IT Core Blog

How to configure App-V; create, publish, and update virtual applications; and create and manage policies for virtual applications.

Videos available here

AppLocker is a new feature of Windows7 that allows administrators to define policies that can allow or deny a user’s ability to run or install executable, MSI, or script files. Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) separates the application from the operating system preventing application conflicts and enabling the ability to run multiple versions of an application of the same desktop. Virtual applications can be delivered in many ways – streaming by assigning applications to user, delivering to machines via Configuration Manager or by using file streaming from removable media. Using App-V and Applocker together ensures that no matter how the application is delivered or what format is takes, physical or virtual, it will respect the policies defined by IT. Watch these demonstrations to learn how to configure App-V; create, update, and publish virtual applications; and create and manage policies for virtual applications.

To download the videos individually get them click the links bellow:

From System Center Operations Manager Team;

A large and sudden increase in the number of alerts is called an alert storm. An alert storm can be a symptom of massive changes of some kind within your management group, such as the catastrophic failure of networks. An alert storm can also be a symptom of configuration issues within Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007.

Installing new or updated management packs can give rise to an alert storm. Monitors in a management pack begin working as soon as the management pack has been imported. Use best practices in importing management packs to minimize alert storms.

Read more at Troubleshooting alert storms in OpsMgr 2007

Here are some documents that may help you with some specific Hyper-V tasks
(I’ll try to keep this list updated).

Understanding Microsoft Virtualization Solutions – R2 update
Hyper-V, Application Virtualization, Virtual Machine Manager and Virtualization
Hyper-V Technical Information and Resources
Hyper-V Technet
Hyper-V Migration Guide
Hyper-V Live Migration Network Configuration Guide
Hyper-V Virtual Hard Disk Performance
Windows Server 2008 R2 Migration Utilities x64 Edition
Migrate Server Roles to Windows Server 2008 R2
PowerShell management Library for Hyper-V
Running Domain Controllers in Hyper-V
Exchange 2010 System Requirements Hardware Virtualization
System Center Virtual Machine Manager Documentation
Licensing Microsoft Server Products in Virtual Environments white paper
Windows Server 2008 R2 Licensing Overview

Server Virtualization Validation Program
VHD tool
(includes repair option)

Windows Server 2008 R2: Hyper-V Component Architecture

Hyper-V Update List for Windows Server 2008 R2
Hyper-V Update List for Windows Server 2008
Hyper-V Fixes for Network Connectivity related issues
Other Updates – Recent MS Updates that you should consider for installation

Although you can P2V Windows machines using System Center Virtual Machine Manager, the same functionality is not available for Linux computers (Note:  You can V2V a Linux VM).

VMware vCenter Converter is a free tool that allows you to convert Linux physical machines into VMs. The process will create a vmdk disk file.  The problem is that it appears that the target must be VMware ESX, ESXi, Workstation or Player.

If you need to move that machine to Hyper-V, you can, in theory, use a tool like VMDK2VHD to convert that vmdk to a vhd file. If you’re using System Center Virtual Machine Manager to mange VMware vCenter Server you can do a direct V2V from VMWare ESX to Hyper-V hosts. After migration process, you’ll need to install integration components which are supported on RHEL and SLES.

Apparently there is a misconception about How SCVMM Host reserve settings work.

 Steve Thomas from System Center Virtual Machine Manager Team, explains the “How Host Reserve Settings Propagate from Host Groups to Individual Hosts in SCVMM“

 When you set the properties for “Host Reserves” at the Host Group level in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 or SCVMM 2008 R2, you are, in essence, setting template values for host reserves for newly added hosts only. A common misconception is that when you set these reserves on host groups with active hosts that these reserve values will propagate down automatically or that these hosts will inherit those settings. That is not the case.

Read more, click here

From Windows Virtualization Product Group; 

Hyper-V customers are running both SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Red Hat Enterprise Linux as guests. We have provided Linux integration components for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, but customers did not have the same level of performance with Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a guest since the IC’s were not supported for RHEL.

