Major Announcements from the Summit Included:

A Hyper-V dependent fabric is complex and takes specialized teams working together in order for it to keep running at its best. Manually diagnosing, troubleshooting and resolving Hyper-V Server performance problems is not only  time-consuming, but also requires storage, server, and network IT teams to work flawlessly together.
Without a common, real-time view into Hyper-V host’s health, storage sub-systems and underlying networks, IT Pros are left frustrated when trying to resolve Hyper-V problems. Virtualized infrastructure outages are costly because of complexity.

Consider these facts:

• It takes two (2) hours per incident to recover Virtualized OS related services;longer for hosted applications.
• 80 percent of IT organizations will have deployed a virtualization solution by the end of 2011. This means there will be more VMs deployed in 2011 than in 2001 to 2009 combined.
• 100 percent of IT organizations say that their private cloud is supported by a cross-functional team of three or more specialized members.

This white paper discusses the “Top Nine Problem Areas for Managing Hyper-V.”
In each section, we discuss ways to plan, troubleshoot and optimize environmentsbased
on best practices discussed by Microsoft MVPs.

Download now!

I would like to use this blog article to explain the main components of this feature.

How to get objects on a Bing Map.

There are three ways to get an object from Operations Manager on a Bing Map. The first one is just like in our other views by dragging the objects from a tree view on the Map.

We also created a location wizard that uses a csv file as input to place the objects automatically.

By using this wizard it is possible to add location information (Latitude and Longitude coordinates) to existing objects or it is also possible to generate new views for each location and these generated views can be automatically populated with the devices that are on that physical location using IP Subnet information.

Showing objects on a Bing Map.

After the objects are created or extended with location information it is possible to create a Map view of a part of the world. And all the objects that are within the bounds of the view will be displayed.

There are companies out there with a lot of objects that have a location like restaurants or ATM’s. If we would plot each object on the Map you would see only a big clutter of pins. That is why we implemented the automatic clustering of objects with a rolled up state. This way you can spot an object in a critical state at a glance and find it in a second.

It is very easy to find a specific location in Live Maps because we use the Bing Maps geocoding service for looking up locations. So if you know the address of one of your buildings or ATM’s for example you can find it very quickly.

State rollup and alerts.

Another cool thing is that after the view is saved the bounds are saved in the Operations Manager database. So if an alert is generated or a state is changed it is automatically related to the Map. This means that the Map that is created can be used in an overview dashboard. So if something is wrong in for example New York the Map is always reflecting this state even if the new locations are added to the Operations Manager database later.

Information overlays.

There is a lot of information that is provided by the government or an external party using a kml/kmz format. This can be information about weather, earthquakes and a lot more. Sometimes it can be very useful to display this information on top of the Map in combination with your own data from Operations Manager.

Monitoring moving objects.

We will make it possible to track moving objects like ships. This way you can not only monitor the state of the ship but also its location. And if you also add a weather overlay you can see why this ship is in a critical state.

The interactive Maps feature will be available soon in Live Maps v6 for Operations Manager 2007 R2 and Live Maps for Operations Manager 2012.

For more information about Live Maps click here or contact us!

Nick Hebert, Account Manager, Savision: How has Live Maps helped transform the way you visualize data within your NOC?

LB: Savision has allowed us to visualize our applications and how they relate to each other.

NH: How has Live Maps improved your support team’s access to SCOM data?

LB: Using Savision has allowed our Operations team a “View” into the SCOM data and provided quicker escalation time to the Application Support teams.

NH: What features are you most looking forward to in Live Maps for SCOM 2012?

LB: Automatically add business context to all your incidents

NH: What’s better NOC setup?  Monitors or projectors on a screen?

LB: We have it displayed on both; on the local desktops for drill-down functions and on a projector for over-all-health rollup in our environment.

Are you interested in evaluating Live Maps for the purpose of having SCOM on a video screen? Contact sales@savision.com to learn more!

First, a bit of context. Microsoft provides the “Server Failover Cluster Management Pack” to monitor most aspects of clusters. However, the support for cluster shared volumes (CSVs) within the cluster is a little weak. You can find some monitoring of CSVs under the nodes in the cluster where they seem to be treated identically to local storage, albeit with rather confusing names.

You can find additional monitoring of CSVs under the resource groups for the cluster, where the CSV is given a much friendlier name. However, this monitoring only indicates whether or not the CSV is online.

Where, then, does one go to find cluster shared volumes monitored as a distinct entity? To the new “Windows Server Operating System Management Pack”. Kevin Holman has a nice blog post describing the discoveries and monitors that have been added to this management pack specifically for cluster shared volumes.

