Show Status of the last Review Activity (with a pinch of Orchestrator magic)

Posted: 16th June 2013 by Anders Bengtsson in Orchestrator, System Center Service Manager
0

A friend asked me if it is possible to show the status of a related review activity in the “All Open Service Requests” view? After a while we realized that a requirements was to show the status of the last review activities, so if there were multiple review activities we just wanted to show the last one. The reason why they needed this view was that customer called service desk and asked about service requests. With a view like this the operator could easy see if all the manual review activities was completed, if the service request was still waiting on more approvals or if someone was building/working on the requested service.

We started by extending the Service Request class in Service Manager with two new properties, one to show the last review activity status and one to show when we last updated that status.

20130616_SRStatus03We use a runbook to update these properties

20130616_SRStatus02

Comprehensive description of each activity in the runbook

  1. Monitor Date/Time. The runbook runs every 30 minutes
  2. Query Database. Truncates a database that is used to store data temporary. The runbook use a database table to store review activity information temporary.
    20130616_SRStatus04
  3. Get Object. Gets all open Service Requests, from the extended Service Request class.
  4. Get Relationship. Get related Review Activities for each open Service Request
  5. Update Object. If there are no related review activities it will update the “LastStatus” property with “No Review Activities”
  6. Get Object. If there are related review activities it will get the review activity and write review activitiy and Service Request information to the database
  7. Junction is used to merge all threads together to one
  8. Format the current time/date to a format that works with Service Manager
  9. Query Database. Query the database to get last review activity for each Service Request and status of it
  10. Update Object. Updates each Service Request that is in the database with review activity status

The result in the Service Manager console can look like this

20130616_SRStatus01

You can download my example runbook and Service Manager class extension here, 20130616_SRStatus

Note that this is provided “AS-IS” with no warranties at all. This is not a production ready management pack or solution, just a idea and an example.

TechEd Follow up

Posted: 12th June 2013 by Anders Bengtsson in Microsoft Event
0

I would like to start by saying THANK YOU to everyone that attended mine and Pete sessions and made them to top-15 sessions for the Modern Datacenter track at TechEd NA. If you did not attend TechEd or if you did and want to watch the session again you can find them at

TechEd

  • Orchestrator Crash Course, link
  • Orchestrator Integration Packs, link

Microsoft Management Summit (MMS)

  •  Best Practices For Runbook Authoring and Managing Orchestrator, link

Nordic Infrastructure Conference (NIC)

  • Lessons-learned around runbook design, link
  • Busting the time wasters in your IT environment, link

Last 30 Minutes Performance Data

Posted: 12th June 2013 by Anders Bengtsson in Operations Manager 2012, System Center Operations Manager 2007
0

I wrote a SQL query that I thought I could share. This SQL query will show collected performance data for a specific machine for the last 30 minutes. I was working with a issue where some agents stopped sending performance data. Before we found the root cause and a fix, we configured this script in a monitor to give us an alert if the agent was not sending performance data. Info how to configure a monitor to run a SQL query can be found here.

select Path, ObjectName, CounterName, InstanceName, SampleValue, TimeSampled 
from PerformanceDataAllView pdv with (NOLOCK)
inner join PerformanceCounterView pcv on pdv.performancesourceinternalid = pcv.performancesourceinternalid
inner join BaseManagedEntity bme on pcv.ManagedEntityId = bme.BaseManagedEntityId
where path = 'dc01.contoso.local' AND (TimeSampled < GETUTCDATE() AND TimeSampled > DATEADD(MINUTE,-30, GETUTCDATE()))
order by timesampled DESC

 

Orchestrator Data Manipulation Functions

Posted: 24th May 2013 by Anders Bengtsson in Orchestrator
0

Orchestrator support a number of data manipulation functions. These functions can be used to manipulate string and  convert it into a usable form. You can also perform simple arithmetic operations, such as calculating sums and differences, and performing division and multiplication operations. For a complete list of the functions that you can perform see Technet. One nice thing about these data manipulation functions is that you can combine them.

