System Center Blog articles

System Center 2025 Update Rollup 1 and more

AakashMSFT — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 11:18:59 GMT

We are excited to announce that System Center 2025 Update Rollup 1 (UR1) is now generally available! This update brings important enhancements and fixes across the System Center suite, with a focus on security, compatibility, and reliability improvements.

What's New in System Center 2025 UR1

Enhanced Security and Compatibility

TLS v1.3 Support

System Center 2025 now supports TLS v1.3, enhancing security and compliance with the latest encryption standards across all components.

Microsoft SQL Server 2025 Support

All System Center components now support SQL Server 2025, providing improved performance and scalability for your datacenter operations. Existing deployments on SQL Server 2022 can upgrade seamlessly to SQL Server 2025.

Expanded Linux/Unix Platform Support

Operations Manager 2025 UR1 extends monitoring capabilities to the latest enterprise Linux distributions:

Oracle Linux 10
Rocky Linux 10
Alma Linux 10
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server 10
Debian 13

The Operations Manager Linux Agent now supports OpenSSL 3.x distributions, ensuring compatibility with modern security requirements.

System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

Issues Fixed

Console content blocking, monitor authoring failures, web console dashboard improvements, S2D workflow WMI errors, topology widget issues, and GB18030-2022 compliance for Chinese character set resolved.

System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM)

New Features

Hyper-V Select Disk Exclusion:: DPM 2025 UR1 introduces the ability to exclude specific disks from Hyper-V VM backups. Administrators can now selectively omit disk contents from restore points, ensuring that excluded disks aren't overwritten during VM restoration. This provides greater flexibility in managing backup storage and recovery scenarios.
Exchange Subscription Edition Support:: DPM 2025 UR1 now supports Exchange Subscription Edition as an application-aware backup, expanding protection options for organizations using Microsoft 365 hybrid deployments.
Enhanced Security and Runtime:: DPM 2025 UR1 requires the latest Visual C++ Redistributable packages (2013, 2015-2022 x64), ensuring the runtime environment is compliant and secure with the latest security updates.

Issues Fixed

SQL Server force encryption protection, VMware backup transport mode (NBDSSL), and recovery page localization resolved. Includes all SCDPM 2022 UR3 and DPM 2025 RTM fixes.
GB18030-2022 compliance for Chinese character set included where applicable.

System Center Service Manager (SCSM)

New in Update Rollup 1

Latest MSOLEDBSQL19 provider support
Enhanced Orchestrator Integration:: Connects to Orchestrator Web API 2022/2025, with backward compatibility for SCO 2019 Web Service

Issues Fixed

GB18030-2022 compliance for Chinese character set in all input fields
Self-Service Portal: Knowledge article images display correctly, Share button no longer cropped for non-English characters, and Review decision error with HTML tags resolved
MonitoringHost and GroupCalc stability improvements

System Center Orchestrator (SCO)

Issues Fixed

Read Line activity special character handling, Monitor Event Log crashes, Invoke-Runbook credential persistence, and GB18030-2022 compliance for Chinese character set in runbook tester display resolved.

Why Update to UR1?

Enhanced Security: TLS v1.3 support ensures your infrastructure meets the latest encryption and compliance standards.
Improved Reliability: Multiple fixes across console operations, monitoring workflows, and backup processes deliver a more stable experience.
Broader Platform Support: Extended Linux distribution support and SQL Server 2025 compatibility keep your infrastructure current.
Better Performance: Fixes for memory leaks, workflow failures, and transport mode issues improve overall system performance.

Additional Resources

SCOM 2025 UR1 (link)
Service Manager 2025 UR1 (link)
Orchestrator 2025 UR1 (link)
DPM 2025 UR1 (link)

Recent Highlights for System Center 2022

In addition to the 2025 Update Rollup, we continue to invest in System Center 2022 with targeted hotfixes and compliance updates to ensure all customers benefit from the latest security, language, and platform improvements:

Orchestrator 2022 Hotfix: (link) GB18030-2022 compliance for Chinese character set.
VMM 2022 Console Hotfix: (link) GB18030-2022 compliance for Chinese character set.
SCOM 2022 Hotfix: (link) GB18030-2022 compliance for Chinese character set, Unix/Linux agent certificate fixes, PowerShell widget security, agent discovery, and web console view fixes.
VMM 2025 Console Hotfix: (link) GB18030-2022 compliance for Chinese character set.
SM 2022 Hotfix (link) GB18030-2022 compliance for Chinese character set.

