Category Archives: Virtual Machine Manager

System Center: What's New in April 2020

In this summary, that we report on a monthly basis, the main announcements regarding System Center are listed, accompanied by the necessary references to be able to conduct further studies on.

System Center Operation Manager (SCOM)

SCOM 2019: Hotfixes for alert management

For SCOM 2019 UR1 was introduced this hotfix which solves several issues regarding the management of alerts.

SCOM 2016: Update Rollup 9

The Update Rollup 9 and for SCOM 2016 introduces fixes to different issues, for more information on this, you can see the specific KB.

New dashboards for the Azure Management Pack

Using the Azure Management Pack (MP) you can monitor Azure subscriptions and resources from SCOM. SCOM's console natively shows alerts and resource status collectively in a single view, without providing the ability to apply filters of any kind. The introduction of the new dashboards resolves this limitation. These are the main benefits introduced:

  • View Azure resources in SCOM in a similar way to the Azure portal.
  • Easily filter and locate resources.
  • Instantly view subscriptions, resource groups and alerts for each Azure resource.
  • Possibility to have modern dashboards with sorting functionality, layout, filter and search.

Adopting these new dashboards requires SCOM 2019. In this link you can access the information you need to activate and configure your Azure MP.

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)

SCVMM 2016: Update Rollup 9

The Update Rollup 9 for SCVMM 2016, in addition to remedying some problems, it introduces the following functions:

  • Ability to deploy Ubuntu Virtual Machines 18.04.
  • VM Connect Console Support Using 'Enhanced Session'

For further details please visit the specific KB.

System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM)

SCDPM 2016: Update Rollup 9

The’Update Rollup 9 for SCDPM 2016 in addition to a correction on the pruning jobs, it introduces the following changes:

  • Add an authentication layer for what you consider critical. You will be asked for a security PIN when operations are performed like Stop Protection with Delete data.
  • Adding the parameter -CheckReplicaFragmentation property cmdlet Copy-DPMDatasourceReplica, which calculates the percentage of fragmentation for a replica.

System Center Service Manager (SCSM)

SCSM 2016: Update Rollup 9

The Update Rollup 9 for SCSM 2016 only introduces fixes to problems, for information about it, you can consult the specific KB.

System Center Evaluation

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

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in September 2019

Even in September it was announced by Microsoft news regarding the Azure management services and System Center. Our community publishes this summary monthly to provide an overview of these new features. In this way you can stay up-to-date on these topics and have the necessary references to conduct further investigations.

Azure Site Recovery

New Update Rollup

For Azure Site Recovery was released theUpdate Rollup 40 that solves several issues and introduces some improvements. The details and the procedure to follow for the installation can be found in the specific KB.

Azure Backup

Support for disks up to 30 TB

For Azure Backup has been announced the support in public preview for large Managed disks, up to 30TB. For further information you can consultthis article.

System Center

New Update Rollup for System Center 2016

Microsoft has released the Update Rollup 8 (UR8) for System Center 2016. This is the second update rollup of the year and includes updates for the following products, mainly aimed at solving problems:

System Center Configuration Manager

New releases for the Technical Preview Branch

For Configuration Manager was released the update 1909 one of the main innovations is the creation of orchestration groups, to better control the deployment of software updates. The Orchestration Groups are designed to give you more flexibility when upgrading devices, including the ability to run PowerShell scripts before and after the update deployment phase.

To check the details of what's included in these updates, you can see 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.

Evaluation of Azure and System Center

To test and evaluate free of charge the service offered by Azure you can access this page, while to try out the various components of System Center you must Access to theEvaluation Center and, after registering, you can start the trial period.

Azure management services and System Center: What's New in March 2019

In March there have been several news announced by Microsoft on the Azure management services and System Center. In this summary, that we report on a monthly basis, there are listed all the main news, accompanied by the necessary references to be able to conduct further studies.