 We are excited to announce the availability of Linux integration components for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4) which provides synthetic network and storage drivers enabling RHEL to work with the optimized devices provided by Hyper-V.  We’ve already submitted these drivers to the upstream Linux kernel in July 2009 (read here for more information) and are looking forward to these being integrated with a future version of RHEL.  In the meantime, Microsoft will provide full support for these drivers.  Red Hat provides best effort support for these components. Customers interested in understanding how these are supported by Red Hat prior to their inclusion natively into to their distribution can read the details at the Red Hat Knowledge Base article.

 To download this new version of the Linux Integration Components, visit this link on the Microsoft Download Center.

Need to improve your skills on App-V?  Take a look at these links, they may help you with that task:

Learning App-V Basics includes preparation, streaming and launch of virtual applications

Learning App-V Intermediate Skills includes Application update, Dynamic Suite Composition and Metering

Learning to Configure App-V for Standalone Client Mode includes Standalone Client Mode and AppLocker

Another great article by Kevin Holman, this time he wrote about an issue that you may run into after you deploy the latest OpsMgr R2 core MP update version 6.1.7599.0.

Alert Description:
The process started at 10:36:57 AM failed to create System.PropertyBagData. Errors found in output:

C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\Health Service State\Monitoring Host Temporary Files 2\4885\SCOMpercentageCPUTimeCounter.vbs(125, 5) SWbemRefresher: Invalid class

Command executed: “C:\Windows\system32\cscript.exe” /nologo “SCOMpercentageCPUTimeCounter.vbs” servername.domain.com false 3
Working Directory: C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\Health Service State\Monitoring Host Temporary Files 2\4885\

One or more workflows were affected by this.
Workflow name: Microsoft.SystemCenter.HealthService.SCOMpercentageCPUTimeMonitor
Instance name: servername.domain.com
Instance ID: {50E57AC1-08CC-6E7E-149A-1E8690881BBD}
Management group: MGNAME

This is caused by a new script based monitor that was added to this core MP… which measures the agent CPU impact, including the Healthservice, MonitoringHost, and all ancillary processes spawned by the SCOM agent.

Read more at Kevin Holman’s Blog

Today, System Center Operations Manager product team posted a great article on how by default, the Microsoft Exchange 2007 Management Packs for Operations Manager 2007 will not automatically start monitoring of any Exchange 2007 Servers even if you have imported the Management Pack.

Read more at “Exchange 2007 Management Packs do not automatically monitor Exchange servers“

Today, Operations Manager Team blogged about the Some of the top Reporting deployment issues and resolutions for SCOM 2007.

We see a lot of System Center Operations Manager 2007 Reporting installs around here and while they almost always work perfectly, when they don’t it’s usually because of a few common issues. I’ve listed some of these common issues below.  The log file for Operations Manager Reporting, MomReportingX.log, is located in the temp folder (%temp%) and in “MomReportingX.log,” the “X” is the number that is based on the installation. To locate an error in this log file, search for the text “value 3”.

The following sections list the issues that you might see and the steps that you can take to resolve them. These include both specific error messages and usage problems.

MomReportingX.log:  Error: Unable to get the Management Server Action Account

This error occurs when name resolution has not been configured correctly.  To fix this problem, add the correct DNS entries and reverse lookup entries for the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the root management server (RMS).  To validate this, from the Windows desktop, click Start, click Run, type the FQDN for the RMS, and then click OK. You should see a browser window view of the RMS.

MomReportingX.log:  Adding REPORT_SERVER_FULL_HTTP_PATH property. Its value is ‘https://Servername:443/ReportServer’

This error can occur when SSL is not set up on the SQL Server Reporting Services server.  To fix this problem, remove SSL from the default reporting Web site in IIS. For information, see article 946418 available in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946418).

Could not find OperationsManagerDW

This error usually occurs when UDP port 1434 and TCP port 1433 are blocked by a firewall between the Reporting server and SQL Server.  If you are using a named instance, SQL Server might have assigned a dynamic port to the instance.  Use SQL Server Configuration Manager to identify the port that your SQL Instance is listening on and then open the corresponding firewall port.

MomReportingX.log: Error (407) Proxy Authentication Required

This error typically occurs if you have a proxy server configured in your Internet Properties\Connections\Local Area Network (LAN) Settings.  To fix the problem, remove the proxy setting from the server on which you are installing Reporting.

