個人檔案Omar's Blog on Systems M...相片部落格清單 工具 說明
12月9日

Search and you will find: ICP 1 & 2 for SCCM 2007 SP1.... :-(

I was wondering why it took so long this time before the International Client Packs (ICP) for SCCM 2007 SP1 (also R2) to come out. So today I mailed Wally Mead if he knew? Well, Wally mailed back to me that these were already available since the end of september 2008 and added a link to the page on download.microsoft.com .
 
I replied that I was happy he 'd sent me the link, but the page could not be found through the regular ConfigMan homepage > downloads page. There was only a link to the 'old' RTM ICP's and it would probably be very convenient to get the SP1 ICP's on that page too. Wally replied that he already made that request but somehow it is still not done.
 
For the ones that are still searching: here's the link to the SP1 ICP's
10月9日

SCCM 2007 R2 RTM available for evaluation and upgrade

Microsoft has released a 180 day evaluation version of SCCM 2007 R2 that can be upgraded to the full product at the end of the evaluation period. For more details check http://technet.microsoft.com/nl-nl/configmgr/cc761485(en-us).aspx

Hotfix for SCCM Task Sequence delay: KB 955955

Microsoft has released a hotfix (kb 955955) for customers who experience 'a delay' when using a task sequence to deploy 'more than 50 packages'. The hotfix sets the default 90 second pause between tasks to null.
 
The hotfix is intended for environments that are upgraded to Service Pack 1 or have hotfix 949225 installed. This hotfix was created to do introduce the 90 second delay due to the fact that SCCM 2007 RTM sometimes did not process all advertised tasks.
 
Some questions and answers are to be found in the discussion http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3877200&SiteID=17
10月2日

WDS service fails to start after reboot SCCM SP1

In multiple SCCM environments (being SCCM 2007 RTM environments that are upgraded to SP 1 on W2K3) there might be an issue with the WDS service that does not start up after the server being rebooted. On the technet forum for SCCM there are serveral reactions of people(http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3619346&SiteID=17) who have noticed the same problem in their environments. When opening services.msc and a manual start of the WDSSERVER service, the SCCM PXE related functionality is back online.
 
From the mentioned article, there is a workaround if you use a server 2008 platform, because you can set the WDSServer service to a 'delayed start', but when you use server 2003 this option is not available.
 
A few interesting observations: It seems the WDS service under the PXE Service Point still tries to start the legacy BINL service and the WDS Image server (binlsvc.dll and WdsImgSrv.dll), probably as a result of installing WDS without configuration (otherwise the PSP will not work). Both providers are set to non critical, so WDS can continue starting up.
 
It all goes wrong when SMSPXE provider errors during initialization, which is set as critical component to the WDS service. As a result the WDS service shuts down.
 
 
7月8日

Task sequence media and storage best practise

When you create your Task Sequence Media (e.g. when you want to deploy your images offline) and all goes well, you'll probably wonder why I'm getting excited about a little thing as the location SCCM uses to store the packages temporarily during compilation.
 
It's the temp folder under your user profile (%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp). In a test environment that brought me into trouble because my system drive had not enough disk space (you get a 0x80070070 error that states that SCCM failed to stage {PackageCode} in your CreateTSMedia.log). So depending how much stuff you need to pile into your image, the temp folder can easily grow to the size of the content of your average desktop / laptop system drive.
 
From a network perspective, it's interesting to understand what happens when you are working from a administrative desktop with your SCCM console. If you start to build your offline task media all necessary files and packages will be copied over the network into your %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp. Then if you selected a remote share on the network to store your images on, all that data (as one or more ISO files) will travel a second time over the network. And what happens if you decide to burn the ISO on your local DVD burner? I guess you get the point Knipoogje...
  
So what could you do as a best practise? You could consider the following:
  • SCCM has currently no native way to configure an alternative location for the temporary store. The only thing you could do is change the user variable %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp to another location.
  • Create a local share on your desktop and use it as the target directory for your ISO. This will limit network access to the minimum during the ISO creation and if you want to burn it on DVD's.
6月9日

SCCM Certificate Infrastructure example and checklist

Microsoft has published a few technet articles about the Certificates that are neccesary to have SCCM run in Native mode. They provide guidelines and a example setup of the certificate infrastructure. You can find it at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb680312(TechNet.10).aspx

A Blog @ MyITForum.com!