Azure Monitor

Availability in Central Canada and UK South

The new service that allows you to monitor the virtual machines, called Azure Monitor for VMs, is also available in Central Canada and UK South.

Azure Log Analytics

Availability in new regions

Azure Log Analytics is now available in the regions of Azure China, Australia East and Central Australia. It is also available in Public Preview in the following regions: France Central, Korea Central and North Europe.

Azure Site Recovery

Support for storage accounts protected with firewall rules

In Azure Site Recovery was introduced support for storage accounts that are configured with firewall rules for the Virtual Networks, in replication scenarios from VMware or physical systems to Azure.

Support for managed disks in replication scenarios with VMWare and physical systems

Azure Site Recovery now supports disaster recovery of VMware virtual machines and physical systems, replicating directly towards the managed disks. This avoids creating and managing different storage accounts target for the replica of these systems. The on-premises data are sended to a cache storage account in the target region and written in managed disk by Site Recovery.

New Update Rollup

For Azure Site Recovery was released theUpdate Rollup 35 which it addresses several issues and introduces some improvements. The details and the procedure to follow for the installation can be found in the specific KB 4494485.

Azure Backup

In Azure Backup was officially released the functionality to back up the SQL Server installed in Azure IaaS virtual machines.

Figure 1 – Azure Backup Features for SQL Server in Azure VMs

Among the benefits of this solution there are:

  • Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 15 minutes
  • Point-in-time restores: to make easy and rapid the recovery operations of the DBs.
  • Long-term retention: ability to keep backups for years.
  • Protection of encrypted databases: chance to make the backup of encrypted SQL databases and safely keep via an encryption at rest integrated into the solution. All backup and restore operations are managed by role-based access control mechanism.
  • Auto-protection: is handled automatically the detection and the protection of new databases.
  • Management and monitoring: allows to carry out a centralized management and monitoring the protection status of the systems.
  • Cost savings: are not required infrastructure costs and allows to easily scale to meet your needs.

System Center

Released System Center 2019

The main novelty regarding System Center is the release in general availability of the major release of System Center 2019. This is the release belonging to the long term servicing channel (LTSC) that will be supported for 10 years and that introduces full support for Windows Server 2019.

Starting from this release, Microsoft has decided to change the System Center product release policies. There will be no more releases in the Semi-Annual Channel (SAC) and new features, before the next release Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC), can be obtained via Update Rollup.

System Center 2019 supports upgrade from the two recent Semi-Annual Channel releases (SAC), System Center 1801 and System Center 1807 as well as System Center 2016.

Customers who have a valid license of System Center 2019 can download it from the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC).

Among the main features of System Center 2019 we find:

Virtual Machine Manager

  • Integration in VMM with Azure Update Management simplifies patching of virtual machines
  • Dynamic Storage Optimization in VMM enables higher availability of workloads
  • VMM now provides health and operational status of storage disks in Hyper Converged as well as disaggregated deployment
  • New RBAC role in VMM ensures that IT admins can be provided access commensurate with their role and no more
  • Support for latest versions of VMware in VMM (to enable migration to Hyper-V)

Operations Manager

  • SCOM supports integration with Azure services – Dependency Map (Service Map) provides comprehensive visibility of dependencies across servers along with health.
  • Azure Management Pack integrates alerts and performance metrics for Azure resources in SCOM
  • Along with modernized and extensible SCOM web console, subscriptions and notifications are now modernized with support for HTML based email
  • Maintenance schedules in SCOM with SQL server AlwaysOn
  • Update and recommendations for Linux workloads enables discovery of up-to-date MPs for Linux environments
  • Linux monitoring is now resilient to SCOM management server failover
  • All Windows Server Management Packs now support Windows Server 2019

Data Protection Manager

  • Faster backups with DPM with a 75% increase in speed and a monitoring experience for key backup parameters via Log Analytics.
  • DPM further supports backup of VMWare VMs including to tape

More news

  • Orchestrator supports PowerShellv4 +
  • Service Manager has an enhanced AD connector
  • Support for service logon across the System Center suite aligning with security best practices

More information about it can be consulted in the article System Center 2019 is now in general availability.

