Capacity Planner for Hyper-V Replica

Microsoft has released a tool that will help you plan your capacity for Hyper-V Replica. The tool and the documentation for it you can find here.

MP Stuck in Pending Association in MPSyncJob in Service Manager 2012 SP1

Lately it is troubleshooting period for me. My latest issue was with Service Manager and DW. After unexpected restart of the Service Manager Management Server, Service Manager Data Warehouse server and the SQL server that was holding the databases MPSyncJob couldn’t run fully and one particular MP was stuck in Pending Association. Microsoft.SystemCenter.Datawarehouse.OLAP.Base was associated successfully in another 3 batch ID’s but the last batch ID was always on Pending Association.

In the Operations Manager event log on the Data Warehouse server you will also see error 33527 appearing constantly.

So how do I solved this issue? There is a solution unfortunately it has some downsides. You can follow these steps:

1. Unregister the Service Manager DW from the Service Manager console.

2. Wait at least one day. I’ve waited two days.

4. Logon to the Analysis Services instance for the Service Manager and delete any existing cubes.

5. Register the Service Manager DW again.

6. Wait one day to see if all DW jobs are finishing successful. Check if Reporting pane is appearing in the console and it is working normally.

7. Check the Operations Manager event log for errors on the DW server.

After these steps everything should be ok with DW jobs. Keep in mind that in your case this solution might not work.

Software I’ve used:

• Windows Server 2012
• SCSM 2012 SP1 UR2
• SQL 2012 SP1

Unsupported Cluster Configuration for Virtual Machines located on SMB Share in VMM 2012 SP1

The last issue I’ve stumbled upon with System Center is with VMM component.

Symptoms

• You have SCVMM 2012 SP1 UR2 installed
• You have Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V for hosts
• You use SMB 3.0 share for storing virtual machines
• Some or all of your virtual machines does not use FQDN path to their vhd/x files
• You’ve added your File Server in VMM by FQDN or NetBIOS Name
• You receive the following error: Error (13924) The highly available virtual machine (VMNAME) is not supported by VMM because the virtual machine uses non-clustered storage.
• Some or all of your virtual machines show as Unsupported Cluster Configuration

• You may also have missing appropriate NTFS permissions on the share

Resolution

I’ve managed to resolve this issue by executing the following steps:

1. Make sure you’ve added your file server in VMM by FQDN. If it is not added by FQDN you have to add it.

2. Create new share. You can create it on the same server. Give the share appropriate permissions.

3. Locate the new share in VMM. Add it as storage location to your hosts/clusters.

4. After is added make sure it show green in the properties of the hosts/clusters.

5. Storage migrate all your virtual machines from the old share to new share. For the machines with status Unsupported Cluster Configuration you can change the status to Running by live migrating them trough the Failover Cluster console.

6. After storage migration of each virtual machine refresh it and make sure in the properties of the machine in Status tab all is green.

7. After successful migration of all virtual machines you can remove the old share from the hosts/clusters and delete it from the File Server.

 

I’ve also may had problems with the permissions on the old share but it is easier to create new share than fixing permissions on existing share with running virtual machines.

The information is provided ‘AS IS’ with no warranties and confers no rights. Keep in mind that your case may be similar and this solution may not work for you.

Software I’ve used:

• Windows Server 2012 with latest updates
• SCVMM 2012 SP1 UR2
• File Server with SMB share

Importing and Configuring System Center 2012 Service Manager MP

The System Center 2012 Service Manager MP has some pitfalls during importing and configuration that you may stumble upon. So I will describe the steps needed to be made in case the MP guide is not clear enough.

1. First you need to install the MP so you can get the following MPs extracted:

• Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Discovery
• Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Library
• Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Monitoring

2. After you have these 3 MPs extracted you have to import only Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Library

3. After the MP above is imported successfully you have to create Run As account. You can use the default action account or a separate account for tighter security. Just make sure that the account you will use has the needed permissions. You can find description of the needed permissions here on page 17. I basically make the account local administrator on Service Manager Management Servers, Service Manager DW and give db_datareader permissions to the Service Manager database and to the staging and configuration database.

4. So you create that Run As account as Windows type. Secure the account to the Service Manager Management Servers, Service Manager DW server, Service Manager database server and Service Manager DW databases servers.

5. Next you need to add the account to the Service Manager Database Account profile. Distribute it to all objects.

6. Next step is to import Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Discovery MP.

7. After it is imported successfully discovery of Service Manager will start. And here is the tricky part you have to wait until full discovery is performed before importing Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Monitoring MP. Basically you have to wait at least 24 hours to make sure discovery of Service Manager has passed fully. Trough OpsMgr console you can check if full discovery has passed.

8. Open OpsMgr console and go to Discovered Inventory view. Target it to System Center DataWarehouse 2012 Server. You should see your Service Manager DW server and if all properties are filled with values that means your Service Manager DW server is fully discovered.

9. Next Target to SCSM 2012 Management Server. You should see all your Service Manager management servers. If all properties have values for all your Service Manager Management servers that means they are fully discovered. In my case I have only one Management Server:

10. To fully verify if Service Manager was discovered you can go to Distributed Applications and open the diagram for Service Manager:

11. All Service Manager servers and database should be visible with their properties in Detail View.

12. The last step is to import Microsoft.SystemCenter.ServiceManager.Monitoring MP so the monitoring of Service Manager can start.