Unfortunately, however, the new monitors sit all by themselves in the Server OS MP and never unite with the cluster itself in the Failover Cluster MP. We thought it would be nice if the monitors for the CSVs could contribute to the health of the cluster. All we need to do is to create a relationship between the cluster and the cluster shared volumes, and then write a dependency monitor to roll up the health state.

Matthew Long recently had a good blog post entitled “Scripting Relationship Discovery in Operations Manager 2007 / 2012” and we’ll use that as a basis for our own management pack and relationship discovery.

Our plan is to use a script to create a containment relationship between Microsoft.Windows.Cluster and Microsoft.Windows.Server.ClusterSharedVolumeMonitoring.ClusterSharedVolume. Reading Matthew’s post, the key items are:

1. Create instances of both classes.
2. Create an instance of the relationship class that is used to link the two classes.
3. Assign the two instances created in (1) to the relationship and then submit it to Operations Manager.
The relevant lines of code are:

Source code

set oCluster = oDiscoveryData.CreateClassInstance("$MPElement[Name='Cluster!Microsoft.Windows.Cluster']$")
set oClusterSharedVolume = oDiscoveryData.CreateClassInstance("$MPElement[Name='CSVMonitoring!Microsoft.Windows.Server.ClusterSharedVolumeMonitoring.ClusterSharedVolume']$")
set oRelationship = oDiscoveryData.CreateRelationshipInstance("$MPElement[Name='Savision.MapClusterSharedVolumeToCluster.ClusterContainsClusterSharedVolume']$")
oRelationship.Source = oCluster
oRelationship.Target = oClusterSharedVolume
call oDiscoveryData.AddInstance(oRelationship)
call oAPI.Return(oDiscoveryData)

What is missing in the code snippet above is filling in the properties of the oCluster and oClusterSharedVolume objects. Do we have to fill in every single property of the class (such as the VendorID and IsRunningMixedVersion on the Microsoft.Windows.Cluster class), or can we “cheat”?

It turns out, we can get away with cheating. The only properties we need to fill in are those marked as Key=”true” within the Microsoft management packs. That makes sense because we are not submitting discovery data for the classes themselves, just for the relationship between them. The only thing Operations Manager should need to create the relationship is the keys. This allows us to get away with a much smaller script and keeps us from having to replicate all the details of the discoveries that were already written in the Microsoft management packs.

Thankfully, the cluster shared volume class contains the name of the cluster which is also used as the key in the cluster class, so we don’t even need to interact with the system the discovery is running on. We can simply copy all of the properties out of the targeted CSV class using the $Target/ notation. For example:

Source code

call oCluster.AddProperty("$MPElement[Name='Cluster!Microsoft.Windows.Cluster']/Name$", _
"$Target/Property[Type='CSVMonitoring!Microsoft.Windows.Server.ClusterSharedVolumeMonitoring.ClusterSharedVolume']/ClusterName$")

When the script runs every four hours, it will create a containment relationship between clusters and cluster shared volumes. Add in a few dependency monitors as we have done and voila, the cluster shared volumes now appear in the health explorer for the cluster and roll their state upwards.

If you would like to make use of this management pack in your own environment, we have included it as an attachment to this blog post.

Download the management pack here: Savision.MapClusterSharedVolumeToCluster.

Monitoring Unavailable

By default, the Health Rollup on a Live Maps view treats objects that are in a ‘Monitoring Unavailable’ state as ‘Critical’. So, when there are one or more objects in a ‘Monitoring Unavailable’ state on a Live Maps view, the consolidated Health State of that Live Maps view will show ‘Critical’.

This can be illustrated by looking at the Health Explorer output in such a situation:

By creating overrides, we can change this behavior. In the example below, an override is applied to the Monitoring unavailable parameter of the Live Maps Availability Health Rollup for the specific Live Maps view (group) named Cluster Nodes:

When we do the same on the Live Maps Configuration Health Rollup, the Live Maps Performance Health Rollup and the Live Maps Security Health Rollup and then refresh our Health Explorer output, we can see the result of these overrides being reflected in the Health Rollup that is performed:

In the example above, we have defined these overrides for a single Live Maps view (named Cluster Nodes).

If we would want to apply these overrides to all Live Maps views at once, we have to target all objects of  the class Live Maps Group in our overrides definitions:

After defining an override on each of the four standard OpsMgr Health Categories (Availability, Configuration, Performance and Security), the Live Maps Health Rollup for any object on a Live Maps view that is in a ‘Monitoring Unavailable’ state will be according to the override value as specified.

Maintenance Mode

Similar to the override definitions for ‘Monitoring Unavailable’ as described above, overrides can be defined that influence objects that are in ‘Maintenance Mode’. By default, objects in Maintenance Mode are rolled up as ‘Healthy’. Using overrides this can be changed to ‘Warning’ or ‘Critical’.