System Center Configuration Manager

Released version 1902 for the Current Branch

There are many new features in this release designed to enrich and improve different features of the solution. To get the complete list of new features introduced with this build, you can consult this official document. The transition to version 1902 can be done by following the installation checklist, at the end of which it is appropriate to continue with the Checklist post-update.

System Center Operations Manager

Management Packs

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

  • System Center Management Pack for Message Queuing version 7.1.10242.0
  • System Center Management Pack for Microsoft Azure Stack version 1.0.3.11
  • System Center Management Pack for SharePoint Server 2019 version 16.0.11426.3000

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.

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

In December have been announced, by Microsoft, a significant number of news regarding Azure management services 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.

Azure Monitor

The service Azure Monitor for containers is now available to monitor the health and performance of Kubernetes cluster hosted on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Azure Monitor for containers gives you complete visibility on the performance, collecting metrics on memory and processor of controllers, of the nodes and containers. Also collects the logs of containers. After you enable the monitor for Kubernetes clusters, metrics and logs are automatically collected by a Log Analytics agent version for containers for Linux and stored in a workspace of Log Analytics.

Over the past few months solutions of monitoring, management and security, available from the Operations Management Suite (OMS), have been incorporated into the Azure Portal. Starting from 15 January 2019 the OMS portal will be permanently withdrawn and you will need to use the Azure portal. Before this date you should complete the following steps:

For more details you can refer to this Microsoft's document.

Azure Log Analytics, now part of Azure Monitor, is now available in the Azure region of West US 2.

In January by selecting views and Log Analytics solutions, you will use the new Azure Monitor Logs UX, that provides a query editor more functional and improvements in views.

Azure Site Recovery

For Azure Site Recovery was released theUpdate Rollup 31 introducing new versions of the following components:

  • Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Unified Setup (version: 9.20.5051.1): used for replication scenarios from VMware to Azure.
  • Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Provider (version 5.1.3700.0): used for replication scenarios from Hyper-V to Azure or to a secondary site.
  • Microsoft Azure Recovery Services Agent (version 2.0.9144.0): 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 (5.1.3300.0) and later.

The Update Rollup 31 for Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Unified Setup applies to all systems that have installed the version 9.16.4860.1 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 the specific KB 4478871.

In Azure Site Recovery is also introduced the ability to update the Mobility Agent installed aboard Azure virtual machines, in the replication scenario of VMs in Azure. Whereas Azure Site Recovery releases an update that introduces new features and enhancements every month, the ability to maintain automatically updated infrastructure is especially convenient. These updates do not require restarting the virtual machines and have no impact on the systems replication. By enabling automatic update, the process takes place via a runbook, within an automation account, created in the same subscription of the vault. By dafult the runbook runs at 12:00 AM, but the schedule can be changed at will.

Figure 1 - Enablng automatic update in the activation phase

Figure 2 – Enabling automatic update in the Revovery Service vault

Another important feature introduced in Azure Site Recovery is the ability to replicate and fail over to other regions of virtual machines that belong to Availability Zones. Such functionality has been made available for all Azure regions that support Availability Zones.

Azure Backup

In Azure backup was simplifies the procedure to perform the restore of virtual machines, introducing the feature In-Place restore of disks, which allows to restore the disks of a virtual machine, without the need to create a new system. To do this simply select the following option at restore time:

Figure 3 – In-Place restore from the Azure Portal

Currently this feature is supported only for VMs managed unencrypted. There isn't currently support for generalized VMs and for VMs created using custom images, but this feature is definitely going to increase functionality.