The software I’ve used:

• Windows Server 2012
• SCSM 2012 SP1 UR2
• SCOM 2012 SP1 UR2
• System Center 2012 Service Manager 7.5.1561.0 MP

Note: System Center 2012 Service Manager 7.5.1561.0 MP does not state that System Center 2012 Service Manager SP1 is supported but so far I haven’t discovered something that is not working properly.

Installing and Importing Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack 15.00.0620.030

After yesterday’s release of Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack I’ve managed to install it in a development environment. Here are the steps I’ve went trough:

1. Start installation and Accept License Agreement:

2. Choose installation location:

3. Import the installed MP into SCOM:

4. After the successful import you will start see you exchange servers appear in the default views:

5. After 5-10 minutes you will see all services appear as monitored:

So these are the steps. Pretty easy and simple. There are no special requirements or configurations. The MP uses the default action account for the monitoring and discovery.

Here are some of the bad news about this MP:

• I’ve received an error a couple of hours after the deployment. The error wasn’t very descriptive. It had only the error description and a link (to Technet Library) that you can visit to find more information. I couldn’t opened the link  as the page still does not exists. I guess Microsoft still hasn’t uploaded all information about the MP in TechNet.
• The MP does not collect performance data for Exchange 2013.
• The MP does not contain any reports.

Here is what I’ve used in the environment:

• SCOM 2012 SP1 UR2;
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack 15.00.0620.030;
• Windows Server 2012 with latest updates;
• Exchange 2013 CU1 in multitenant mode;

SQL Databases Properties are not Discovered by SQL Server Management Pack

I had this issue recently in two separate environments where properties for some SQL databases were not discovered by SQL Server Management Pack as you can see below:

Also collecting performance data for free space of the databases was returning zero (0):

Meanwhile in the Operations Manager log on the SQL servers I was only seeing this error:

Management Group: <MGMTGROUPNAME>.Script: DiscoverSQL2012FileGroups.js : Script ‘DiscoverSQL2012FileGroups.js’ failed.
Inner exception:
Error Number      :
Error Code        : 0
Win32 Facility    : 0
Error Description :
Call stack:Exception.constructor(Script ‘DiscoverSQL2012FileGroups.js’ failed.,Can’t close connection.
Inner exception:
Error Number      : -2146824584
Error Code        : 3704
Win32 Facility    : 10
Error Description : Operation is not allowed when the object is closed.
Call stack:Exception.constructor(Can’t close connection.,Operation is not allowed when the object is closed.
Error Number      : -2146824584
Error Code        : 3704
Win32 Facility    : 10
Error Description : Operation is not allowed when the object is closed.
), ADODB.Close),
Main({D6B26EFE-E183-24E9-DD23-F165CB716A28},{ADFFD930-BDE9-66A1-20F3-CB6FBA80CBC9},<SERVER FQDN>,<SERVER NETBIOS NAME>,MSSQLSERVER),
),
Main({D6B26EFE-E183-24E9-DD23-F165CB716A28},{ADFFD930-BDE9-66A1-20F3-CB6FBA80CBC9},<SERVER FQDN>,<SERVER NETBIOS NAME>,MSSQLSERVER),

So this was my issue but I couldn’t find where exactly was the problem. Some of the properties were discovered and there was even databases that all properties were discovered but performance data for free space was not working on all databases. This lead me think it was some kind of permissions issue but I’ve made the SCOM Action Account “SA” on all SQL servers.

How I fixed it:

1. I’ve created Run As account in SCOM.

2. Named it SQL with type Windows.

3. For credentials I’ve entered the SCOM Action Account.

4. Secured the account only to the SQL servers in my environment.

5. Added this account to these three profiles: SQL Server Default Action Account, SQL Server Discovery Account and SQL Server Monitoring Account.

After these steps all was working as it should be:

So it seems you really need to create Run As account and add it to the SQL Profiles even though the SQL Server Management Pack guide says otherwise:

By default, all discoveries, monitors, and tasks defined in the SQL Server management packs default to using the accounts defined in the “Default Action Account” Run As profile. If the default action account for a given system does not have the necessary permissions to discover or monitor the instance of SQL Server, then those systems can be bound to more specific credentials in the SQL Server Run As profiles, which do have access.

 

Keep in mind that I haven’t changed any permissions to my SCOM Action Account. This account had all SQL permissions all the time.

My Configuration was:

• Windows Server 2012 with latest updates;
• SCOM 2012 SP1 UR2
• SQL Server Management Pack 6.3.173.1
• SQL Server 2012 SP1 CU3

New MP: Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack

Exchange 2012 Management Pack was just released by Microsoft. It seems that this is completely new management pack so goodbye to the correlation engine . I’ve never liked that this management pack was some kind of different from all other Microsoft Management Packs. I hope I can test it really soon. You can test it by yourself by downloading it from here. You will not be able to download the guide for this MP as it is located in TechNet Library so here are the links:

• Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack Guide
• Exchange 2013 Management Pack Troubleshooters