Omar's Blog on Systems Management: 2008年1月

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1月22日

SCSM: All quiet at the Service Manager front?

It has been a while since Microsoft has released any information about System Center Service Manager. The product team of Ken van Hyning and Stefan Negritolu (ITIL integration lead) had released their first (and only) public beta in june 2007. I have been told that there has been 'a reset with the project' and more information will follow @ MMS 2008. Understandably, there was no much more elaboration on the reasons for this situation.

At MMS 2007 it looked like if the SM team (and I do hope that MSFT does not change the product name Knipoogje

) had their stuff together. but I remember the discussion at the thursday session (it was about the database) where the 'techies' were confronted with the 'process' people. After a quite well executed presentation, a young lady came up to the Microphone and asked: "What do you consider to be the configuration database?" - The presenters looked startled and there was applause from the audience...

In basic: SCSM will use (or would? Let's go on in present tense) a single database for storing process information (eg. the call logged from the SD rep, RfC's, Asset information) and it's own operational information (e.g. workflows how to get from a software request to automaticly deploy the software using SC ConfigMan). The core of the question was: who owns the process information an can it - from a formal standpoint - be contained in one database? This caviat could become a mayor issue if you want to implement SCSM in an ITIL compliant organization.

Ownership will be a principal discussion. In ITIL, the process (Change Management Asset Management etc. - and it's information) is owned by the relevant manager. Operational procedures are mostly executed by administrators or 'officers'. These people are in charge of controlling and verifying are are often non-technical specialists or back-office personel. ITIL is quite strong on the part of separating procedure and IT-operations. This implies that no single database can be used to store both.

Another aspect is the fact that the data that is generated , is becoming 'business information'. The cumulative information from the processes (e.g. a Change process answers in general "Who-When-Where-What-How Much?), can give some insight on the financial 'household' of the IT department. Especially good asset management and release management can be money savers. Imagine Clickmaster J. owning your asset information and all accompanied cost-center information? I don't think so!

Of course the techies came up with technical solutions as database partitioning and a security context but that is not the answer. You can delegate control over an OU to Clickmaster J. but that does not mean that he is really responsible. Formally, at the end the AD admin is. And that is what ITIL is essentially all about: Formality to sustain that open view on IT operations and avoid actions that might knock-out the core business of your organization.

Let's wait untill MMS 2008 to see if the SM team will 'take the pain to gain' and if they will adress this issue.

1月21日

SCCM: Maintenance Windows Explained

In ConfigMgr there is a new feature that hasn’t gotten much attention called Maintenance Windows. This is a feature that I have heard numerous requests for and it gets a bit closer to the infamous ‘Big Red Button’.

SCCM: International Client Packs (ICP) available

Finally, they 're here!

ICP's are used to present the SCCM client interface in the same language as the client locale. So your French and German collegues will be happy again! Dowload can be done at

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9DF19109-C067-46C7-89F6-1B3D17D6F615&displaylang=en

8:23 | 添加评论 | 固定链接 | 写入日志 | System Center Configuration Manager, SCCM, ConfigMan

1月15日

SCCM: PXE Service Point setup procedure

By request, a step-by-step procedure how to configure a PSP. I'll presume that you will add the PSP role on one of your current Site Systems, otherwise you need to know how to add a new Site System to a Site.

On the Site System (Windows 2003 SP 2) server that will act as the PSP, go to Add or Remove Programs (Control Panel), Add/Remove Windows components and select Windows Deployment Services. Click next to start the installation. Keep installation source at hand, the wizard will ask for it's location. At the end of the installation, click Finish and reboot the server.
After reboot is complete Do Not Configure WDS using any GUI that is added during installation.
From the SCCM console select the site system and add the PSP role. Verify that no errors have occurred using status messages and logs.
From the SCCM console deploy the boot-images to the SMSPXEIMAGES$ share that is mentioned in the Distribution Point wizard. If you have multiple PSP in your environment, you will see multiple SMSPXEIMAGES$ shares (on different servers ;-)).
As a final check, verify if the REMINST share is available on your PSP's. You'll find the SMSPXEIMAGES$ share as a subdir.

SCCM: No DHCP offer for PXE boot (bare metal) in a central DHCP / local PSP environment

Just a benign issue, but when you are starting with SCCM OS deployment, it is a good one to look up for troubleshooting

I just got off the phone talking to one of my infra architect collegues who is responsible for the design and realization of a new environment. I contributed with my first SCCM design, including PSP (WDS) functionality for all locations, but with a central DHCP. In this case you need extra IP helpers to forward DHCP requests to the central DHCP and to the local PSP.

When trying to deploy a new OS to a 'bare metal' system, they ran into the situation that they did not get a DHCP offer for that system. They first thought it might be a problem with the DHCP forwarders, but all other production systems worked well. They discovered that the system wasn't added to the SCCM database, which caused the PSP not to react to the request.

1月14日

SCCM: PXE Service Point (PSP) installation issues

Setting up a PXE Service Point (PSP) for the first time in SCCM can be quite confusing. The SCCM help files contain quite a lot of information. But for me, the information on how to configure components as WDS or WSUS is too limited. I found the correct procedure on the SCCM newsgroup but that did not save me from some interesting issues that one might run in to.

I Hosted my RIS service on the same server was hosting my SMS 2003 server ) and that went well. For SCCM (Tried to upgrade, went sour and did a clean install of SCCM) I needed the WDS service, so I installed SVR 2003 SP2 as prereq for SCCM and upgraded my RIS installation. WRONG!

If you plan to host your PSP on the same machine that is currently your RIS/WDS server, I would recommend to transfer this functionality to another machine for the time being. SCCM PSP and 'flat' RIS/WDS solutions do not work together well because both will want to answer to PXE requests, but WDS was first… . The funny part is that you can actually activate the PSP role and setup the SCCM boot image distribution point (SMSPXEIMAGES$) that will be created under the existing REMOTEINSTALL directory (REMINST share), but ‘Nice try – No cigar’. Yet.

I did the URIA tango (Uninstall-Reboot-Install-Again) a few times for WDS service (thought I had to configure it, but no, just install it and do not touch any WDS interface) and finally activated the PSP role when I noticed that the component failed to install (PXEMSI.log: Error 25020. Setup failed because it could not configure WDS. The error code is 0004005’)

It seemed that the URIA's for WDS caused the creation of multiple Remote Install folders on different drives of my SCCM server. After removing these and underlaying folders (check if the REMINST share and SMSPXEIMAGES$ shares are deleted!) and a final WDS URIA the PXE service point installed correct.

BTW: When you activate the PSP role, it will create the remoteinstall and underlaying SMSPXEIMAGES$ share on the disk with the highest amount of free disk space. I have not tried to place no_sms_on_drive.sms to counter this behaviour. But would it not be nice to configure this through the SCCM interface?