The IT Crownd

So one of the attractive features of CU5 was the ability to now use SQL 2008 R2. I also found that Windows reporting was now no longer working - after a quick Google I found that the new reporting pack was only compatible with 2008 Report Services. I was running 2005.  Now before I get going I'd like to point out I am NOT a SQL guy.  I know a bit about databases, enough to get me in trouble but I am NOT a SQL guy. Ho hum.  Time for a SQL upgrade then.  With my paperwork and Change Request (ITIL rules here) in place I dutifully made backups off all the DBs running on the SQL 2005 box. I followed the Microsoft documentation : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd789004.aspx which basically says run, SRSUpdateTool.exe, then run the SQL upgrade and then run SRSUpdateHelpr.msi and finally re-run SRSUpdateTool.exe This all sounded pretty simple, next, next and finish.  I'll have me a shiny new SQL install in no time. A week later and I finally ...

Ok so we've been running SCOM with CU5 for a couple of months now and things are working nicely. We do have a recurring issue when notifications fail, there is not alerting/events raised for this notification just stops.  So we do reboot the services every now and again - no biggy.  However this is a bit annoying. Anyways I followed Kevin Holman's excellent blog here... http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2011/08/03/opsmgr-2007-r2-cu5-rollup-hotfix-ships-and-my-experience-installing-it.aspx plenty to read and although it is cut-n-paste job from CU4 (and CU3) it does show how Microsoft are working towards a standard process for upgrading SCOM.   Shame we are nearly at RTM for 2012! We had no surprises and thing went very smoothly. Upgrading the SQL box to 2008 R2 from 2005 was a very different matter...

I'm alive.  Honest.  Just very busy. Struggling to get net 4.0 to install....grrrr....

Currently the implementation of our Exchange 2010 SP1 installation is holding my time from Blogging about stuff. I am still active and hopefully will have some things to write about...VDI and FusionIO come to mind..:) Or even the install of CU5 for Ops Manager...just gotta get the time... Oh and if you read these pages please comment it would be good to get your views on things too.

Ok so we've been running this little test environment (see previous post) for about two weeks (almost out of the trial license (15days!)) To recap we have a SCOM environment consisting of an SQL server, a RMS server and a MS server, so a pretty simple set up infact I only have an MS server as it is advised to not have users connecting to the web console on the RMS. Also will post something about getting Kerberos working in this environment as it does - since R2 anyways so you do not need to have the web console running on the RMS - and if you have the excellent SaVision LivesMaps (which we do) then you can use the same kerberos technique to get SSO working on that too - despite what the SaVision instructions say! We also have a software Serial-over-Ethernet solution to provide connection to the SMS modem which is in a location with a signal :) this has a second benefit of failing over if the RMS is taken out for some reason. So here's how we do it: I found the most su...

We've had Operations Manager here at work for some time now.  We like it.  Warts and all.  One thing we did think of was how do we get notified that email is down.  There is a solution to this, SMS! So we purchased a nice SMS device and Ops Manager gladly informed us that we had issues via the wonders of text messages.  Hoorah!  You cannot escape!!! mwwhahaha! This was all good until we moved office.  Lovely as this office is we found that our Blackberries weren't picking up emails as often as they used to.  This office had no signal!  This was compounded by the location of the server room.  This meant that no Ops Manager alerts got through.  We only found this out when something went wrong (isn't that always the case?) Ok so we looked into either 1. Moving the RMS server as the modem HAS to be connected to the RMS. 2. Not having SMS messaging alerts (my boss wasn't keen) 3. Figuring something else out. Yes you gu...

Recently an odd thing happened on the way to The Forum.  We are still trying to figure out why these things happened however the upshot was that we lost connectivity to our OCS server. The trouble with OCS is that it is one of those technologies which is quite involved yet once put in properly it also just works.  This has the double nightmare of when things go wrong they are normally something you have seen before but can't remember and also require you to relearn all that you forgot - remembering the best way of learning is making mistakes....so yes you do all the same mistakes again. Well that's what happens if you don't write things down.  So I am. First thing I did was reboot the box as to my knowledge nothing had changed.  Can you see where this is going? Red Herring:   Still no joy so I checked the services for OCS and they wouldn't start, the event log showed that our evaluation license for OCS Enterprise has expired.  Great.  So...