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    July 24

    Updated SQL Server Management Pack for OpsMgr 2007

    The updated SQL Server Management Pack, which resolves issues monitoring clustered SQL servers, has posted to the management pack catalog.

     

     SQL Server Management Pack for OpsMgr 2007
    July 23

    New OpsMgr 2007 extended MPs from Microsoft Consulting Services

    Check out the new extended OpsMgr 2007 Management Packs from Microsoft Consulting Services, Microsoft IT and OpsMgr Product team (not officially supported by MS):

     

    http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/2009/07/newly-released-mps-by-opsmanjam.html

     

    Here’s a summary of what’s been added to each that I extracted from the included docs:

     

     

    Extended Windows Server 2003 Internet Information Services Management Packfor OpsMgr 2007

     

    The Microsoft Extended Windows Server Internet Information Services 2003 Management Pack includes additional rules and knowledge for monitoring IIS 6.0 on Windows Server 2003 operating system.

     

    Extended Windows Server Operating System Management Pack for OpsMgr 2007 

    The following features are new in this release of the Extended Windows Server Operating System Management Pack:

    ·        Monitors for the demotion of a domain controller to a Windows member server and executes a cleanup script to remove the replication monitor objects in the directory service

    ·        Includes two Tasks to remotely shutdown and reboot of a domain controller from within the Operations Console

    ·        Includes three new alerts to notify when a Windows Server reboots from a bugcheck, performs a clean reboot, or a dirty shutdown was detected.

    Extended Windows Active Directory Management Pack for OpsMgr 2007 

     

    The following new features are new in this release of the Extended Active Directory Management Pack:

    • Monitor the Active Directory Management Pack helper object (OOMADS) to verify it is installed and working correctly. 
    • Monitor the FSMO role transfer between domain controllers.
    • Monitor the Windows Time Service (W32Time) for time synchronization issues with authoritative time source
    • Monitor for clients not authenticating against a local domain controller, indicating site boundaries are not properly defined or scoped.
    • Monitor for expensive or inefficient LDAP queries performed against a DC
    • Monitor for FRS related events that affect the health and availability of the SYSVOL shared directory and its replication on a domain controller
    •  Monitor for specific performance characteristics of a domain controller with respect to Free System Page Table Entries and Database Name Cache hit rate
    • Includes two Tasks to remotely shutdown and reboot a domain controller from within the Operations Console

     

    Extended System Center Configuration Manager Management Pack for OpsMgr 2007

     

    • Updated discovery rule to target a more appropriate class
    July 17

    Installing / Upgrading to a Windows Server 2008 Active Directory?

    If you're considering installing or upgrading to a Windows Server 2008-based Active Directory environment, there are a number of hotfixes that you'll need to consider. I've listed each of them below with brief comments as appropriate.
     
    • KB 961775 - Winsock port Exhaustion (critical for W2K8 Domain Controller replication) - SP2
    • KB 953265 - AFD Socket Exhaustion (critical for W2K8 Domain Controller replication) - not listed as part of SP2 but MAY be fixed as part of another fix.
    • KB 961099 - Legacy Security Event log provider (without this, your legacy management tools won't be able to read the Security Event log correctly)
    • KB 971330 - Legacy Application / System Event log provider (without this, your legacy management tools won't be able to read some events in the Application and System Event logs correctly)
    • KB 951116 - Memory Leak in Performance counters (required for MOM  / SCOM)
    • KB 953290 - Application may crash legacy performance counters (required for MOM / SCOM)
    • KB 958702 - SMB 2.0 throttling mechanism
    • KB 952664 - Event Log Service may stop responding (required for MOM / SCOM)
    • KB 955427 - Slow Copy performance (TCP/IP Restransmit Window)
    • KB 959816 - Sockets may stop responding
    • KB 949469 - NSPI connections from Microsoft Outlook may fail (W2K8 has set a value for NSPI that will most likely need to be increased to prevent your Outlooks clients from failing to authenticate to W2K8 Domain Controllers)

    Note that those hotfixes listed in Red are not part of Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 and will have to be applied separately.