Example, a simple text file

20130524_dataman01I use a Read Line activity to read the line, and I can then manipulate the data, in this figure I do that in a Send Platform Event activity

20130524_dataman02

The result will be

John Connor,Skynet,555-123456
John Connor
John
Jo
JO
555-123456
555
123456
124011

First line is the text line as in the text file. Then it is
String divided on “,” and showing first part
String divided on “,” and showing first part, then dividing that answer on ” ” and showing first part
String divided on “,” and showing first part, then dividing that answer on ” ” and showing first part, then showing two first letters from the left side
String divided on “,” and showing first part, then dividing that answer on ” ” and showing first part, then showing two first letters from the left side, then UPPER means converting that string to uppercase

About the numbers

String divided on “,” and showing third part
String divided on “,” and showing third part, then dividing that answer on “-” and showing first part
String divided on “,” and showing third part, then dividing that answer on “-” and showing second part
String divided on “,” and showing third part, then dividing that answer on “-” and showing first and second parts, then sum the two numbers

 

 

 

 

Operations Manager Admin Integration Pack (v1)

Posted: 11th May 2013 by Anders Bengtsson in Operations Manager 2012, Orchestrator
9

With the System Center Integration Pack for System Center 2012 Operations Manager we can integrate with Operations Manager and automate maintenance mode, alert handling, monitor for alerts, and state changes. Unfortunately there are no activities for handling management packs or management pack objects.

Some time ago I posted a blog post around self-service for Operations Manager (http://contoso.se/blog/?p=2764). That idea was built around creating new objects, like a rule, in XML and then import the management pack. While this works fine in some scenarios, there are other scenarios where it would be nice to have a bit more flexibility and reliability.

Russ Slaten (a true Texans with a lot of guns), a PFE colleague and Operations Manager Jedi from the US and I have built a first version of what we call “Operations Manager Admin Integration Pack” for Orchestrator. The purpose of this integration pack is to enable more self-service and automation scenarios in Operations Manager.

20130506_IP_Activities

Activities in version 1 are

  • Create MP. Creates a new management pack
  • Create Performance Collection Rule. Creates a rule that collects performance data
  • Create Event Alert Rule. Creates a rule that generates an alert based on event viewer event
  • Delete Management Pack. Delete a management pack
  • Delete Rule. Deletes an rule based on rule ID
  • Export Management Pack. Exports a management pack
  • Get Management Pack. Lists management packs from the management group
  • Get Rule. List rules. With default settings the activity will list all rules, use the Displayname property to filter the search result
  • Import Management Pack. Imports a management pack to the management group

These activities doesn’t use global connections, instead you can specify management server in each activity. This integration pack requires Operations Manager PowerShell snap-in on all Runbook servers.

As I think you have already realized, this integration pack enables a lot more self-service scenarios where non-Operations Manager Engineers can order new objects and handle management packs. Please take it for a spin and let us know what you think!

Example configuration for the “Create Rule Collection Performance” activity

OM   Server Name SCOM-Lit.Litware.com
MP   Name Custom.Example.Sandbox
Rule   Name Custom.Example.Sandbox.Rule.Test1
Rule   Displayname Sandbox   Test Rule 1
Rule   Description Sandbox   Rule for testing
Rule   Target ‘Microsoft.Windows.Computer’
Object   Name Processor
Counter   Name %   Processor Time
All   Instances TRUE   (used for multi instance counters)
Instance   Name If   AllInstances is false, then fill this in with either a target variable or   fixed value
Interval   Seconds 300
DW   Only (Data Warehouse) TRUE   (If you only want to write to the data warehouse)
Is   Optimized TRUE   (Use if you’re using the optimized data provider)
Tolerance 10   (Percentage or absolute. If value changes more than x then collect, otherwise   skip)
Tolerance   Type Percentage   (Percentage or Absolute)
Maximum   Sample Separation 12   (How many samples can be skipped before forcing collection)

Example configuration for the “Create Alert Event Rule” activity

Management Pack ID Custom.Example.Sandbox1
Management Server SCOM-Lit.Litware.com
Rule ID Custom.Example.Sandbox.Rule.AlertTest8
Rule Description Sandbox Rule for testing
Rule Displayname Sandbox Test Alert Rule 8
Rule Target Microsoft.Windows.Computer
Computer Name $Target/Property[Type="Windows!Microsoft.Windows.Computer"]/PrincipalName$
Event Log Name Operations Manager
Event ID 9999
Event Source OpsMgr Scripting Event
Alert Name Sandbox Test Alert Rule 8
Alert Priority High = 2Medium = 1Low = 0
Alert Severity Critical = 2Warning = 1Information = 0