In Azure Backup there is the possibility to activate the protection of SQL Server installed on a virtual machine Azure. In this area of functionality has been added Auto-protection and, if activated, lets make the discovery and protection of all the databases that will be added on that instance of SQL Server, standalone or in an Always On availability group.

Figure 4 – Auto-protect SQL databases with Azure Backup

System Center

System Center Virtual machine Manager

The installation of the following updates 'KB4467684', 'KB4478877', 'KB4471321' or 'KB4483229' on a host Windows Server 2016 managed by SCVMM, may mean that SCVMM is no longer able to enumerate or manage Logical Switch configured on the host. The problem is the fact that the above updates remove the registration of WMI classes used by SCVMM agent to enumerate and manage Logical Switch on the host. The solution is to record the classes in the WMI repository, as reported by this article.

System Center Configuration Manager

Released the version 1811 for the branch Technical Preview of System Center Configuration Manager.

Through the major new features in this release are the ability to insert code PowerShell as a Task Sequence step, thus eliminating the need to create and distribute the package to run PowerShell commands.

Figure 5 – PoerShell code injection in a Task Sequence

In this release are covered further innovations that can be found in 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.

For the branch Technical Preview System Center Configuration Manager has been released version 1812. All that's new in this release can be found in this Microsoft's document. Please note that the Technical Preview releases Branch help you evaluate the new features of SCCM, so that you can investigate and provide feedback to the product team. These updates is recommended only apply them in test environments.

System Center Operations Manager

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

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.

System Center: guide to release options and roadmap

For System Center products you have the option of choosing two different release: Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) or Semi-Annual Channel. In this article will be reported the features of each release model and what aspects should be taken into consideration to make the most correct choice. You will also see planned roadmap for releases of System Center products.

Characteristics of Semi-Annual Channel

The release channel defined Semi-Annual Channel is characterized by these elements:

  • Are released approximately two product releases every year. This releases include new features, improvements and resolution of issues.
  • The versions are identified by a four-digit number, two for the year and two for the month. To date, two versions have already been released, the 1801 (January 2018) and the 1807 (July 2018).
  • Given the rapid release cycles, there are not expected Update Releases (UR) for products belonging to this release channel.
  • The Semi-Annual Channel releases have a support of 18 months from the date of publication.
  • The use of products released in the Semi-Annual Channel is only open to Microsoft customers with a Software Assurance contract.

Considering the constant releases and the support period not particularly long, it follows that this channel is suitable for customers with the aim to innovate in a constant and fast way, to keep up with the rapid evolution of the cloud.

Characteristics of Long Term Servicing Channel (LTSC)

The release model defined Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) has the following features:

  • A new major version of System Center is released approximately every two or three years. The latest version is now System Center 2016 and in the future will be released System Center 2019.
  • In the LTSC products receive updates, inclusive of security updates, through Update Releases (UR). The Update Releases (UR) do not contain the new features included in the releases belonging to the Semi-Annual Channel, which will be incorporated into the next release in the Long-Term Servicing Channel.
  • The products belonging to the LTSC have 5 years of mainstream support and more 5 years of extended support.
  • Products belonging to the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) may be adopted by customers regardless of the licensing model that adhered (Software Assurance is not needed).

The use of the products in the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) is appropriate in case you want to have a longer period of service of products and greater stability of the services functionality.

Additional considerations

In terms of compatibility, unless several communications, the minimum requirements to use System Center products belonging to the Semi-Annual Channel are the same as the latest version of the System Center product released in Long-Term Servicing Channel.

Customers with Software Assurance can do theupgrade of products of System Center 2016 or 2012 R2 to System Center products released in the Semi-Annual Channel model. Upgrading from release of the Semi-Annual Channel towards release belonging to the LTSC is not supported.

System Center roadmap

For System Center products was announced by Microsoft the following roadmap:

Figure 1 – System Center Roadmap

The figure below lists the currently available versions of the System Center products, with a summary of the main features introduced.

