How to Audit and Alert Server Restarts with SCOM 2019 (2012/16)

Often IT admins suffer from small to big outages due to unscheduled patches, failures, power, or someone mistakenly restarting a server in the middle of the workday without notifying anyone. I've created this "How to Guide" to help you set up this in your SCOM environment.

1. On your SCOM Console, navigate to authoring and create a new Rule

2. Fill in the Rule Name and Description, select Rule Category (Alert), rule Target (Windows Computer) and make sure Rule is enabled is checked.

3. Event Log Type System

4. Build Event Expression insert Event ID and Source

5. Insert values where Event ID = 1074 and Event Source = User32.

6. Set Alert Priority and Severity to fit your needs then Finish and Close

7. Overview of your recently configured rule on the Squared Up HTML5 Console

That's it, you will now start tracking those restarts. 

Thanks for reading, please share and subscribe.

One-Click Patching coming for SCOM 2019 Update Rollup 1 (UR1) 

Here's a step by step on how to deploy a Hyper-V Cluster on Windows Server 2016.
Before you start make sure you have already installed all the required features/roles and configurations on the Hyper-V nodes.

Failover Clustering Prerequisites

• Two Virtualization Hosts same CPU and RAM is recommended and Windows Server 2016 Installed.
• Hyper-V Role including Failover Cluster and MPIO ( iSCSI if necessary)
• At minimum 2 NICs per host (One for CSV/Heartbeat and Management/Guest VM's, make sure servers can communicate to each other).
• Storage attached to both servers, in my case I will have 2 Fiber ports per server A/B with MPIO enabled so the server only sees one connection,

Networking

Cluster Name:
HVCLUSTER2016
IP: 10.0.0.10
HOST01
10.0.0.11 Management/Guest VMs
10.0.1.11 Cluster Shared Volume/Heartbeat
HOST02
10.0.0.12 Management/Guest VMs
10.0.1.12 Cluster Shared Volume/Heartbeat

Hardware specs

Deploying the Cluster

On the BYB page, Next.

On the Select Servers page, enter servers you will like to add to your cluster and then Next.

On the Validation Warning page, Yes to run configuration validation tests then continue on the validation wizard.

On the Testing Options page, Run All tests (recommended) and then review the results. If you have any warning or critical issues please make sure you correct them before you proceed with the cluster creation.

On the Validation Summary page, view report if necessary and then Finish.

On the Access Point for Administering the Cluster page, enter Cluster name and IP then Next.

On the Confirmation page, review then Next.
On the Summary page, review cluster creation results then close and Open the Failover Cluster Management Console.

Configure Storage/Cluster Shared Volumes

Tasks before adding the disks:
Make sure the disks are online and initialized.

Configure Cluster Quorum/Witness Disk

On the Failover Cluster Console, right click on the Cluster name, More Actions then Configure Cluster Quorum

On the Quorum Configuration Select the quorum witness then Next.

On the Select Quorum Witness Select Disk Witness then Next. (If you would like to select a different one you are always more than welcome)

Select the volume you want to assign as the witness, Confirm then Next to complete the Quorum configuration.

Confirm the cluster Quorum disk it's available.

Post-configuration tasks:

• Add or create a VM/Role.
• Perform a Live Migration to test HA.
• Add more storage volumes if necessary.
• Remove and Add VM's to the cluster to test functionality.

That's it you have now created a Hyper-V 2016 Cluster.

How to install .Net Framework 3.5 on Windows Server 2016 ( 2012 and R2) Offline via PowerShell

There’s lost of applciations that still need .Net 3.5 which makes no sense why MS has not enabled this one as they use to do in 2008 and previous. The defaul .Net you have now is 4.5 or 4.6 and most of apps such as SQL Management Studio they require .Net 3.5.

How to enable .Net Framework 3.5 step by step

1. Get a copy of your Windows Server 2016 ISO on to the Server you are trying to get .Net installed and get it mounted (right click mount). If you don't want to copy then browse to path you might have the ISO in my case \\ServerName\ISOs\WindowsServer2016.iso then mount.
2. After you have mounted the Windows Server 2016 ISO then open PowerShell as administrator and run the following command;


Dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /All /Source:D:\sources\sxs /LimitAccess

Important: the Source: D: is the disk where the ISO have been mounted to in my case was H but it could be E, F,etc.
3. That’s it, restart is not required. Make sure you Eject the ISO after the feature is installed. 

Hope this helps.

How to Create/Configure a NIC Teaming on Server 2016/ 2012 Physical and VM's

NIC Teaming Overview

NIC Teaming, also known as load balancing and failover (LBFO), allows multiple network adapters on a computer to be placed into a team for the following purposes:

• Bandwidth aggregation
• Traffic failover to prevent connectivity loss in the event of a network component failure

This feature has been a requirement for independent hardware vendors (IHVs) to enter the server network adapter market, but until now NIC Teaming has not been included in Windows Server operating systems.
Also the NIC teaming allows you to team up to 32 interfaces in one single group which provides you better performance and redundancy.
More Info:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server-docs/networking/technologies/nic-teaming/nic-teaming

Creating a NIC Teaming and assigning VLAN and IPV4 Step by Step

I've made this tutorial on a Hyper-V 2016 Virtual Machine with Server 2016 and 4 Virtual NICs. This will be applicable to physical hosts as well.

Go to your Server Manager Console, then Click on Local Server .


On Local Server view, select Disable on the NIC Teaming to open the NIC Teaming window.


On the NIC Teaming window, click under the TEAMS section TASKS then New Team.


On the New Team page, set Name and Select the Adapters that you would like to add to your new team.


On the New Team Page, expand the Additional Properties and select the <YourTeamName> Default VLAN then Configure VLAN ID.


After assigning the VLAN ID then you should be able to complete your NIC Team.


Now that your new Team is created you should be able to assign an IP by going to the properties of your Multiplexor NIC Team Adapter as displayed below.





This is it now you have created your NIC teaming configuration. There are other extension which I will cover soon which talks about Converged Networks, configuring the easy way and also understating their benefits and usage.
Thanks for watching !
 
Follow me on twitter @davidiacevedo

 

  More info and Free EBook download here https://info.microsoft.com/Introducing-SQL-Server-2016-eBook.html

Hardware

Hyper-V VM with Windows Server 2016 TP5 Storage: 120GB RAM: 8GB

Required Components

• .Net Framework 3.5 and later releases

Features to install

• Database Services
• SQL Replication
• R Services ( In-Database)
• Full Text and Semantic Extractions
• Analysis Services
• Reporting Services Native
  • SharePoint add-in
• Client Tools
• Integrations Services
• Client Tools Backward compatibility
• Management Studio Console https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt238290.aspx

Step by Step

• Download SQL Server 2016 installation media then run the setup for the SQL installation.

 Click install to finish up the installation and then you will get the completion page.