At the MMS 2008 I've got an invitation from Rod Trent to start a blog at MyITForum.com. Ain't that cool? As soon as I have a little more time I'll be posting my first entry over there.
6月4日

Minke: de brief uit Atascadero is voor mij

Minke, ik kan je geen mail sturen, maar de brief uit Atascadero is voor mij. Hij is van mijn oom en tante naar aanleiding van het overlijden van mijn vader. Laat aub een berichtje achter hoe ik  je kan bereiken.
6月3日

Ruff month...

It was a ruff month: the day I came home from MMS, my father passed away. After a week of arrangements and the funeral, I took some time off to spend two weeks in Spain with my family. I'm back now and I'll be taking up the postings and blogs soon again
4月30日

SCCM R2 and SoftGrid Highlight review

The full integration of MAV 4.5 (SoftGrid) and SCCM and how well it is done really makes me happy. I have made a short high light report on the most important points they have presented during MMS 2008.
 
Infrastructure integration
  • the current SVAS infrastructure has been integrated into SCCM 2007 R2. By using HTTP and Virtual directories, it is now possible to stream any application from a IIS based Distribution Point.
  • HTTP streaming: SVAS used RTSP RTP protocols to manage streaming. The session I attended wasn't suitable to ask the presenter to elaborate on how streaming was  controlled via HTTP.  I'll add some info at this point when I know more!
Console integration
  • All deployment activities are integrated into the SCCM console. MSFT took care to have all former SG UI actions to deploy applications to look like the regular work you do in SCCM when you deploy a classic application. Changes have been made to the Advertisements interface to allow streaming from an available distribution point. The DP properties window now contains a 'Streaming' tab to enable / disable streaming.

Managed installation / deinstallation will only be available for virtualized applications, so if you are a package specialist and you do understand which way the word is coming to: You know which training / specialization you should choose. 

Attached Knowledge Services technology compairs performance of your organization to others anonymously..

During the second day keynote of MMS 2008, Bratt Anderson introduced  a new concept that will launch as a Service Enabled environment, called a attached service (e.g. WSUS) . This solution is still in beta and goes by the name of Attached Knowledge Services technology.
 
The solution is focused on creating decision/business information about the effectiveness / innovation factor between organizations. Bratt Anderson described it in a recognizable way: the answer to questions about 'how are we doing IT versus other organizations? This information will be generated by SC family products: If you participate your SCCM / SCOM etc. environent generates data and will be send anonymously to a microsoft Inet location. The information will display KPI of your organisation in comparison to other organizations level of technology. This should give decision makers information on where they stand in comparison to their compatitor companies.
 
It seems an easy way for the IT pro to use this service as a foundation for roadmapping and to base future investments on it. But I get a little scaired with the idea that this information miht fall in the wrong hands... .

Intel AMT technology makes SCCM even better

During the second day key note of MMS 2008, the enhancements that will be available for SCCM R2 in combination with Intel Advanced Management Technology (AMT) were made very clear. A demo showed a few scenario's that will need on site support, but with AMT that could be history.
 
On the part of Out of band management:
  • Using a serial console, it is possible to control a system in the pre-boot environment so that BIOS setup can be done remotely
  • In data recovery scenario's, it is possible to boot the system remotely off a file. This will make possible that even local data can be saved remotely

One of the best parts is that AMT integrates with AD and uses Kerberos for Out of Band management

SCOM: Cross Platform Management

From my collegue Walter Eikenboom:
 
For SCOM 2007 he announced the Cross platform Agents and Management pack for SCOM 2007. With this announcement he made a big step into monitoring heterogeneous environment with the look and feel of the Windows Server platform.
 

MMS 2008: Generation -Y and 'That Old Admin guy'...

The keynote for the second day of MMS 2008 was presented by Brad Anderson, GM of the Management and Solutions division and focussed on the the challenges for IT for delivering service in the future. One of the key elements will be the next generation users who aren't afraid of computers; they grew up with it and experience 'mobility' as a part of their daily routine. Or as Brad put it: Now the Client is the User.... .
 
