in preview, exciting new features:

  • Update management: it allows you to have visibility on the updates compliance for both Windows and Linux systems, regardless of their location (Azure, on-premises or others cloud). It also allows you to schedule the deployment to install the updates within a specific maintenance window. Among the features offered is the ability to exclude specific updates from the deployment and retrieve logs for the deployment useful for troubleshooting.
  • Inventory: it allows you to retrieve inventory information about the installed applications within systems. All this can easily be accessed directly from the portal Azure.
  • Track changes: useful for monitoring changes made to systems for services, daemons, software, registry and files. This feature can be very useful to diagnose specific problems and to enable alerts against unexpected changes.

Figure 4 – New features in preview of Azure Automation

For further details please consult the specific article What's New in Azure Automation: Inventory, Change Tracking and Update Management.

Azure Automation also introduces the ability to implement runbook written in Python 2 and adds support for the role Hybrid Runbook Worker under Linux. These features are currently in public preview.

System Center

TheUpdate Rollup 4 for Microsoft System Center 2016 has been released.

These are the System Center products affected by the update that resolves several issues and introduces some improvements:

The Update rollup 4 introduces support for the security protocol TLS 1.2 for all encrypted communications. Earlier versions of TLS and SSL encryption mechanisms are not considered with a high level of security, for this reason Microsoft has decided to introduce for the following System Center products official support for the security protocol TLS 1.2:

  • System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)
  • System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)
  • System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM)
  • System Center Orchestrator (SCO)
  • Service Management Automation (SMA)
  • Service Provider Foundation (SPF)
  • System Center Service Manager (SM)

Enabling TLS 1.2 requires that you follow the following macro step:

  1. Install security updates for Windows Server, .NET 4.6 and SQL Server.
  2. Install the Update Rollup 4 of System Center 2016 on the different components. Regarding Service Management Automation (SMA) and Service Provider Foundation (SPF) you still need to apply the latest Update Rollup available. In addition to SMA you need to update its Management Pack.
  3. Change the settings to enable TLS 1.2 in the Windows environment on all System Center components.
  4. Adapt the System Center component-specific settings that require it (SCOM, SCDPM and SCO).

For more details you can follow the specific deployment guide.

System Center Configuration Manager

Released version 1709 for the branch Technical Preview of System Center Configuration Manager: Update 1709 for Configuration Manager Technical Preview Branch – Available Now!

The new features in this update are:

  • Co-management: solution that allows the management of devices using either System Center Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune. Thanks to Windows 10 Fall Creators Update there is the opportunity to join the device both to the Active Directory domain (AD) on-premises and to Azure AD in the cloud. This expands the possibilities for management of devices using the Configuration Manager client and the MDM agent of Intune.

Figure 5 – Co-Management from the SCCM console

  • Improvement regarding the use of SCCM connected to Intune for the management of the mobile devices with regard to the settings of VPN profiles. With this update, in fact while creating a new VPN profile shows only the appropriate settings for the platform that you intend to configure. More details about you can retrieve them in this article.

Also released version 1710 always for the branch Technical Preview of System Center Configuration Manager. The many innovations introduced with this update are available in the announcement Update 1710 for Configuration Manager Technical Preview Branch – Available Now!.

I remind you that the releases in the Technical Preview Branch allows you to evaluate in preview new SCCM functionality and is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

System Center Operations Manager

In the table below the news about SCOM Management Pack 2016:

The changes introduced by these new MPs can be found in the article DHCP 2016 and 2012 R2 Management Pack release.

System Center Orchestrator

Released the latest version of’Integration Pack for System Center 2016.

To test and evaluate for free Operations Management Suite (OMS) you can access this page and select the mode that is most appropriate for your needs.

OMS and System Center: What's New in August 2017

This article summarizes the main new features and includes upgrades, concerning Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center, that were announced during the month of August.

Operations Management Suite (OMS)

Log Analytics

  • For Log Analytics was published what may be called the most significant upgrade from the date of issue. Among the main changes introduced by this update there is a new powerful query language, the introduction of the new Advanced Analytics portal and greater integration with Power BI. For more details, I invite you to consult the specific article Log Analytics: a major update evolves the solution.

