Permissions for System Center Orchestrator runbooks

Okay, here's a good scenario on  System Center Orchestrator. You create a runbook that connects to a remote server. You tried to start/stop a service but it failed or gives you a warning or error. So how do you resolve this issue?

I've tried so many other ways as being told in other sites but the simplest thing worked out for me. 

Add the Orchestrator run as account as local administrator on remote server that the runbook is working with. And whoala, the runbook can now start/stop a service!

If you want to check other permissions required, check it out here.

Free Microsoft Jacket! Join the MCSA Challenge!

Limited edition jacket for those who are taking the MCSA Certfications. See image below for more details. (Upgrade certifications are not accepted; you must take the entire set of exams to qualify)

Visit Microsoft Partners Philippines for more details. 

Officially A Microsoft V-TSP

This is a great day! I'm now officially selected a Microsoft vTSP! I'll be working closely with MSFT with regards to Pre-Sales and Implementation of Hyper-V 2012, WS 2012 and System Center 2012.

So what's a vTSP? I've googled down and found this this phrase from Ryan:

The Microsoft Virtual Technology Specialist Program (VTSP) is a select group chosen from the elite in Microsoft’s partner community, whose focus is to augment Microsoft’s internal Technology Specialist team. Their primary role is to communicate the value of Microsoft Solutions to customers and to provide architectural guidance for Enterprise Integration solutions. The Microsoft VTSP program was designed to create a deeper relationship with Microsoft Partners, the Product Teams at Microsoft Corporate, and Regional Microsoft Offices, in order to provide highly skilled solution specialists to Microsoft customers. It is designed to enable a high performance team of partner-based resources to deliver pre-sale activities and resources to empower customers and help them meet their solution and integration needs.

I'm hoping to learn more from this program and hope to level up more in this industry of Cloud Computing!

SCOM Management Servers Greyed out

I recently found out this morning that my SCOM Server was down and after logging in to my SCOM I see that my management server is greyed out.

Partial fix that worked for me was to fix the error first that says " partitioning and grooming processes for the operational database (OperationsManager) on the server scom, 1433 have either not been run recently or have been failing. At the time this alert was raised, the partitioning and grooming process had not completed for 1 days." Verify the SQL server if there are any errors and the SCOM events. After that let the error resolve on its own. If the management server wont go green, restart the affected SCOM server.

SCSM 2012 Self-Service Portal Access Denied

If you're getting an error from Service Manager 2012 Self Service Portal which looks something like this:

Error: Access Denied

Here's how to resolve the issue:

1. Logout and Sign in as a Sharepoint Administrator.
2. From SCSM 2012 Portal, select Site Permissions (located on Sharepoint Tab).
3. You'll see a warning "This Web site inherits permissions from its parent (Team Site)". Select Manage Parent.
4. Select Grant Permissions.
5. Add the group/users of choice, to give general permissions, add the group Domain Users and make sure to tick/give Read Permissions. 

Basically, after installing Service Manager 2012 Web Parts, the only user that can access the Self-Service Portal is the Sharepoint Administrator. So make sure to add the required users to the list after installing the Web Parts. 

SCSM 2012 Web Part on Windows Server 2012

I've recently encountered one of the strangest flaw on SCSM 2012, and it's installing all of Service Manger 2012 Web Part on Windows Server 2012. 

So let's review the requirements:

• Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM or with SP1
• IIS 7.5 with IIS 6 metabase compatibility installed
• Self-signed SSL certificate
• ASP.NET 2.0
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0
• Microsoft Analysis Management Objects
• Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010
• Or Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
• Or Microsoft SharePoint 2010 for Internet Sites Enterprise
• Excel Services in SharePoint 2010 is required for hosting dashboards for advanced analytical reports

So to install Service Manger 2012, you're going to need Sharepoint 2010, may it be Foundation or Server. But note that Sharepoint 2010 only supports up to Windows Server 2008 R2. Even if you have SP1, still it's a no go. And Sharepoint 2013 is not supported by Service Manager 2012. 

So the answer to the question on can we install all of Service Manager 2012 Web Parts on Windows 2012? NO, you cannot install ALL Service Manager Web Parts until an SP2 for Sharepoint 2010 or Service Manager 2012 receives an SP2(that provides support for Sharepoint 2013). What you can do (if you still want to use Windows Server 2012) is to have a separate Sharepoint Server on Windows 2008 R2 and let it host the Sharepoint Web Part. 

Free Upgrade for Microsoft Certified IT Professionals

For those who with the following certifications:

MCSA: Windows Server 2008 

MCITP: Virtualization Administrator 

MCITP: Enterprise Messaging Administrator 

MCITP: Lync Server Administrator 

MCITP: SharePoint Administrator 

MCITP: Enterprise Desktop Administrator


You can get free vouchers to upgrade to:

MCSE: Desktop Infrastructure
MCSE: Server Infrastructure
MCSE: Private Cloud

So what are you waiting for? Grab the link here and start preping for the exams! By the way, these exams comes with Second Shots!


*These vouchers expire on Dec 31st, 2013. All exams and retake exams in the pack must be taken by December 31st, 2013.*

Windows Server 2012 Upgrade Jump Start

For those who are looking for training videos on Windows Server 2012, you might be interested in these videos for jump start training here.

These videos are intended for those who would want to upgrade their MCITP certifications to MCSE: Desktop Infrastructure, or MCSE: Server Infrastructure, or MCSE: Private Cloud. 

The partner transaction manager has disabled its support for remote/network transactions

As a lesson learned, when doing two way replication on SQL Servers, make sure to enable Network Access to MS DTC. To enable it do the following steps:

1. Go to Run > dcomcnfg.exe
2. Expand Console tree and find DTC
3. Click on local dtc > properties
4. Go to Security Tab
5. Enable Network DTC Access 
6. Check inbound & outbound (whichever is required)
7. Check Client Administration 
8. Use compatible authentication, mutual has the highest security.

Reference:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753620(v=ws.10).aspx 

Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created

What a pain! This error has been bugging me since morning and thankfully I have found a way of resolving this.

*Note: This has been tested on Windows 2008 R2 while installing SQL 2008.

The problem seems to be on the .NET 3.5 installation that you did as a prerequisite for SQL 2008. To resolve this we need to add another feature.

1. Go to Server Manager
2. Add a new feature
3. Select Windows Process Activation Services 
4. Check .NET Environment
5. Install SQL 2008 again

Some users find that closing all running applications except the SQL Installation works.

Transferred from Weebly!

I'm transferring my blog to Blogger.com because buying a domain with weebly is too much of a pain. So hold on while I transfer all the contents of my blog to this new one.