Example configuration for the Create Management Pack activities

20130506_CreateMP

Example configuration for the Delete Management Pack activities

20130506_DeleteMP

Example configuration for the Delete Rule activities

20130506_DeleteRule

Example configuration for the Export Management Pack activities

20130506_ExportMP

Example configuration for the Get Management Pack activities

20130506_GetMP

Example configuration for the Get Rule activities

20130506_GetRule

Example configuration for the Import Management Pack activities

20130506_ImportMP

 

Big thanks to our colleague Stefan Stranger  for Powershell support a very early morning :)

Download the IP, OMAdminTasks_20130508-1

Note that this is provided “AS-IS” with no warranties at all. This is not a production ready management pack or solution, just a idea and an example.

System Center Orchestrator 2012 Community Check – part VI

Posted: 20th April 2013 by Anders Bengtsson in Orchestrator
0

I have updated the “runbook validator” again. Added a couple of new checks and also added a table of contents in the beginning of the report. You can download the new version here, 20130419_SCO_CHECK.

Since I started to work with Opalis I have been surprised to see how fast people build their first runbook (policy back in Opalis). When showing Orchestrator for a group of engineers it doesn’t take many minutes before they have a running workflow. A disadvantage when it is too easy, drag-drop-done, is that Orchestrator is some times not used as it should be used. In Orchestrator the challenge is that many engineers quickly drag and drop a couple of activities to the runbook, click Start and then lean backward. Most likely they have a working runbook, but are they really working? Is it built as it should be? Is it tested? I have written a couple of blog posts around best practices and the areas that the “runbook validator” checks

The “runbook validator” is a set of runbooks that will check all other runbooks according to a number of best practices. A report file will be generated with the result. All runbooks use a number of variables, like Orchestrator database server name and database name. Don’t forget to update them before you run the check.

20130420_ReportIf you have any ideas what I should add, please post them as comment to this post or send me an e-mail. Please note that this is provided “as is” with no warranties at all. Also note this is all based on my ideas and is not a “Health check” or Microsoft official guidelines.

 

MMS SD-B317 follow up

Posted: 14th April 2013 by Anders Bengtsson in Microsoft Event
2

I would like to start by saying THANK YOU to all 625+ that attended mine and Pete session and made it to one of the top-10 sessions at MMS 2013 :) Based on the request in the evaluation form and requests after the session I will try to share all things shown in the session. Video of the session can be found here http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/MMS/2013/SD-B317 , and PowerPoint SD-B317_Bengtsson. Marnix Wolf made some good notes during the session http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/2013/04/mms-2013-best-practices-for.html

The Excel sheet we used during the session to estimate the Orchestrator database size can be found here, Estimate the Orchestrator database size.

I have written a set of runbooks that will check your other runbooks according to best practices, download the runbook validator here. The “runbook validator” will check most of the things that Pete and I talked about during our session.

The runbook we discussed during the BOF session is included in this BOFdemo export file.

20130413_BOFdemo

Please post a comment if you have any more questions around what we showed and discussed in the session

Check In History

Posted: 10th April 2013 by Anders Bengtsson in Orchestrator
1

Runbooks should be administered using version control. For each version deployed into production, create a package including the runbook and documentation. The documentation should include an explanation of the runbook, including all parameters, global settings and variables. As Orchestrator don’t include version handling it is a good idea to keep earlier runbook versions as export files, making sure you can rollback to earlier versions easy. You should also have a change management process around releasing new runbooks to production to make sure they are tested and signed off correct by the different teams.

As an additional layer of your change process, or maybe in lack of a change process, you can use check in comments in Orchestrator. In the Runbook Designer console you can enable “Prompt for comment on check in”.   This is not enabled by default but it is something you should enable at least in your production environment. The result is that each time you click check in in the Runbook Designer console you need to input a comment. It is very easy way to keep track of changes.

You enable check in comments from the Options menu > Configure, in the Runbook Designer console.