What's Next?

Update Rollup 1 for System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2025 will be released in upcoming months. Stay tuned for announcements!

Thank you for being part of the System Center community. We look forward to supporting your hybrid datacenter management needs!

System Center 2022 Update Rollup 3

AakashMSFT — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 08:36:26 GMT

We’re pleased to announce Update Rollup 3 (UR3) for System Center 2022. This release continues our commitment to stability, security, and platform currency across on‑premises datacenter operations, with targeted fixes and compatibility improvements for Operations Manager, Service Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, and Orchestrator. Details below.

Virtual Machine Manager

Support for additional Guest OSes & UX improvements

Added Windows Server 2025 guest OS support

Expanded Linux guest OS coverage: Ubuntu 24.04, RHEL 9, Debian 12, Rocky Linux 8 & 9.

Availability Sets are now listed alphabetically to streamline selection.

Storage provider security hardening

Secure‑by‑default: Adding new storage providers now uses HTTPS by default.

Learn more: Update Rollup 3 for System Center 2022 Virtual Machine Manager.

Operations Manager

Operations & Web Console are more stable since multiple issues are fixed such as console crashes, dashboard performance, favorite report issue.

Addressed failures in workflows that use WMIProbe, ensuring the probe correctly falls back and executes.

Restored Microsoft Teams notification functionality for environments impacted after UR2.

Learn more: Update Rollup 3 for System Center 2022 Operations Manager.

Service Manager

Platform Stability on New CPUs/OS Builds

Eliminated MonitoringHost instability observed on newer processors/OS builds and addressed a GroupCalc‑related crash scenario.

Multiple Bug fixes on Self‑Service Portal & Knowledge Article Rendering

Note: UR3 can be applied even where UR2 installation had failed, and it includes the bug fixes and enhancements that shipped with UR2.

Learn more: Update Rollup 3 for System Center 2022 Service Manager.

Orchestrator

Platform Updates

.NET 8 (LTSC) is now supported.

Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSA) are supported.

Security improvements

Support for TLS 1.3 protocol is enabled.

Learn more about bugs fixes: Update Rollup 3 for System Center 2022 Orchestrator

We are committed to delivering new features and quality updates with UR releases at regular cadence. For any feedback and queries, you can reach us at systemcenterfeedback@microsoft.com.

Announcement: System Center 2025 is GA

AakashMSFT — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 05:54:49 GMT

System Center 2025 is now generally available! 🥳

This release marks the next milestone in our commitment towards best-in-class datacenter operations with System Center. It focuses on supporting modernization of infrastructure and enhancing security of the datacenters. System Center 2025 brings a host of new features and enhancements designed to help you manage your IT infrastructure more efficiently and securely.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the exciting new aspects of System Center 2025.

Heterogenous infrastructure management

By delivering System Center 2025 (SCVMM, SCDPM, SCOM, SCSM & SCO) concurrently with Windows Server 2025, you receive management at-scale for the latest Windows Server version right from Day 0, allowing you to plan upgrades and make the most out of new capabilities to optimize the infrastructure and virtualized software-defined datacenters.

Cognizant of your preference to manage heterogenous infrastructure with a single management plane, VMM 2025 supports management of VMs running on Azure Stack HCI 23H2 clusters and supports VMs running latest versions of Linux distros. The experience and scale for converting VMware VMs to Windows Server using VMM also gets an upgrade.

DPM 2025 integrates seamlessly with SharePoint Subscription Edition and provides virtual TPM (vTPM) support for VMware.