Figure 2 – Current versions of System Center and main features

In addition to the upcoming release of the Update Release 6 of System Center 2016, in the coming year will be released System Center 2019 and the new release belonging to the Semi-Annual Channel. These releases introduce new functionality to provide integration and full support of Windows Server 2019. Following, there are the next planned releases for System Center:

Figure 3 – Future releases of System Center and main features

Other useful references

Conclusions

With this release model of new versions of System Center products, you should make a careful choice by establishing the most suitable for your needs and your business model. To do it in the best way you should be aware of the characteristics of each model and all that it follows from this choice.

What's new in Virtual Machine Manager 1807

Following the first announcement of the Semi-Annual Channel release of System Center, took place in February with the version 1801, in June has been released the new update release: System Center 1807. This article will explore the new features introduced in System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) the update release 1807.

Networking

Information related to the physical network

SCVMM 1807 introduced an important improvement in the field of network. In fact,, using the Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP), SCVMM can provide information regarding connectivity to the physical network of Hyper-V hosts. These are the details that SCVMM 1807 can retrieve:

  • Chassis ID: Switch chassis ID
  • Port ID: The Switch port to which the NIC is connected
  • Port Description: Details on the port, such as the Type
  • System Name Manufacturer: Manufacturer and Software version details
  • System Description
  • Available Capabilities: Available features of the system (such as switching, Routing)
  • Enabled Capabilities: Features that are enabled on the system (such as switching, Routing)
  • VLAN ID: Virtual LAN identifier
  • Management Address: management IP address

The consultation of this information can be via Powershell or by accessing the SCVMM console: View > Host > Properties > Hardware Configuration > Network adapter.

Figure 1 – Information provided by SCVMM 1807 regarding the physical connectivity of Hyper-V hosts

These details are very useful for having visibility on the physical network and to facilitate troubleshooting steps. This information will be made available for Hyper-V hosts that meet the following requirements:

  • Windows Server Operating System 2016 or later.
  • Features DataCenterBridging and DataCenterBridging-LLDP-Tools enabled.

Conversion SET in Logical Switch

SCVMM 1807 can convert a Hyper-V Virtual Switch, created in Switch Embedded Teaming mode (SET), in a logical switch, using directly the SCVMM console. In previous versions of SCVMM this operation was feasible only through PowerShell commands. This conversion can be useful to generate a Logical Switch, that can be used as a template on different Hyper-V hosts that are managed by SCVMM. For more information on Switch Embedded Teaming (SET) I invite you to consult the article Windows Server 2016: the new Virtual Switch in Hyper-V

Support for host VMware ESXi v6.5

SCVMM 1807 introduced support for VMware ESXi host v 6.5 within its fabric. For what is my experience, even in environments that consist of multiple hypervisors, hardly you use SCVMM to manage VMware host. This support is important because it introduces the ability to convert VMs hosted on VMWare ESXi host 6.5 in Hyper-v VMs.

 

Storage

Support for selecting the CSV to use when adding a new disk

SCVMM 1807 allows you to specify, during the addition of a new virtual disk to an existing VM, in which cluster shared volumes (CSV) place it. In previous releases of VMM this possibility was not provided and by default the new virtual disks were placed on the same CSV where the disks that have been associated with the virtual machine were present. In some circumstances, such as in the presence of CSV with little free space available, this behavior could be inadequate and inflexible.

Figure 2 – Adding a new disk to a virtual machine by selecting which CSV place it

Support for the update of cluster Storage Spaces Direct (S2D)

In Virtual Machine Manager 2016 there is support for making the deployment of Storage Spaces Direct cluster (S2D). With SCVMM 1807 has also introduced the possibility of patching and update of Storage Spaces Direct cluster nodes, orchestrating the entire update process, which will use the baseline configured in Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). This feature allows you to more effectively manage the Storage Spaces Direct environment, cornerstone of the Software Defined Storage of Microsoft, that leads to the achievement of the Software Defined Data Center.

