Install MP: System Center Management Pack for Windows Server DNS

In this blogpost I am going to take you true the steps in took installing the new System Center Management Pack for Windows Server DNS

The System Center Management Pack for Windows Server DNS monitors DNS health, availability, configuration, security, and zone-transfer issues on DNS servers running

Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012 R2

You can download the System Center Management Pack for Windows Server DNS from here

The System Center Management Pack for windows Server DNS is intended to completely replace the functionality of the previous DNS Management Packs. De Previous DNS Mangement Pack is not backwards compatible with the new System Center Management Pack for Windows Server DNS. But if you have the previous DNS Management Pack installed it can live side-by side whit the new Systen Center Management Pack for Windows Server.

The previous Management Pack can be downloaded from here

I will be using the following steps to install and configure the System Center Management Pack for Windows Server DNS.

Create a Management Pack for Customizations
Import the System Center Management Pack for Windows Server DNS

1. Create management Pack for Customizations.

Start the “System Center Operations Manager Console”
In the “Navigation” pane, click “Administration”
In the “Administration” pane, select “Management Pack” and in the task pane click “Create Management Pack”
In the “Create a Management Pack” wizard, on the “General Properties” page in the “Management Pack General Properties” section enter a “Name”, “Description” and click “Next”
In the “Create a Management Pack” wizard, on the “Knowledge Article” page in the “Knowledge” section click “Create”

2. Import the System Center Management Pack for Windows Server DNS

Start the “SC Management Pack for DNS 2012.msi”
In the “SC Management Pack for DNS 2012 – Installer” wizard, on the “License Agreement” page, check “I Accept” and click “Next”
In the “SC Management Pack for DNS 2012 – Installer” wizard, on the “Select Installation Folder” page, in the “Folder” section, select the location where you want to install the SC Management for DNS 2012. In the section “Install SC Management Pack for DNS 2012 for yourself, or for anyone whoe uses this computer” choose “Everyone” click “Next”
In the “SC Management Pack for DNS 2012 – Installer” wizard, on the “Comfirm Insatallation” page, click “Install”
In the “SC Management Pack for DNS 2012 – Installer” wizard, on the “Installation Complete” page click “Close”
Start the “System Center Operations Manager Console”
In the “Navigation” pane, click “Administration”
In the “Administration” pane, select “Management Pack” and in the task pane click “Import Management Packs”
In the “Import Management Pack” wizard, on the “Select Management Packs” page, in the section “Import List” click “Add” and click “Add from disk …”
On the “Online Catalog Connection” page, click “No”
On the “Select Management Pack to import” page. browse to the locatiosn where you installed the Management Packs and select:
- Microsoft.Windows.DNSServer.Generic.Dashboard.mp
- Microsoft.WIndows.DNSServer.Generic.Presentation.mp
- Microsoft.Windows.Server.DNS.mp
- Microsoft.Windows.Server.DNS.Optional.Enable.Event.Collection.mp
- Microsoft.Windows.Server.DNS.Optional.Enable.Performance.Collection.mp
- Microsoft.Windows.Server.DNS.Optional.Enable.Windows.2003.2008.2008r2.Discover.mp
Click “Open”
In the “Import Management Pack” wizard, on the “Select Management Packs” page, in the section “Import List” click “Install”
In the “Import Management Pack” wizard, on the “Select Management Packs” page, in the section “Import List” click “Close”.

When all the default enabled discovery are run the result should look soimething like this:

Updates MP: System Center Management Pack for Windows Server DNS

On 22-December-2015 Microsoft released an update of the System Center Management Pack for Windows Server DNS to version: 10.0.0.1

System Center Management Pack for Windows Server DNS The features and fixes that are included in this update:
- Feature: Generic Management Pack Integration: introduced a common folder structure, which will be used by future releases of Windows Server DNS monitoring packs. This management pack enables version-independent generic views and groups, displaying the information about all versions of Windows Server DNS.

Before installing the updates in your production environment make sure you test these updates in your test environment

Updates MP: System Center Management Pack for Dynamics CRM 2015

On 9-December-2015 Microsoft released an update of the System Center Management Pack for Dynamics CRM 2015 to version: 7.0.0.1

Microsoft System Center Management Pack for Dynamics CRM 2015 The features and fixes that are included in this update:
- Feature: Monitors the availability and health of the following components:
  - Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2015, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Server 2013
  - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 E-mail Router, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 E-mail Router
  - Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2015 Reporting Extensions, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Reporting Extensions
- Feature: Monitors the availability and health of the following component services:
  - Microsoft Dynamics CRM Asynchronous Processing Service
  - Microsoft Dynamics CRM Asynchronous Processing Service (maintenance)
  - Microsoft Dynamics CRM Sandbox Processing Service
  - Microsoft Dynamics CRM E-mail Router Service
  - Microsoft Dynamics CRM Unzip Service
  - World Wide Web Publishing Service
  - Indexing Service
- Feature: Monitors the availability and health of the following application components and functionality:
  - Operability of ISV plug-ins
  - Web application requests processing, SOAP exceptions, and unexpected failures
- Feature: Monitors the performance metrics of the following components:
  - Web application requests processing
  - Database query processing
- Feature: Monitors the system for configuration-related failures.