Rollup Algorithm and Percentage

The default ‘Rollup Algorithm’ that is used on a Live Maps view is defined as ‘Worst Health State of any member’, just like the default entity Health Rollup that is used by OpsMgr to calculate the Health State on any managed object.

In certain scenarios, it might be desired to change this algorithm. The other options available are ‘Best Health State of any member’ and ‘Worst State of a percentage of members in good Health State’.

The later needs to be combined with a value for the parameter ‘Percentage’. In the example below an override is defined for this combination:

So now its Rollup Algorithm reads ‘The worst state from 50% of the best states of the objects in this group’. A terrible definition, I know, but that is how it is defined in OpsMgr. This is what is called a most optimistic “glass half-full” scenario: it takes 50% of the objects in their best state and then rolls up the worst state of those.

When our Live Maps view ‘Cluster Nodes’ shows the following states for our individual Windows Cluster nodes:

the following Availability Health Rollup would be presented in the Health Explorer output due to the Rollup Algorithm as defined:

The Live Maps Availability Health Rollup will keep showing ‘Healthy’ in this example as long as the Availability Health of at least 50% of the objects is Healthy.

When we have 2 of the objects in a ‘Warning’ Availability state while the others are ‘Healthy’, the Live Maps Availability Health Rollup will keep showing ‘Health’ as well:

Conclusion

With the use of overrides, the Health Rollup on a Live Maps view can be changed to reflect the consolidated state of the objects on that Live Maps view as deemed correct from a business perspective. This is especially useful in clustering scenarios and other redundancy or High Availability solutions.

More information on Live Maps can be found here.

Let’s take a simple business application that has a web farm front end. The goal is that every time a web farm instance is added to or removed from the farm, the application map gets updated automatically.

After starting the Live Maps Authoring Console we create a dynamic list that will be populated with web farm instances by defining membership rules based on the name of the instance.

Once the list view has been added we will add and configure the membership rule. A membership rule can be targeted to any object class and can filter based on any discovered property. In this example we target the rule to the IIS 7 Web Site class and we create a filter based on the Display Name of the IIS instance.

After the rule has been added the IIS instances that match the rule will appear in the preview window. Alternatively you can configure the  appearance of the view by changing the View Settings and Class Defaults. Changing the Class Defaults allow you to display any additional discovered properties, in the example we have added the bindings of the web site.

Now we have finished the ‘hard’ part let’s create an application topology map by adding a new Drawing view.

To create a drill-down from the application map to the web farm view the only thing you need to do is to drag and drop the Web Farm view on top of the application map. In the context menu you will find multiple options to enhance the appearance of the web farm object. In this example we  make the image visible.

From the Objects pane we now add additional application components like Databases and End User perspectives.

To present the health of this business application on a high level dashboard, just add another Drawing view, add a Dashboard Item shape and drag and drop the application map on the Dashboard Item.

So creating a dynamic application map with Live Maps does not require difficult xml editing procedures but just a few simple clicks in the Live Maps authoring console.

Additional resources:

• How to configure service level tracking on Live Maps views
• How to override the state rollup behavior of a Live Maps view
• Sneak Preview – Live Maps Integration With SC Service Manager

With Hyper-V, it is very easy to over commit your storage space by creating dynamic VHD files. It is also easy to consume all of your available storage by creating multiple, parallel snapshots, creating large fixed VHD files, and letting your dynamic VHD files expand as the guest operating systems demand more space.

What happens when you hit the limit on your storage devices? Your virtual machines are placed into the dreaded “Paused Critical” or “Major Failure” states.

According to Virtual PC Guy :

If we were to run out of space for expanding a dynamic or differencing virtual hard disk – we would start failing disk write operations inside the virtual machine. The result would most likely be that the guest operating system would crash. To avoid this problem we periodically poll the storage that is being used for the virtual hard disks. If the free space falls under 200 megabyte we will pause the virtual machine and mark it as “Paused-Critical”.

This raises the unfortunate possibility of a mission-critical production application suddenly becoming unavailable because an unrelated virtual machine decided it needed more space.

Just what files do virtual machines need and where are they located? Again, Virtual PC Guy is a good source of information. In his articles “Understanding where your virtual machine files are in Hyper-V” and “Where are my snapshot files” he discusses the types of files virtual machines use, where Hyper-V stores them, and outlines some perils:

One thing that often trips people up is if they have their virtual hard disks configured on one drive – but have left their snapshot files stored on the system drive.

Savison’s Vital Signs for Hyper-V can help guard against virtual machines running out of storage space, can help you proactively manage your VHD placement, and can show you where you can free up space if you have, unfortunately, run out.

