I ran into a problem after migrating my task sequences from Configuration Manager 2007 to 2012. I found that I could not easily set my task sequence deployments to use the setting “Access content directly from a distribution point when needed by the running task sequence.” By default it was setting itself to “Download content locally when needed by running task sequence.”
May 1st, 2012 by Brent
During the migration process from Configuration Manager 2007 R3 to Configuration Manager 2012 RTM, we ran into an issue where Deployed Software Updates would not detect as applicable on client machines. I didn’t find much about this issue on the web, so I thought I would blog about it.
April 19th, 2012 by Chris
Earlier this year, we posted about a new SAN bidding process and the eventual winner, the HP 3PAR V400. Now that we’ve been live on it for about six weeks, it’s time for a small update on a particular feature that might weigh in on your own decision, if you’re in the market.
Our new V400 was our first foray into the tiered storage market and we liked what we heard about gaining the speed of SSD storage on hot blocks while not wasting the cost of average data. EMC claimed advanced metrics, granular policies, and the ability to optimize as frequently as every 10 minutes. This sounded REALLY good. 3PAR also cited some of those things, sans the frequency, and we assumed they were about even, granted the results might be slightly delayed on the V400 (vs. VMAXe). What we’ve discovered isn’t so symmetric.
April 10th, 2012 by Brent
I ran into an issue when upgrading SCOM to 2012 (from 2007 R2 CU5). The installer stated that the upgrade was successful, but no activity was taking place in my management group. I had one error in my event logs (see below).
April 2nd, 2012 by Brent
For all those early adopters, Microsoft has now published System Center 2012 RTM to their volume licensing download site and is available for download. The System Center 2012 Datacenter product contains downloads for all System Center 2012 Products (SCOM, SCCM, SCSM, etc.). As of now, it is not yet on technet/msdn as far as I can see. Microsoft also has not yet updated any websites and blogs stating the release.
February 21st, 2012 by Chris
At the end of the day, it wasn’t the minor technological differences that made the decision for us. Sure, we believed that EMC’s VMAXe was the truly enterprise-class array. The ace, though, was product positioning.
We have two SANs. We have a CLARiiON CX3-40 from EMC, which is legacy and as the market sometimes calls it, monolithic. It needs to go. We also have a 3PAR T400, which is as flexible as the day we bought it and has plenty of life left in it, due to its architecture (even though we acquired it in 2008). Thus, when the cards were on the table, only HP had the ability to offer a “free” upgrade to our T400 as well as the new V400.
The upgrade turns our T-series into a multi-tier array with SSD, FC, and NL, and the V-series replaces our aging CLARiiON. EMC tried to compete, but all they could offer was a “deal” less appealing than the original single-array proposition.
Honestly, I felt bad for them, because there was nothing they could do unless they literally took a deep loss (no funny money about it). HP’s solution was the equivalent of two new, good, flexible, low-maintenance SANs. EMC just learned how to be flexible and match 3PAR, so their older arrays (one of which was part of their attempt at competition) just didn’t equate.
It’s going to be another hard sell in 2-3 years when we open the next RFP, because HP/3PAR will now have a monopoly on the floor. Who knows, though? Maybe HP will stumble with their new golden egg, or maybe EMC will figure out how to undercut HP with price while not sacrificing features. For now, the trophy goes to HP. Congrats.
February 14th, 2012 by Brent
I discovered an issue the other day when trying to add logins to a SQL Server with the collation of Latin1_General_BIN.
The T-SQL Command used was:
CREATE LOGIN [DOMAIN\username] FROM WINDOWS
The error I was receiving was:
Windows NT user or group ‘DOMAIN\username’ not found. Check the name again.
However, the username was very much valid. What I then found if I changed the format to DOMAIN\Username (capital U) it began to work. However, on other servers (with same collation), it rejected the capital U and wanted a lowercase U. After doing some digging, it appears that at least with the Latin1_General_BIN collation (not sure about other collations, I would expect other case-sensitive collations would inhibit similar results) that Master remembers logins how they are created the first time for a specific server and must continue to be entered using the same case going forward. This appears to be true even if you delete the login and try to re-create it, it still wants the original case (Master appears to cache is indefinitely).
When working with logins on a Latin1_General_BIN SQL Server make sure to be consistent when typing the case for logins. If you can’t figure out what the correct case is supposed to be, it appears if you add the login with the GUI, it will auto change it to be the format that master remembers.
January 6th, 2012 by Chris
If you’re in the market for a new enterprise-class storage array, both EMC and HP/3PAR have good options for you. Toward the end of 2011, we began evaluating solutions from these two vendors with whom we have history and solid relationships. On the EMC side, we’ve grown up through a CX300 in 2006 and into two CX3-40′s in 2008. At the end of 2008, we deployed a 3PAR T400 at our production site and brought back that CX3-40 to consolidate it with the one at our HQ. It’s been three years hence, and our needs call for new tech.
As is the nature of technology, storage has made leaps and bounds since 2008. What once was unique and elevating to 3PAR–wide striping and simplified provisioning from one big pool of disks–has become common place in arrays of all classes. We used to liken it to replacing the carpet in a room with furniture. It’s a real chore when you have to painstakingly push all the chairs and tables into a corner (or out of the room altogether!) when you want to improve or replace the carpet. With disk abstraction and data-shifting features, though, changes and optimizations can be made without the headaches.
September 1st, 2011 by Brent
Because workgroup computers can’t read Active Directory, AD Integration should to be disabled on these systems. For some reason, the SCOM interactive agent setup will not allow the option “Use Management Group Information from Active Directory” to be disabled (it is grayed out). However, this setting can be disabled by installing the agent from the command line, or editing a registry key on an existing agent.
To disable during setup:
Install the SCOM agent with the following command line: MOMAgent.msi USE_SETTINGS_FROM_AD=0 MANAGEMENT_GROUP=“<Management Group Here>” MANAGEMENT_SERVER_DNS=<FQDN of management server here> /qb
To disable in the registry:
Open registry editor and nagivate to: “SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HealthService\Parameters\ConnectorManager“.
Set the EnableADIntegration in the registry to ‘0′
Restart the HealthService (System Center Management)
If one of the above steps is not completed, you will see the following entry in your Operations Manager event log:
Log Name: Operations Manager
Source: HealthService
Date: <Date/Time>
Event ID: 2010
Task Category: Health Service
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: <FQDN>
Description:
The Health Service cannot connect to Active Directory to retrieve management group policy. The error is Unspecified error (0×80004005)
August 31st, 2011 by Chris
PCoIP server offload card for improved graphical performance & consolidation
View 5
- WAN bandwidth optimizations: ~75% reduction
- CPU optimizations: idle VMs, algorithms, libraries
- Better session resilience: session recovery during loss of network of up to 30 seconds
- PCoIP performance counters
- Provisioning: faster and more parallelism