ScupTech: Systems Centre

Showing posts with label Systems Centre. Show all posts

Wednesday, 22 May 2013

Service Manager - Exporting the Knowledge Base Analyst and End User Comments

How can I export my knowledge base articles from Service Manager?

I've heard this question asked a few times now, especially when it comes to doing a migration rather than an upgrade from 2010 to 2012.

While it's fairly straight forward to output things like the Article ID, Title, Category etc using PowerShell, getting the Analyst and EndUser comments out is slightly more tricky due to them being stored as binary data within the database (They're RTF files basically).

While I may update this post to give a script that will export every last detail I'm pushed for time at the moment so I'll just post the most complicated part.

You can use the following PowerShell script to export the comments to individual rtf files for both Internal and Analyst comments.

$OutDir = "C:\KnowledgeFolder"
Get-SCSMClass -DisplayName "Knowledge Article" | Get-SCSMClassInstance | ForEach-Object {
$KBName=$_.ArticleId
If($_.EndUserContent -ne $null)
{
$br = new-object io.binaryreader $_.EndUserContent
$al = new-object collections.generic.list[byte]
while (($i = $br.Read()) -ne -1)
{
$al.Add($i)
}
Set-Content ("$OutDir\$KBName"+"EndUserContent.rtf") $al.ToArray() -enc byte
}
If($_.AnalystContent -ne $null)
{
$br = new-object io.binaryreader $_.AnalystContent
$al = new-object collections.generic.list[byte]
while (($i = $br.Read()) -ne -1)
{
$al.Add($I)
}
Set-Content ("$OutDir\$KBName"+"AnalystContent.rtf") $al.ToArray() -enc byte
}
}

I've only had a quick test of this within a 2012 environment which has the native Get-SCSMClass and Get-SCSMClassInstance cmdlets whereas 2010 doesn't.

However with the SCSM Cmdlets from CodePlex this script should be easily adaptable for the 2010 environment.

You could then use either PowerShell to import them back into a new environment, or use Anders CSV import method shown on his post here

Travis also has a useful post with the Enum GUID's that you would need when importing via CSV here

Some useful details for working with Knowledge Articles in PowerShell:

Class Details:
DisplayName - Knowledge Article
Name - System.Knowledge.Article
ManagementPackName - System.Knowledge.Library

Some of the array contents:
Abstract
AnalystContent
ArticleId
ArticleOwner
ArticleTemplate
ArticleType
AssetStatus
Category
Comments
CreatedBy
CreatedDate
DisplayName
EndUserContent
ExternalURL
ExternalURLSource
Keywords
Notes
ObjectStatus
PrimaryLocaleID
Status
Tag
Title
VendorArticleID
#Id
#Name
#Path
#FullName
#LastModified
#TimeAdded
#LastModifiedBy
EnterpriseManagementObject
RelationshipAliases

Tuesday, 17 April 2012

MMS 2012 Keynote 1 - Part 1

Only announcement so far, Windows Server "8" is now officially Windows Server 2012 and will be available later this year (around October time is my guess)

We already know that SP1 for System Center is underway and is likely to be released at the same time as Windows Server 2012 to provide support for it.

Tuesday, 3 April 2012

Trickle of releases - System Center 2012 Downloads

With the release of System Center 2012 marching ever closer, a trickle of releases are starting to sneak out of the gate from Microsoft in preperation.

Over the last couple of days the following Solution Accelerators, Management Packs, Integration Packs and Add-ons have appeared:

Solution Accelerators

Microsoft Security Compliance Manager

Management Packs

System Center Monitoring Pack for System Center 2012 - Orchestrator
System Center Monitoring Pack for System Center 2012 - Configuration Manager
System Center Security Monitoring Pack for Endpoint Protection
System Center Monitoring Pack for WS-Management and SMASH Device Discovery
System Center Monitoring Pack for Active Directory (AD) - (This isn't 2012 specific, just updated!)
SystemCenter Monitoring pack for SQL Server (now includes support for SQL 2012 Monitoring)

Add-ons

Integration Packs

Technical Documentation

Community Technical Preview (Think Early Beta) of SP1 for System Center 2012

If you notice on some of these links, things like the Service Manager authoring tool are now named RTM, roll on the release of everything!

I'm not going to write a raft of explantion text for each one, either the name is fairly self explanatory, or click the link and read the description there.

Monday, 26 March 2012

Private Cloud & System Center Exams

I blogged ages ago (here) that Microsoft were looking for input into how to structure some of the new System Center 2012 exams.

Starting with MMS 2012 (Where I hope to be taking and passing them!!) Microsoft will be looking to offer 3 new exams.

Exam 70-243: Administering and Deploying System Center 2012 Configuration Manager.
Exam 70-246: Private Cloud Monitoring and Operations with System Center 2012.
Exam 70-247: Private Cloud Configuration and Deployment with System Center 2012.

There was a call to split 70-243 into two exams, and while this doesn't initally appear to have happened, what is encouraging is the fact that with the System Center 2012 release being a bundle of all the individual components, they have split this into the two areas:

Monitoring and Operating
Can be seen as day to day operations

Configure Data Center Process Automation (18%)

Implement workflows.
Implement service offerings.

