Feb. 11, 2008
MCP Magazine News
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Greg's Weekly quickTip: Server Confidence Enhancement
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IN THIS ISSUE:
- Greg's Weekly quickTIP: Server Confidence Enhancement
- Redmond Radio: Windows 2008 RTMs; Gmail Security; OpenID;
More
- IT Events: Office Developer Conference; Emerging Tech;
TechMentor
- Special Offers: Remote Access and Security; TechMentor San
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GREG'S WEEKLY QUICKTIP: Server Confidence Enhancement
By Greg Shields
Starting with the first column on Systems Center Essentials
http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.aspx?editorialsid=2448
, we talked
about SCE itself and how it's designed with the small IT
network in mind.
In the second http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.aspx?editorialsid=2471
and third http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.aspx?editorialsid=2489
parts,
I showed some examples of how systems inventory and software
deployment
are made easier through its automated interface. With this
last look at
SCE, let's look at the monitoring and alerting benefits.
In your small IT environment today, do you know when systems
go down?
Does your pager or mobile device alert you when a system
stops
responding to pings? Or, are you forced to wait for users to
call in
complaints? Lacking a centralized monitoring solution, it is
painfully
difficult to proactively solve problems before users find
out.
Included with SCE are components of Systems Center
Operations Manager
that collect Event Log and PerfMon information into a
centralized
database. When problems occur, you can configure an alert to
hit your
pager before your phone rings.
With an installed SCE instance connected to clients, click
on the
Monitoring node. There, you'll see a link for Active Alerts.
Herein
lies the beauty with SCE and its SCOM foundation. SCE
incorporates a
set of filters that looks through the mountains of log data
submitted
by the systems in the environment. It brings forward to the
screen
only that data it feels is necessary to be acted upon.
Unlike a lot of
log centralization systems that force the user to create
their own
filters, SCE and its Management Packs starts you right out
of the
gate by showing you only the alerts that are important.
Even more useful under Monitoring is the Computers node.
Here, each
managed computer is lined up and given a rating. If no
problems are
present with a system, that system is marked as Healthy. If
something may be wrong, that system can be Critical.
Right-clicking
an unhealthy computer and choosing to open the Health
Explorer
provides a drill-down view for that computer that discusses
what's
wrong, when it went wrong and, in many cases, how to fix it.
As an example, upon installing SCE into my network, I
immediately
discovered that one of my systems was showing a high
Percentage of
Committed Memory in Use. I knew that system was running
slowly, but I
had no deep knowledge of why. With SCE monitoring the Event
Log and
PerfMon for counters out of its expected thresholds, I
immediately
knew that I needed to add RAM to the machine.
To be notified when problems occur, SCE allows for the
creation of
Notification Channels, Subscriptions and Recipients.
Notification
Channels identify how the notification will arrive to the
admin:
via e-mail, instant message, SMS message or a custom
command.
Subscriptions provide a way of identifying which messages
are of
interest. Recipients are the individuals who want to receive
subscribed
alerts. These three combine to enable a high level of
granularity to
which alerts individuals want to receive. As an example, if
Bob the
mail admin only wants to receive high-priority Exchange
error alerts,
and only between the hours of 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. when he's
not in the
office, that level of granularity can be assigned to him.
As you can see here -- and, hopefully, throughout this
entire
series -- System Center Essentials mates the software
deployment and
inventory capabilities of System Center Configuration
Manager
(formerly SMS) with the monitoring and alerting capabilities
of
System Center Operations Manager (formerly MOM). It then
skins it
with an interface that's easy to use for admins and designed
specifically with the smallest of networks in mind. If
you're tired
of firefighting in your network like me, you may find SCE to
be the
tool that gets you back out onto the slopes for a few runs.
Comment: http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.aspx?editorialsid
=2490#post
Greg Shields, MCSE: Security, CCEA, is an independent
author,
instructor, and consultant based in Denver, Colo. A
contributing
editor to Redmond magazine, MCPmag.com and a popular speaker
at
TechMentor events, Greg?s recent book Windows Server 2008:
What's
New/What's Changed, is now available at www.sapienpress.com.
gshields redmondmag.com
Check out MCPmag.com's column archive for more savvy tips
and tricks
from Jeff, Greg Shields, Chris Wolf and other frequent
contributors.
http://mcpmag.com/columns/
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REDMOND RADIO for Feb. 11, 2008
Hosted by Michael Domingo
Take a quick listen to what made news last week in the world
of
Redmond and IT:
* Windows 2008 released to manufacturing
* Patch Tuesday preview
* Google beefs up Gmail security
* New members join OpenID consortium
Plus, listen to find out how to enter the weekly Redmond
T-Shirt
Giveaway, as well as enter the upcoming TechMentor
All-Access Pass
Giveaway, exclusive only to Redmond Radio listeners:
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if you
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IT EVENTS OF INTEREST TO MCPMAG.COM READERS:
- Feb. 10-13: Microsoft Office System Developer Conference
San Jose: Conference with more than 70 sessions on
development with
Office and Sharepoint.
https://microsoft.crgevents.com/ODC2008/Con
tent/default.aspx?p=UC3HYF
- March 7-13: O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference
San Diego: Deep-think conference on topics ranging from
robotics,
health care, and space travel to gaming, finance, and art in
relation
to technology. http://confer
ences.oreillynet.com/etech
- March 30-April 3: TechMentor San Francisco
Tenth anniversary of IT event includes more than 140
sessions on
Windows Powershell, Windows 2008 server, security and
technical
advice on managing Windows-based networks.
http://techmento
revents.com/2008/sf/
- April 27-May 2: Interop
Las Vegas: More than 500 exhibitors and 200 sessions for IT
and
networking experts. http://www.interop.com/
- April 28-May 2: Microsoft Management Summit
Las Vegas: Features a deep look at the Systems Center suite.
https://www
.mms-2008.com/public/home.aspx
- June 3-6/10-13: Tech Ed
Orlando, Fla.: Bill Gates keynotes the developer confab; Bob
Muglia
heads up IT portion that follows.
http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2008/default.mspx
- July 7-10: Worldwide Partner Conference
Houston: Steve Ballmer slated to speak on impact of
Software+Services
on Microsoft's global partner community.
http://www.microsoft.com/partner/events/w
wpartnerconference/default.htm
For more security events, go to http://mcpmag.com/events/.
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TechMentor offers over 180 hours of technical and strategic
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