 

Statement of support

Support for SQL Server 2017

In SCVMM 1807 was introduced the support for SQL Server 2017 to host its database. This allows you to upgrade from SQL Server 2016 to SQL Server 2017.

 

Conclusions

The update release 1807 introduces several innovations in Virtual Machine Manager that greatly enrich it in terms of functionality. Furthermore, This update also addresses a number of issues listed in Microsoft's official documentation. It is therefore recommended to evaluate an update of the Virtual Machine Manager deployments, for greater stability and to take advantage of the new features introduced. Remember that the release belonging to the Semi-Annual Channel have a support period of 18 months.

To try out System Center Virtual Machine Manager, you must access to 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 April 2018

Microsoft announces constantly news about Operations Management Suite (OMS) and System Center. Our community releases this summary monthly, allowing you to have a general overview of the main new features 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)

Log Analytics

Microsoft has decided to extend the Alerts in Log Analytics from OMS to the Azure Portal, centralizing on Azure Monitor. This process will be done automatically starting from 14 May 2018 (the date has been postponed, Initially it was planned for 23 April), will not result in any change to the configuration of Alerts and related queries, and it does not foresee any downtime for its implementation. For further details please consult the specific article “The extension of Log Analytics Alerts in Azure Monitor“.

Figure 1 – Notification of alerts extension in the OMS portal

To avoid situations where, the resources managed in Log Analytics may send in an unexpected way a high volume of data to the OMS Workspace, is introduced the ability to set a Daily Volume cap. This allows you to limit the data ingestion for your workspace. You can configure the Data volume cap in all regions, accessing to the section Usage and estimated costs:

Figure 2 – Setting the Daily volume cap

The portal also shows the trend of the volume of data in the last 31 days and the total volume of data, grouped by solution:

Figure 3 – Data ingestion for solution (latest 31 days and total)

Log Search API usage, used by the old Log Analytics query language, has been deprecated since 30 April 2018. The Log Search API has been replaced with theAzure Log Analytics REST API, which supports the new query language and introduces greater scalability than the results you can return. For more details on this you can consult theofficial announcement.

Agent

This month the new version ofOMS agent for Linux systems resolves a significant number of bugs and introduces new versions of the various components. It also introduced support for Debian 9, AWS 2017 and Open SSL 1.1. To obtain the updated version of the OMS agent you can access to the official GitHub page OMS Agent for Linux Patch v 1.6.0-42.

Figure 4 – Bug fixes and what's new for the OMS agent for Linux

Azure Backup

As for Azure Backup, have been announced the following improvements in service scalability:

  • Ability to create up to 500 recovery services vaults in every subscription for region (previously the limit was 25).
  • The number of virtual machines that can be registered in each vault is increased to 1000 (it was previously 200).

Azure Backup, for the protection of Azure Iaas VM, now supports the storage account secured using storage firewalls and Virtual Networks. More details about this can be found on Microsoft's official blog.

Figure 5 - Protection of Azure Iaas VM in storage protected scenarios

There are different rules to enable the long-term backup for Azure SQL Database . The procedure, to keep the backup of Azure SQL DB up to 10 years, expected saving in an Azure Recovery Vault Service. By introducing this new feature, you have the option to keep the long-term backup directly within an Azure Blob Storage and will terminate the need for a Recovery Vault Service. All this gives you more flexibility and greater control of costs. For more details about it you can see the article SQL Database: Long-term backup retention preview includes major updates.

System Center

System Center Configuration Manager

For System Center Configuration Manager has been released the version 1804 for the Technical Preview branch. In addition to general improvements in the solution this update introduce new features concerning the OSD, the Software Center and the Configuration Manager infrastructure. All the new features included in this update can be found in the article Update 1804 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 Operations Manager

Microsoft has released theUpdate Rollup 5 (UR5) for System Center 2016 Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC). This update does not introduce new features, but fixes several bugs.