20130410_CheckIn03

20130410_CheckIn04

All check in comments are written to the Orchestrator database, in the CHECK_IN_HISTORY table. Together with the POLICIES table and the OBJECTS_AUDIT table we can list all comments with account name, runbook name and date. We can also use SQL Server Report Builder to build a report to show this data. The following SQL query will show all check in information.

SELECT CHECK_IN_HISTORY.DateTime AS [Check In Time], POLICIES.Name AS [Runbook Name], CHECK_IN_HISTORY.Comment AS [Check In Comment], SIDS.Account, POLICIES.Version AS [Current Version in database]FROM CHECK_IN_HISTORY INNER JOIN POLICIES ON CHECK_IN_HISTORY.ObjectID = POLICIES.UniqueID INNER JOIN SIDS ON CHECK_IN_HISTORY.CheckInUser = SIDS.SIDWHERE (POLICIES.Deleted = 0) ORDER BY [Check In Time] DESC

20130410_CheckIn01

20130410_CheckIn02

“Current Version in database” is a value we get from the POLICIES table. Each time we click check in Orchestrator will add one to that value, so if we check out and check in a runbook 20 times it will show version 20. As we get this value from the current checked in runbook it will show the same “Current Version in database” for all check in for the same runbook, so it is not the version that was checked in at that time.

You can download my example report here, CheckInHistory. Note that this is provided “AS-IS” with no warranties at all

Microsoft TechEd North America and TechEd Europe

Posted: 28th March 2013 by Anders Bengtsson in Microsoft Event
0

At Microsoft TechEd North America and Microsoft TechEd Europé 2013 I will present

Microsoft System Center 2012 – Orchestrator Crash Course
Orchestrator 2012 is here! Are you finally going to learn the drag-drop-done way or will you continue with your moonshine scripts? No scripting experience needed, use Orchestrator as it is meant to be used to accomplish integration, automation, and orchestration across your systems. This session starts with planning and deployment of Orchestrator, we then move on to start integrate and build runbooks. We give you a fast track, and highlight best practices and pitfalls to avoid. Join this session to learn how to become the integration and automation hero in your organization.

Join this session to get a quick introduction of Orchestrator and how to use it in your IT environment. See you there! :)

 

Tracking Logon and Logoff Activities in Service Manager

Posted: 9th March 2013 by Anders Bengtsson in Operations Manager 2012, System Center Service Manager
0

Last week I received a e-mail around tracking logon and logoff activities Service Manager with Operations Manager. It can be solved with a event collection rule and the default custom event report.

  1. In Operations Manager console, navigate to the Authoring work space and Rules
  2. Create a new rule of type Collection Rules/Event Based/NT Event Log
  3. Select a suitable management pack or create a new management pack, Next
  4. Input a rule name, for example Contoso – Service Manager – Logon and Logoff
  5. Select a rule target. If you have the Service Manager management pack imported you can use the SCSM 2012 Management Server class as target. Logon and Logoff events will be generated on your Service Manager management servers. Next
  6. Event Log Type, select or input Operations Manager, Next
  7. Build Event Expression like in the figure below, then save the new rule. In the example I exclude all events about my service accounts, all service accounts starts with svc.  Event ID 26328 is logon and event id 26329 is logoff.

20130309_SCSM01

 

Once the rule is created and deployed to your Service Manager management servers they will start report back events as soon as someone logon or logoff Service Manager. You can create a event view in the same management pack and configure the event view to show events generated by your new rule.

 

20130309_SCSM02

To show this data in a report you can use the default Reporting, Microsoft Generic Report Library, Custom Event report. The following figure show configuration of the Custom Event report

20130309_SCSM03

 

and the result of the report

20130309_SCSM04

 

 

If you want to look at the events in the Operations Manager data warehouse database you can use the following SQL query

select * from Event.vEvent ev
inner join Event.vEventDetail evd on ev.eventoriginid = evd.eventoriginid
inner join Event.vEventParameter evp on ev.eventoriginid = evp.eventoriginid
where eventdisplaynumber = ’26329′ OR eventdisplaynumber = ’26328′

If you want to build your own report you can use SQL Report Builder. I have a example of that here.

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