Before installing the updates in your production environment make sure you test these updates in your test environment

Software Update: VSAE Supporting Visual Studio 2015

On 8-December-2015 Microsoft released an software update of the System Center Visual Studio Authoring Extensions (VSAE) to version: 1.2.0.0

System Center Visual Studio Authoring Extensions. The features and fixes that are included in this software update:
- Update: Support for Visual Studio 2015. Both the Community and Enterprise editions are supported. Older versions of Visual Studio (2012/2013) continue to be supported

Before installing this software update in your production environment make sure you test these software update in your test environment.

SCOM: Data Access SPN Not Registered

I was rebuilding my System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2 Lab environment and when finished installing my System Center Operations Manager Environment it was giving me the critical alert. “Data Access Service SPN Not Registered”

The reason I get this error is that I deployed my System Center Operations Manager Environment using a standard Domain User account for the System Center Data Access Service. By default a Domain User doesn’t have the right to update its own Service Principle Name (SPN).

When looking into the blog post off Kevin Holman you can read that it’s a Bug in the System Center Operations Manager 2012 r2 software. You can find the blog post here

Before I go into explaining the solution Let me explain what Service Principle Name (SPN) is.

Kerberos defines two different types of accounts (Principals). The two different names given to these types of accounts are User Principle Name (UPN) and Service Principle Name (SPN).

User Principal Name are defined on user accounts. When looking at the properties of a user account on the account tab, the UPN is combined between two fields listed under the User Logon Name.
A User Principal Name (UPN) must be unique across the entire Active Directory Forest otherwise the Key Distribution Center (KDC) goes looking up a user account using the UPN, it will get back more than one account and causes authentication failures for all user accounts that have the same UPN. The UPN of an Active Directory Object is an attribute of the object and can only hold a single value. The attribute name is userPrinicipalName and can be found when opening the properties off a user account and going to the Attribute Editor tab

Service Principal Names must also be unique across the entire Active Directory Forest and can be assigned to User Accounts and Computer Accounts. Computer Accounts automatically have the Service Principal Names Defined. Service Principal Names define what services run under the accounts security context. The SPN of a Active Directory Object is an attribute of the object and can hold multiple values. The attribute name is servicePrincipalName and can be found when opening the properties off a computer account and going to the Attribute Editor Tab

If you want more information on User Principal Names and Service Principal Names please take a look at Rob Greene blog which can be found here

Now that we know a little bit more about Service Principal Names time to solve the above mentioned error.

Start “Active Directory Users And Computers”
Browse to the location where the computer Object is located
Right Click on the “Computer Object” and click “Properties”
On the “Properties” page, select the “Attribute Editor”
Double click the attribute “servicePrinicipalName”
In the “Multi-valued String Editor” screen enter “MSOMSdkSvc/DevMS02” and click “Add”
In the “Multi-Valued String Editor” screen enter “MSOMSdkSvc/DevMS02.dev.ms-opsmgr.eu” and click “Add” and “OK”
On the Properties Page Click “Apply” and “OK”

When the above mentioned entries are entered the Alert is being resolved.

Active Directory Integration

When installing a System Center Operations Manager 2012 r2 environment Active Directory Integration is not direct part off the installation process. Active Directory integration enables agents to retrieve a the management server by queering Active Directory. You can use this options if you want to deploy your clients using a GPO or System Center Configuration Manager.

In this blog post I’m going to take you to de steps you need to take to deploy and configure Active Directory Integration:

Connect the “System Center Operations Manager 2012 r2” installation media to your “Management Server”
Start an elevated “Powershell” console, and browse to “D:\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Operations Manager\Server”
At the prompt “D:\Microsoft System Center 2012 R2\Operations Manager\Server” type “momadmin.exe<ManagementGroupName> <OMAdminSecurityGroup> <RunAsAccount> <Domain>”. In my case would that be “momadmin.exe Opsmgr2012r2 “Opsmgr Administrators” dev\DevOpsmgrAction dev.ms-opsmgr.eu” and press “Enter”
When starting “Active Directory Users And Computers” the result should look something like this:
Start the “System Center Operations Manager Console”
In the “System Center Operations Manager Console” click “Administration” expand “Device Management” and click “Management Servers”
Right click on the management server that you want to configure and click “Properties”
On the “Management Server Properties” screen in the “Auto Agent Assignment” section click “add”
In the “Agent Assignment and Failover Wizard” screen on the “Introduction” page click “Next”
In the “Agent Assignment and Failover Wizard” screen on the “Domain” page, Select the domain that you want to use. In my case “dev.ms-opsmgr.eu”. Click “Next”
In the “Agent Assignment and Failover Wizard” screen, on the “Inclusion Criteria” page, click “Configure”
In the “Find Computers” wizard, Create a query that matches your needs. and click “Ok”
In the “Agent Assignment and Failover Wizard” screen, on the “Inclusion Criteria” page, click “Next”
In the “Agent Assignment and Failover Wizard” screen, on the “Exclusion Criteria” page, click “Next”
In the “Agent Assignment and Failover Wizard” screen, on the “Agent Failover” page, select “Automatically manage failover” and click “Create”

Now that we configured Active Directory Integration we have to configure the Microsoft Monitoring Agent to make use of the Active Directory integration. You can start the “Microsoft Monitoring Agent” using the “Control Panel”. `

Select the manual assigned Management Server and click “Remove” and click “Apply”. The Microsoft Monitoring Agent Service is restarted. Now it’s time to wait for the Active Directory Integration service to pick up the configuration.

When the configuration us picked up by the client it should look something like this.

Roel Knippen

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager

Month: December 2015