Deploy Resource Monitoring (20%)

Deploy end-to-end monitoring.
Configure end-to-end monitoring.
Create monitoring reports and dashboards.

Monitor Resources (23%)

Monitor network devices.
Monitor servers.
Monitor the virtualization layer.
Monitor application health.

Configure and Maintain Service Management (18%)

Implement service level management.
Manage problems and incidents.
Manage cloud resources.

Manage Configuration and Protection (22%)

Manage compliance and configuration.
Manage updates.
Implement backup and recovery.

Configuration and Deployment
For those responsible for design and implementation of the solutions.

Design and Deploy System Center (19%)

Design a scalable System Center architecture.
Install the System Center Infrastructure.
Upgrade System Center components.

Configure System Center Infrastructure (21%)

Configure System Center components.
Configure portals and dashboards.

Configure the Fabric (27%)

Configure the storage fabric.
Configure the network fabric.
Configure the deployment and update servers.
Configure clouds and virtualization hosts.

Configure System Center Integration (16%)

Configure private cloud integration.
Configure integration of private and public clouds.

Configure and Deploy Virtual Machines and Services (18%)

Configure profiles.
Create and configure server App-V packages.
Configure and deploy a service.
Update a service.

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

SCOM Monitoring with Windows Phone 7

Microsoft have released a case study about a custom solution they developed to provide access to their Operations Manager infrastructure from a Windows Phone 7 app.

Microsoft IT designed some SQL APIs to expose the data in SCOM and a data synchronisation service that used the APIs to push the data into an Azure hosted service.

They then developed an Azure cloud-based middle tier service that receives the data and pushes it out to a Windows Phone 7 app.

Microsoft IT then developed a new Windows Phone app called ECIT Monitor that receives the Operations Manager system status information in near real time from the middle tier over a secure network connection, including the use of live tiles to display counts of alerts etc.

There is also mention in the case study of further enhancements for future revisions including graphically displaying incident management metrics and trends, and new drill-down screens that will provide more detailed information about a selected platform or application.

Does this mean maybe we'll see Service Manager integration?

I can only hope that this doesn't remain an internal project. Making this service an additional Software Assurance benefit like System Center Advisor would make this a really compelling argument for SA on either Windows or System Center 2012!

Case study can be found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28944

Monday, 23 January 2012

System Center 2012 Licensing Changes - Knowledge Cast

After the recent announcement last week by Microsoft on the changes being made to the license models for System Center ready for the launch of the 2012 wave, I'd like to share an invitation to a knowledge cast that I will be presenting on these changes.

http://www.trustmarquesolutions.com/news/system-center-2012-licensing-changes-webinar/

These significant changes include:

Streamlining the complexity of licensing System Center
The discontinuation of the Enterprise workload licenses
The removal of Management Server Licenses
License grants & transition paths available for existing Software Assurance customers

The Knowledge Cast will cover:

Review of the licensing changes
What these changes will mean to your business
The key timelines for pricing & product changes
The increased benefits of the System Center 2012 models

*Update- due to demand, we've added an additional session on Thursday morning*
There are four sessions that I'll be presenting on, across two days:
Tuesday January 24th 2012
11:00 – 12:00
14:00 – 15:00
Thursday January 26th
11:00 – 12:00
14:00 – 15:00

I know it's short notice, but these changes were only announced last week and some of the changes have important impact if not acted on quickly.

Places are limited, and aimed at UK based organisations, so booking soon is recommended:
http://www.trustmarquesolutions.com/news/system-center-2012-licensing-changes-webinar/

*Usual disclaimer: While I work for Trustmarque Solutions, and this knowledge cast is presented for them by myself, this blog is my personal blog and the writings and opinions contained within this blog are my personal opinions and are not reflective of the thoughts or intentions of my employer*

Wednesday, 13 October 2010

System Center Support Document RSS Feeds

I noticed a blog post on the Operations Manager blog today regarding the RSS feeds found on the Solution Center page for SCOM 2007.

I've been to each Solution Center page for the System Center products and consolidated the RSS feed links here:

Operations Manager
Configuration Manager
Service Manager - No current Solution Center RSS Feed, but I've linked the Engineering Team Blog Feed
Virtual Machine Manager
Data Protection Manager
Opalis - No current Solution Center RSS Feed, but I've linked the TechNet Wiki Feed

Saturday, 2 October 2010

IT Governance, Risk & Compliance for System Center

The IT GRC accelerator was released this week and uses a combination of Service Manager, Configuration Manager (DCM) and processes aligned to ITIL and MOF to help organisations assess and remedy compliance and risk issues.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/systemcenter/archive/2010/09/30/it-governance-risk-amp-compliance-solution-now-available.aspx

I'm hoping to put this in our test environment next week so post back once I've had a play.

From the initial notes it looks like the first management pack will only check Server 2008, 2008 R2 and Windows 7 devices. I really hope that either this isn't the case or they get on with releasing a 2003/XP pack soon!