Their expectations of the service an IT organization should give are parrtially defined by the way they are used to use technology. They use their home pc, cellphone, laptop or office PC transparantly, which challenges the way the IT organization manages application deployment and data availability. Security, Centralization and Virtualization were again keywords where the solutions from the System Center family were used as examples how to get things done (Xen Desktop virtualization, SoftGrid App virtualization, Terminal Services, NAP, DCM) in a controlled environment (e.g. the Domain) with managed systems. If you are interested in a managed workspace solution that already has all these components integrated, please visit the Getronics FRW site.
 
I expect that this 'evolution' of the user will be becoming far more complicated than we are able to solve now. I am already involved in projects where organisations are being confronted with unmanaged clients and still need to deliver applications and services to what I call 'Alienated Environments'. In the next couple of weeks I will try to write some articles about the issues and possible scenario's, for example the challenges of "Bring your own hardware" environments.
 
For a full annotation of Brad's keynote see Joseph Hinkle's article
 
 
4月29日

The Virtual Data Center: VMM will manage VI3 infrastructure

In het first key note of MMS 2008, VP Bob Muglia talked about  Dynamic IT: Transforming Management and the Data Center. He confirmed that most of us already understood: Virtualization is the way to go, especially for Data Center environments. The announcement of the VM Manager Beta 2 release was followed by a short demo that showed SCVMM managing a heterogenous VM environment of Windows Hyper-V and ESX servers.  For ESX, VM Man drills into the VM tools installed on the VM machine so you are actually able to perform a guest-OS migration between ESX host servers.

OMG - I'm in 'RodneyVision'!!

At the MMS 2008 Exhibitioners opening party of last night, I ran into Rodney and his camera team and got interviewed. Rodney is the stand-up comedian who does all daily intro's @ MMS. I wasn't that sober anymore, so I wonder what it's going to be after they have edited....
 
Auwch!

SCOM: OpsMan Authoring Console released

At MMS 2008 Microsoft announced the release of the SCOM Authoring Console. The current methode (using notepad) for creating xml for Model Based Management was too difficult and did not support off-line action. This should give you the highlights:
 
  • Online / Offline authoring in SCOM
  • simplified by using wizards for service and health models

Microsoft expects great opportunities for software manufacturers and specialists to build customized models for their environments.

2010: A System Center Odyssey

Without disclosing any extra information, I can only the year 2010 will be a big year for System Center with the release of new versions. So get better reserve some money for your 2010 + budget !

SCCM SDK Arraybbuilder scheduled task

During MMS 2008, Microsoft partner DELL showed a add-on to the SCCM OS deployment tasks. Based on the SCCM SDK, they have build the array builder which configures your disk array during OSD task sequence. The most brilliant part was that the task was highly flexible: depending on the ammount of disks detected, the raid configuration could be set. For instance, if a raid set of six disks was detected, the task sequence would arrange the disks as 2x RAID 1, 3x RAID 5 and one hot spare. The same task could be used for other disk configurations, consequently configuring the raidset as defined. HP and IBM have co-operated too, providing similar task sequences for their hardware.
 
This tool I think looked awsome and would love to use it, but it seems that this SDK is only planned for (OEM) partners Tranen
 
 
erratum: I got the following mail from Jim Dempsey:
 
"Your statement that the SCCM SDK is not planned for public release is incorrect.  It has been available for public download for over a month: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=064A995F-EF13-4200-81AD-E3AF6218EDCC&displaylang=en . If you're talking about the OEM toolkit, that's a different story, and I don't really have any information on it other than the fact that it was created using the standard SDK.  So even if it is not available other than to OEMs, you can still accomplish the same things with the SDK."
 
I would like to thank Jim for correcting this part. All I can say is that the session I attended was quite confusing because the presenter added some humor and other statements during his presentation that I must have misunderstood. The folks at DELL told me that they are going to add some of they task sequences to their Website shortly just for 'evaluation resons'.
 

MMS 2008: SCSM gets three databases!

At MMS 2008 the SCSM team opened up about the issues that resulted in a reset of the SC Service Manager. Poor performance (database tables) and tooling that did not worked as well as thought up, meant a complete redo of SCSM.
 
One of the redesigned features of SCSM is that the system can/will use three databases:
 
CMDB: this database will contain all assets (SCCM / SCOM will provide extensive data)
Datawarehouse: this database will contain all workflows etc.
Reporting: This database will provide the reporting services for SCSM. This database will probably also be used for sustaining CMDB information that is being discarted form de the actual CMDB database.