Yesterday Microsoft added some more content that will help everyone that want to learn more about how to create a Management Pack. If you open the TechNet site and click on the Management Pack University link you will have 14 videos that describe different aspects related to building Management Packs.

Today I got my MVP renewal letter that informed me that I was re-awarded as Most Valuable Professional and therefore receiving the Microsoft MVP award for the third year in a row for doing a great job in serving the community by helping out on forums and other community events.

If you do any kind of operating system deployment, now is the time to start testing the new MDT 2010 beta 2. Some of the new features is:

• Access deployment shares from anywhere on the network and replicate files and settings across organizational boundaries or sites.
• Organize and manage drivers, operating systems, applications, packages, and task sequences with an improved UI.
• Automate UI functionality using the Windows PowerShell command line interface.
• Drag and drop
• Copy/Past

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In the above print screen you can see how you can organize OS, drivers, etc in “folders”

Download MDT 2010 from Microsoft Connect

Today Microsoft released there first MP for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009.

Feature Summary
The Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Management Pack provides the following capabilities.

• View the state of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 AOS instances
• View information about AOS instances such as version and configuration information
• View users connected to AOS instances
• View Event Log Messages for AOS instances
• View batch jobs and batch task information
• Start and stop AOS instances
• Receive alerts when AOS instances stop running

Download Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 Management Pack for Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 from Microsoft

PS! If you are running System Center Operations Manager R2 you can download and import directly from the console

Last week I got a question about the licensing for AEM and I thought this could be important for others to.

• Just because you don’t use any agent on the computer (AEM or Agentless monitoring) – you still need a license for the clients.
• If your clients have an MDOP license (Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack) you are allowed to use AEM without any new license since MDOP include DEM (Desktop Error Monitoring) that is the same feature as AEM.

For more information about this, download and read the Microsoft Licensing Product Use Rights document. Below you can see a “quote”

“You do not need a client management license for your devices licensed to use Desktop Error Monitoring technology (DEM). This applies when DEM is licensed alone or with the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack 2007. This applies only to agentless monitoring of OSEs running a non-server operating system.”

If you have been working with System Center Essentials, you know that there is no report/view to see updates needed but not approved. As of today, the only way you have been able to get this list is to:

1. Use the powershell script that the SCE team has build(more information about this script can be found here) to get a list of updates needed for partners updates (for example Dell, HP or Adobe)
2. For Windows Updates, you have been able to use the WSUS console

Since all of the information we need do exist in the databases I thought a standard SQL report would be easier so I build one and I have added it as a Management pack that you can import (see link below)

1. Import the MP from the Administration space 
   
2. When the import is complete is can take a couple of minutes and before the report is visible in the console (you might need to do a refresh F5)
3. The report is target to the Windows Computer Class so whenever you select a Windows computer (in the computer space or in the monitoring space) you will have the option to run the “Missing Updates” report from the Action menu on right side
   
4. You can also run the report directly from the Reporting space
   
5. When you have selected the report you have the option to select one or more computers and also select from what category you want to run against (Microsoft, Adobe, Dell, Hp etc)
   
6. After you click run you will get a list of the updates the computer(s) need(s).
   

If you have any feedback on this MP, please send me a mail bjorn.axell@advisec.com or add it as a comment to the blog post

Download Missing Updates MP

I want to thank Ravi K. from the SCE team and to Mattias Lind – http://blog.mssqlserver.se/ for helping out with the SQL query

In the past, SCOM has used the old News groups (NNTP) for there support forums. With the release of SCOM 2007 R2, they have moved it to the new Online Forums (same as we have had for SCE).

Link to the Online Forum

For all of you that have been waiting for SCOM R2 RTM release – you can now download the trial version from Microsoft. I’m not sure when it will be available for download from the VL site or the Technet/MSDN site but I guess it will be in a couple of days.

Download from Microsoft

Are you using System Center Essentials 2007 (SCE)? Then you probably wonder what will be included in the next version. The SCE team has recorded a short video where they discuss and demo System Center Essentials 2010.

New features is:

• Virtualization – Full manageability of virtual machines. You will also be able to to a P2V directly from the console
• Better targeting of software
• Grouping of tasks
• Client and servers are now managed separately, this will give you the option have different patch option/configuration

I will publish more information when it become public available.

Check out this video from TechEd 2009

Link to the SCE team blog post

Min vän Anders Bengtsson (http://contoso.se) kommer ihop med sin kollega Jörgen Nilsson köra en helt nyskriven kurs som blandar SCOM och SCCM. Om du jobbar med dessa rekommenderar jag dig läsa mer om innehållet på Cornerstones hemsida.

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