Figure 1 – Upgrade of Log Analytics

Agent

  • The agent who for Linux systems is constantly evolving and we released a new version that has fixed some bugs and improved error handling during onboarding of agent for easier troubleshooting: OMS Agent for Linux GA v 1.4.0-45

Figure 2 – Bug fixes and what's new for the OMS agent for Linux

Solutions

  • The OMS solution Network Performance Monitor has been improved and enhanced with the following new features:
    • The diagnostic agent: the solution now provides the ability to monitor in a specific view the health status of various agents deployed on the network and in case of problems NPM reports useful diagnostic information for troubleshooting.
    • Hop-by-hop latency breakdown: the topology map of the network has been enriched with details of timings found between two specific points.
    • Availability on the Azure Portal: as well as continuing to be available from OMS can be added from the Marketplace Azure and used directly by the Azure Portal.
    • Presence in additional region of Azure: the solution is now also available for the region Azure West Central US.

For more details see the announcement Improvements to the who Network Performance Monitor.

  • The emerging technology is becoming more widespread and monitor containers Docker becomes an essential component. For this reason the OMS team announced the availability of the new solution Container Monitoring that allows you to:
    • Display in a unique location information for all hosts container.
    • Learn which containers are running, where I am and with which image.
    • See audit information concerning action taken on container.
    • View and search logs for troubleshooting without needing access to hosts Docker.
    • Locate the containers that are consuming an excessive amount of resources on the host.
    • Display performance information centrally about the container about CPU usage, of memory, storage and network.

Figure 3 – Synthesis pathway of solution Container Monitoring

Full details on the solution Container Monitoring you can consult them in the document Container Monitoring solution in Log Analytics.

  • Released in preview the new solution for the monitoring of Azure Logic Apps. The solution displays various information about the status of logic app and then drill down to see details useful for troubleshooting. All aspects of this solution you can consult them in Microsoft's official documentation.

Security and Audit

  • The baseline assessment of OMS Security is enhanced with functionality Web security baseline assessment that was announced in public preview and lets you scan the web server with Internet Information Services (IIS) to check for security vulnerabilities and provides useful recommendations regarding the correct environment setup. The document Baseline Assessment in Operations Management Suite Web Security and Audit Solution shows additional information about.

Figure 4 – Assessment dashboard of Web security baseline

 

System Center

System Center Configuration Manager

  • Last month it was released version 1706 for the Current Branch (CB) System Center Configuration Manager as described in the article OMS and System Center: What's New in July 2017. In date 8 August was released a package update to correct some errors that were encountered during the first deployment, but this package introduced problems therefore on 11 August has been replaced with a new version. For those who have updated SCCM to version 1706 between August 8 and August 11 you need to install an additional update as documented in Microsoft knowledge base article Update for System Center Configuration Manager version 1706, first wave. This update can be installed by accessing the node "Updates and Servicing" of the SCCM console. A further update will be released in the coming week to who made the SCCM update to version 1706 prior to August 8.
  • Released version 1708 for the branch Technical Preview of System Center Configuration Manager: Update 1708 for Configuration Manager Technical Preview Branch – Available Now!. I remind you that the releases in the Technical Preview Branch allows you to evaluate in preview new SCCM functionality and is recommended to apply these updates only in test environments.

System Center Operations Manager

Following the news about the SCOM Management Pack 2016:

  • Advanced Threat Analytics 1.7 Management Pack version 1.7.1.1.
  • Service Map Management Pack in public preview: Thanks to this new MP you can integrate maps are created dynamically by the OMS Service solution Map with diagrams of the Distributed Application in Operations Manager to ensure that the latter are dynamically generated and maintained.

For more information I invite you to consult related documentation available online.

Figure 5 – Integration of the Service Map of who and the SCOM Distributed App

  • Available a hotfix to solve some problems related to the WMI monitor health.