Known Issues and Troubleshooting for SSAS 2008 MP

Known Issues and Troubleshooting for SSAS 2008 MP

• Users who had the previous version of SSAS management pack installed should remove Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services Visualization Library (version 1.0.5.0) manually.

Issue: The library has become a generic component and a new management pack that contains the functionally is released. Since it is impossible to remove the obsolete pack automatically during installation process, users have to do it manually.

Resolution: Remove Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services Visualization Library (version 1.0.5.0).

• If the last SSAS database or partition is deleted the object will be still displayed in SCOM as if it exists.

Issue: Current implementation of SSAS database and partition discoveries incorrectly resolves the situation when the last SSAS database or partition is deleted. In the case the information regarding the deleted object is still visible to the user.

Resolution: There is no resolution. The error may be addressed in future releases of the management pack. A user can either add a SSAS database/partition or remove the SSAS instance.

• ‘An error occurred during execution of a SSAS 2008 MP managed module’ alert rule generates extra alerts for virtual nodes.

Issue: Current implementation of the rule uses ‘SSAS 2008 Seed’ as a target. Virtual nodes have mutual seed, as a result each time an error occurs on a physical machine an alert is automatically reported from every virtual entity which is currently associated with that physical machine.

Resolution: There is no resolution. The error may be addressed in future releases of the management pack.

• Event 6200 “Analysis Services connection failed” error is reported into Operations Manager event log.

Issue: Instance discovery workflows of SSAS management pack require connection to a SSAS instance, if the connection is not provided the workflows report about encountered problems. Such an issue may occur when the instance is stopped during execution of a workflow, or when the instance is incorrectly configured.

Resolution: Set ‘Threadpool\Query\MaxThreads’ property to a value of less than or equal to two times the number of processors on the server.

• Operations Consoles crash when user simultaneously opens two or more Instance/Database Summary dashboards on the same machine.

Issue: It is allowed to run two or more Operations Consoles on the same machine, but opening summary dashboards in more than one of them leads to a crash of all consoles. The issue is not observed in Web-consoles.

Resolution: There is no resolution.

• Operations Console crashes if user who is browsing Instance Summary dashboard selects a SSAS Instance which has already been deleted.

Issue: The action cause a crash of Operations Console.

Resolution: Open Operation console again.

• “Health Service State” monitor is in critical state and Health Service restarts periodically.

Issue: By default the threshold of “Monitoring Host Private Bytes Threshold Monitor” from the System Management Pack is 300 Mbytes. “MonitoringHost.exe” process may exceed the threshold and the “Health Service State” monitor may start the recovery procedure, when SSAS 2008 Monitoring Pack is collecting information about a large number of objects (more than 50 SSAS databases or 1500 partitions per server).

Resolution: Override the threshold of the “Monitoring Host Private Bytes Threshold Monitor” or reduce the number of objects being monitored by disabling discovery of partition objects.

• Event 6200 “Category does not exist” (source – “SSAS 2008 MP”) is being generated on 64-bit operating systems running 32-bit SSAS instances.

Issue: SSAS doesn’t register performance counters properly when a 32-bit SSAS instance is installed on a 64-bit OS. In this case required performance counters cannot be found by Monitoring Pack and SSAS 2008 MP is unable to run properly.

Resolution: This issue cannot be resolved, WoW64 is not supported. It is highly recommended to use either 32-bit SSAS instances on 32-bit OS or 64-bit SSAS instances on 64-bit OS.

• Health Service and Monitoring Host processes consume too much memory on systems running SSAS 2008 instances with large number of databases

Issue: On agent-managed systems that host one or more instance of SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services with large number of databases and/or partitions, “Health Service” and “Monitoring Host” processes may consume too much memory.

Resolution: It is not recommended to monitor more than 50 SSAS Databases on a single server. It is recommended to disable SSAS partitions discovery if you have more than 1500 partitions on a single server.

• SSAS 2008 Summary Dashboards for Instances, Databases and Partitions display all active alerts if nothing is selected in the navigation widget (leftmost widget on the dashboard).

Issue: Dashboards display all active alerts if nothing is selected in the navigation widget (leftmost widget on the dashboard).

Resolution: Make sure that at least one Instance, Database or Partition is selected in the navigation widget.

• WMI errors may occur when SQL Server AS 2008/2008 R2 and SQL Server AS 2012 are installed on the same server.

Issue: Modules can throw an error during WMI query.

Resolution: Update SQL Server 2008/2008 R2 with the latest service pack.

• Partition Storage Free Space Monitor may generate too many alerts.

Issue: The monitor may generate a lot of alerts if database default storage folder and partition storage folder are sharing the same drive.

Resolution: Disable the monitor for all partitions which are sharing the same drive with database storage folder.

• SSAS Seed object cannot be discovered if SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and SQL Server 2008 are installed on the same server.

Issue: SSAS 2008 Monitoring Pack can throw a WMI error during Seed object discovery.

Resolution: Update SQL Server 2008/2008 R2 with the latest service pack or disable Seed object discovery for a given server if that server is not running an Instance of SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services.

• SSAS 2008 Monitoring Pack generates an alert: “An error occurred during execution of a SSAS 2008 MP managed module”.

Issue: Alert “An Error occurred during execution of a SSAS 2008 MP managed module” can be found in global “Active Alerts” view.

Resolution: This alert is generated if SSAS 2008 Monitoring Pack cannot execute one of workflows due to unknown issue. Examine alert message and alert context to determine the root cause.

• SSAS 2008 Monitoring Pack may register Errors in the event log during installation of a new instance of SQL Server Analysis Services.