Following, are the references, about this update, for each System Center product:

There are no updates regarding Service Provider Foundation.

System Center Operations Manager 1801 introduces support for Kerberos authentication when the protocol WS-Management is used from the management server for the communication with UNIX and Linux systems. This allows you to have a higher level of security, eliminating the need to enable basic authentication for Windows Remote Management (WinRM).

Also in System Center Operations Manager 1801 introduces the following improvements on the management of the Linux log file monitor:

  • Support for Wild Card characters in the name and path of the log file.
  • Support for new match patterns that allow customized searches of log.
  • Support for pluging Fluentd published by fluentd community.

Below there are the news concerning the Management Pack of SCOM:

  • MP for Windows Server Operating System 2016 and 1709 Plus 10.0.19.0
  • MP for SQL Server 2008-2012 7.0.4.0
  • MP for SQL Server 2014 7.0.4.0
  • MP for SQL Server 2016 7.0.4.0
  • MP for Microsoft SQL Azure Database 7.0.4.0
  • MP for SQL Server Dashboards 7.0.4.0
  • MP for UNIX and Linux 7.6.1085.0

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.

Virtual Machine Manager 1801: The Upgrade Process and the Possible Issue

Starting from this year for Virtual Machine Manager, as well as for other System Center products, an updated version will be released each 6 months (semi-annual channel). In February it was announced that version 1801 of System Center Virtual Machine Manager and the update is recommended to take advantage of the new features and to have greater integration with Microsoft Azure. This article describes a specific issue that you can encounter while upgrading, reporting in detail the causes and how you can resolve it.

In order to upgrade to version 1801 of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM 1801) you can not do an upgrade in place, but you must completely uninstall SCVMM maintaining the database, and perform a new installation by using the existing database. The detailed procedure is described in this Microsoft's document and it requires a careful preliminary verification of the requirements as well as to have, for precautionary purposes, a backup of the SCVMM database. If you are using more System Center products it is important to proceed with the update according to the sequence in the document.

Figure 1 - Installation Wizard Step with the use of the existing VMM DB

During the setup the installation of Virtual Machine Manager 1801 may fail with the following error: “Unable to connect to the VMM database because of a general database failure. Ensure that the SQL Server is running and configured correctly, then try the operation again“.

Figure 2 – Error during the upgrade to version 1801

As can be seen it is a generic error and to obtain further details it is necessary to consult the log of the Wizard (“C:ProgramDataVMMLogsSetupWizard.log“) which include the following details:

Figure 3 - Error reported in the installation logs

The error refers to a known issue documented in the release notes of VMM 1801:

Figure 4 – Documented known issue

The problem occurs if in the current Virtual Machine Manager installation has been changed the name of one of the port classifications present by default. In the specific case, controlling the table “[dbo].[tbl_NetMan_PortClassification]” in the Virtual Machine Manager database, there is an entry, with the ID reported in the error, that has the name that is “Management” instead of “Host management” (default name).

Figure 5 – Entry with non-default name in the table "tbl_NetMan_PortClassification"

The difficulty, when this error comes, is to accurately know which are the default names of the port classifications. For this reason we report the default port classifications that it is necessary that they are not changed in the name to successfully upgrade to SCVMM 1801.

Figure 6 – Port classifications present by default

If you are in this condition it is necessary to change the names of port classifications, above reported, bringing them all to default and then repeat the installation setup of SCVMM 1801.

When this is done the installation of SCVMM 1801 will not end with the error described above.

Figure 7 – Upgrade to SCVMM 1801 successfully completed

Changing the port classification may be temporary, and after the upgrade is possible to evaluate to name them at will.

Conclusions

This specific error condition occurs in a systematic way if there is the described situation, so it's good if you can consider it before proceeding with the upgrade of SCVMM 1801, in order to avoid it. In case you encounter the error is still possible to easily solve it with the information reported in the article.

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.