Applications event log: Error 25156. Failed to create MOM database.  The system cannot find the path specified.

This error can occur when you specify a drive and directory that does not have SQL Server installed.  To fix the problem, make sure that you select the drive where SQL Server is installed.

Browsing to http://localhost/reports returns “Service Unavailable”

This error can occur when permissions are missing on the %Windows%\temp folder.  To fix the problem, grant “Full Control” permissions for the %Windows%\temp folder to the user account that is running the installation and the Localsystem account. 

According with Virtual Machine Manager Team Blog e may get the error 2947 if you try to deploy a newly created VM to a VMware ESX host running on a 64-bit version of Windows Server 2008:

Consider the following scenario:
You run Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2.
You try to deploy a newly created virtual machine to an instance of VMware ESX Server 3.0 Host.
VMware ESX Server 3.0 Host is running on the x64-based version of Windows Server 2008.
In this scenario, you may receive the following error message:

Error (2947)
Virtual Machine Manager cannot complete the VirtualCenter action on the server hostname.domain.com because of the following error:
Error during the configuration of the host:
configSpec.guestId.
(Unknown error (0×194))
Recommended Action
Resolve the issue and then try the operation again.

“As of now, there is no resolution or work around for this scenario. The placement of a virtual machine to an instance of VMware ESX Server 3.0 host on an x64-based version of Windows Server 2008 R2 is not supported.“
For all the details and latest updates please reference the following Knowledge Base article:
KB979592 - Error message when you try to deploy a newly created virtual machine to an instance of VMware ESX Server 3.0 Host that is running on an x64-based version of Windows Server 2008

In Remote Desktop Services deployments, application conflicts can lead to silos of remote desktop session host servers. To avoid application conflicts, applications typically must undergo significant testing to determine which applications will collide and, therefore, must be separated and run on different session host silos—a time-consuming and costly process. Separating out multiple remote desktop session hosts to accommodate specific applications routinely results in servers being underutilized because each one is locked into a specific configuration, capable of serving only a limited set of non-conflicting applications. Often, 20 servers are required to support 1,000 users.

Microsoft Application Virtualization for Remote Desktop Services 4.6 helps consolidate remote desktop session host servers by offering the following features and benefits:

• Reduce app-to-app and multi-user application conflicts and hence the need for regression testing
• Accelerate application deployment by reducing the deployment risk
• Simplify profile management
• App-V for RDS 4.6 now supports 64-bit operating systems.

App-V 4.6 for RDS (formerly App-V for Terminal Services) can be downloaded immediately here - Read More here

This IPD guide, updated for App-V 4.6, provides actionable guidance for planning your application virtualization infrastructure. With App-V, organizations can respond to the complex challenge of managing applications. This guide simplifies the App-V planning process; updates now include support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, including such features as BranchCache; support for 64-bit clients; and server-sizing data.

 Get it from Technet - Read more here

The core documentation set now includes:
Getting Started Guide
App-V 4.6 Release Notes
Application Virtualization Deployment and Upgrade Checklists
Planning & Deployment Guide
Operations Guide
Online Help for Client, Server and Sequencer

Yuri and Tom describe how Forefront Threat Management Gateway is a web access protection solution. They dive into:
HTTPS inspection: privacy concerns, how it works
Process of how TMG protects unmanaged clients against malware
Basics on URL Filtering and NIS
Check out the TMG Book
Download a trial of TMG

Check out the video

According with Kevin Holman:
This is probably the best core MP update ever…. it really adds a lot of good stuff.  It is a simple Management Pack update of several core SCOM MP’s which monitor and manage the health and operations of SCOM itself.  The new versions are 6.1.7599.0.

This is for R2 ONLY.  If you are running R2 – you need to get this update through your standard lab test cycles…. and then into production.

The following MP’s will be updated:
Microsoft.SystemCenter.2007.mp
Microsoft.SystemCenter.OperationsManager.2007.mp
Microsoft.SystemCenter.OperationsManager.AM.DR.2007.mp
Microsoft.SystemCenter.OperationsManager.Reports.2007.mp
ODR.mp

Information about this update here
Get it now