The KPI tab within our dashboard will allow you to monitor both physical storage space as well as disk errors reported by the virtual machines – a sign that their VHDs are not able to expand.

The storage tab graphically shows the occupancy of all drives broken down by virtual machine, shows all files used by your virtual machines, and sums up the total physical storage required by each virtual machine.

With this information in hand, you can make intelligent decisions about where to place new VHD files and to determine where you can free up space – whether by removing snapshots or moving virtual machines – for your mission-critical VMs.

For more information about this Blog article or Vital Signs contact us! You can read more blogs articles at blog.savision.com.

Nick Hebert, Account Manager, Savision: Why in a hospital setting is it extra important to have real-time monitoring information?

Errol E. Small, Technical Services Manager, HealthCare Partners Medical Group: In this type on environment near or real-time monitoring and notification could be the defining factor in a life or death situation between the Doctor and patient relationship, if information is not readily available. Having the dependency of accurate monitoring can ward off any issue before it becomes a critical incidence.

Rogee Fe de Leon, Technical Services Manager, Maimonides Medial Center: It is important because a downed system will impact the hospital work flows which in turn will affect Patient Care.

NH: Are you using Live Maps to monitor your critical hospital devices?

RFdL: Yes. Specifically, we use Live Maps to monitor the servers, routers, and switches which enable the use of the Hospital’s various applications.

ES: All critical production servers that support our environment are monitored by Live Maps

NH: How has Live Maps improved your support team’s access to SCOM data?

ES: Live Map places the tons of alerts and events that OpsMgr provides and make it easy to drill down to the root cause and provides explanations of cause and resolutions where possible.

RFdL: Live Maps allows us to see right away where a problem is and what particular SCOM monitor is reporting an issue.

NH: What is an extra feature Savision could add to Live Maps to make your lives easier?

RFdL: I would suggest adding more drawing features.  One feature I would suggest is the ability to draw tables.

ES: Expand your knowledge base and training videos

What recommendations do you have for Savision in their development of Live Maps for 2012 and Vital Signs? Click here to give your suggestion!

This situation only occurs when one or more object have (previously) been added to a Live Maps view that are defined in the Management Pack that you want to delete. When you follow the suggestion as presented in the dialog above, all Live Maps views that have been created will be deleted.

Obviously, in most situations this is not what we want as this would enforce us to recreate all our Live Maps views from scratch. In this article I will describe the process to follow to remove the dependency from the Live Maps Authoring Management Pack without losing all our other Live Maps views.

Where did that dependency came from?

When objects of a class as defined in another Management Pack are added to  a Live Maps view, either as explicit objects or through Membership Rules, a Reference to the defining Management Pack is added to the Live Maps Authoring Management Pack. In this example a Live Maps view is created which contains all SQL Server 2000 Databases by using a Membership Rule as follows:

When we now take a look at the XML export of the Live Maps Authoring Management Pack, we will find that specific references to the SQL Server 2000 Management Packs are added:

<Reference Alias="MicrosoftSQLServer2000Discovery6066480">
 <ID>Microsoft.SQLServer.2000.Discovery</ID>
 <Version>6.0.6648.0</Version>
 <PublicKeyToken>31bf3856ad364e35</PublicKeyToken>
 </Reference>
<Reference Alias="MicrosoftSQLServerLibrary614000">
 <ID>Microsoft.SQLServer.Library</ID>
 <Version>6.1.400.0</Version>
 <PublicKeyToken>31bf3856ad364e35</PublicKeyToken>
</Reference>

When we further explore the Live Maps Authoring Management Pack, we will find the Alias for these references used in the definition of the Membership Rule for the Live Maps group created above.

How to get rid of that dependency?

Before we can delete the SQL Server 2000 Discovery Management Pack, we need to remove all explicit objects and Membership Rules from all our Live Maps views through the Live Maps Authoring Console:

After removing them all, we can export the Live Maps Authoring Management Pack in the Administration pane of the Operations Console:

Make a copy of the unmodified exported XML file as a backup!

Then open the XML file in an XML Editor of your choice (e.g. Microsoft’s XML Notepad 2007) and make a note of the Alias used. Search the remainder of the XML file to assure that there are no Membership Rules that are using the alias.

Then delete the Reference section(s) to the Management Pack(s) that we want to delete:

After importing the modified Live Maps Authoring Management Pack into our Operations Manager environment again, the previously referenced SQL Server 2000 Management Pack can now be deleted:

If the import of the manually modified Live Maps Authoring Management Pack fails, it probably means that the Alias of a removed Reference is used anywhere else in the Live Maps Authoring Management Pack or that the XML structure itself became invalid. Please revert back to the previously created backup of the unmodified exported XML file and carefully repeat the steps described above.

More information on Live Maps can be found here.