Issue: SSAS 2008 Monitoring Pack may generate a lot of errors in event log during installation of a new instance of SQL Server Analysis Services.

Resolution: The issue occurs because Monitoring Pack cannot get all required properties from the registry and WMI during installation process. Once the installation process is completed, the Monitoring Pack will be able to operate properly.

• SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services reports incorrect value for Total and Low memory limit performance counters.

Issue: SQL Server Analysis Services may report incorrect values for Total and Low memory limit performance counters after reconfiguration.

Resolution: SQL Server Analysis Services doesn’t apply new configuration values immediately. SSAS service should be restarted to apply new settings.

• SSAS 2008 Monitoring Pack generates an alert: “Could not find a part of the path to configuration file 'msmdsrv.ini'”

Issue: SSAS 2008 Monitoring Pack reports an error in the Event log and generates an alert “Could not find a part of the path to configuration file 'msmdsrv.ini'”. The issue occurs during cluster failover.

Resolution: There is no resolution. The issue may occur when monitoring workflow is trying to collect information during cluster failover. Once the failover is completed, the Monitoring Pack will be able to operate properly.

• SSAS 2008 Monitoring Pack may not collect OS performance counters with localized names

Issue: SSAS 2008 Monitoring Pack may not collect OS performance counters with localized names.

Resolution: Workaround: set English display language for user accounts associated with SSAS Discovery and Monitoring Run AS Profiles. Also apply English as display language for system accounts.

Upgrading an Operating System from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008: How to Prevent Discovery Problems

Upgrading an Operating System from Windows 2003 to Windows 2008: How to Prevent Discovery Problems

• Before you upgrade the operating system on a monitored computer, uninstall the Operations Manager agent. After the upgrade, reinstall the Operations Manager agent.

Reason:

• The objects that the management pack discovers, such as logical disks, are hosted by a parent class that is not version-specific. When you upgrade the operating system, the order in which discovery occurs can result in duplicate objects being discovered.
• For example, you upgrade a computer running Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008. 
• If the Windows Server 2003 discovery rules run first after the upgrade, the instance of the computer running Windows Server 2003 and its objects will be removed from discovery because the operating system base class has been removed. When the Windows Server 2008 discovery rules run, the computer and its objects will be discovered again.
• If the Windows Server 2008 discovery rules run first after the upgrade, the computer running Windows Server 2008 and its objects will be discovered. When the Windows Server 2003 discovery rules run, the instance of the computer running Windows Server 2003 will be removed from discovery, but the objects hosted by that instance will not be removed.
• So If you upgrade a computer without uninstalling the agent first and then discover duplicate objects, uninstall the agent to mark all hosted objects as deleted in the database. Next, reinstall the agent to only discover existing applications/objects.  

Command to Get List of Patches installed on Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 2012

Command to Get List of Patches installed on Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 2012

• Manytime we get request from application owners who request for list of patches instaled and on what date
• You can use the below command to get the list of Patches from the server. This will Create a html file called hotfix.html in your C: drive.

• wmic qfe list brief /format:htable > "c:\hotfix.html"

Add new Disk on Virtual Servers in Windows Azure

Extend Disk on Virtual Servers in Windows Azure

• First Login to Windows Azure portal and your Virtual Mahcine and select "Attach an Empty Disk"

• Now enter the Disk Size you want and click Create

DFS File System Management pack for Windows 2012 R2/2008/2003 - Step by Step Install

DFS File System Management pack for Windows 2012 R2/2008/2003

• File system is one of the biggest thing in any company.
• And Monitoring Distributed File System is one great Challenge.
• Microsoft has given a Management pack to Monitor the File system on Windows 20012 R2,2008 R2 and 2003.
• You can download the MP from here-->Click here
• The File Services management pack retrieves events and other health information generated by the services that make up the File Services role. Some of the role service management packs included in the File Services Management Pack also track important operational parameters such as the use of the Distributed File System (DFS) Replication staging area and the number of replication conflicts generated.
  In addition to the overall File Services role, this management pack monitors the following role services:
  • DFS Namespaces
  • DFS Replication
  • File Server (the Server service for SMB file sharing)
  • File Server Resource Manager (the service used for File Server Resource Manager and File Classification Infrastructure)
  • Services for Network File System 
• Following are the supported OS

• Monitored Computer	Support
  Windows Server 2012	Supported
  Windows Server 2008 R2	Supported
  Windows Server 2008	Supported
  Windows Server 2003	Supported
  Windows 8	Supported

• Importing the MP is straight forward.Just Download all the MP's from above link.
• Open SCOM console go to Administration --> Management Pack--> Right Click and select Import Managemet Pack.
• Select from Disk Option and the select all the MP's that are Downloaded.
• Please note that you have to remove older vesriosn of DFSS Replication management packs prior to installing the NEW DFS Replication management pack.

How improve performance of your Windows Server by 40 % with this simple tweak

How improve performance of your Server by 40 % with this simple tweak

• Many people see slugish performance of there server ,especially if your server is SQL server and its hosted on Windows 2008 R2.
• The reason is very simple and buy doing this small change it will give you 60 % better performance of your system
• The reason is because of Power settings. In Windows 2008 R2 the Power settings is set as "balanced". What this does it to save power it reduces power consumption to the server
• This wont be visible if you run and check some simple query.
• But as you server runs lot o transactions, you can see poor performance and complaint from your customers.
• Inorder to fix it change the Power settings to " High Performance"
• This will improve the PC perforamance by 40 %.
• This tweeks applies to all Windows Servers versions, but it is more siver in Windows 2008 R2