Embrace enhanced security

We continue to enhance security in System Center products to ensure all operations, storage & authentication mechanisms used are secure and reliable. In System Center 2025, we have reduced the dependency on CredSSP and NTLM as the authentication mechanisms. With the support for Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.3, System Center products support the latest version of encryption technology, ensuring that all data transmissions are protected by the latest security standards.

All VMs created through VMM 2025 will default to Generation 2 which provides secure and faster booting. Recognizing the importance of safeguarding sensitive information, DPM 2025 introduces the capability to securely store passphrase in Azure Key Vault, significantly increasing data security by leveraging Azure’s robust cloud infrastructure.

Support for OLEDB 19 in DPM 2025 and SCO 2025 further underscores System Center's commitment to security. With the support of gMSA (Group Managed Service Accounts) in SCO 2025, you can reduce the administrative overhead of managing password synchronization between service accounts. Additionally, SCO 2025 supports the most secure and latest .NET8 (LTSC).

Support Infrastructure Modernization

As your datacenters evolve, so do our solutions. With the General Availability of Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM from November 2023, you can now use Azure Management services like Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Azure Monitor, Azure Update Manager, etc. to secure, govern, monitor and configure your SCVMM managed VMs through Azure Arc. You can also get the latest Arc enabled capabilities of Windows Server 2025 like Hotpatching for Arc-enabled SCVMM VMs right from Day 0. The end-of-life WS 2012/R2 VMs can continue to be in supported state with Extended Security Updates (ESUs) procured via Arc-enabled SCVMM.

Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM also gives the ability to perform power cycle operations such as start, stop, restart and lifecycle operations such as create, resize, scale and delete on your SCVMM managed VMs that are hosted in on-premises datacenters. All these activities are governed by Azure Role Based Access Control (RBAC) enabling your teams to perform VM operations in a self-service fashion. This serves as an effective replacement to the end-of-life approaching Windows Azure Pack.

Lastly, we are discontinuing Azure Profiles feature of SCVMM and System Center Service Provider Foundation (SPF) as these capabilities are now being built into Arc-enabled SCVMM.

System Center 2025 is a comprehensive solution that provides the tools you need to manage your IT infrastructure effectively. We are excited to see how our customers will leverage these new capabilities to drive their digital transformation initiatives. We encourage you to explore the new features and enhancements in System Center 2025. For more information, visit our System Center Blog and join the conversation on the Microsoft Tech Community.

Here is how you can get started with System Center 2025:

Get started at the Evaluation Center, or get it directly from the Microsoft Admin Center
You can also download evaluation VHDs:

Learn more by visiting the product page and documentation. Details on Windows Server 2025 release can be found at Windows Server 2025 now generally available, with advanced security, improved performance, and cloud agility.

We hope you are delighted with System Center 2025. Upgrade Now!

Introducing Agent and Gateway Extensions in Azure Monitor SCOM MI

AakashMSFT — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 09:44:27 GMT

We are thrilled to announce the General Availability (GA) of Agent and Gateway Server Extensions in Azure Monitor SCOM MI, a new capability that allows you to initiate monitoring on Azure and Arc enabled Windows machines at-scale and programmatically. More about this capability at Monitor Azure and Off-Azure Virtual machines.

Key benefits and capabilities

Extensions for Agents and Gateways offer the following benefits:

Monitor workloads everywhere: SCOM MI can monitor VMs and guest applications that are hosted on Azure or off-Azure using Arc channel. With Managed Gateways, you can monitor air-gapped & isolated VMs.
At-scale deployment: Users can enable monitoring of VMs at-scale through Azure portal or scripts (PS), enhancing operational efficiency.
Transition at your pace: With multi-homing support, you have the flexibility to transition your monitoring from SCOM on-prem to Azure Monitor SCOM MI at your own pace.
Secure and latest by default: SCOM MI agents use Managed identities and Certificate authentication which is a significant upgrade from legacy Kerberos auth. Agents are always up to date automatically, eliminating the need for you to handle frequent updates.

With the above capabilities, we are moving towards making Azure Monitor SCOM MI easier to operate. In Public Preview, 20+ customers deployed 1200+ agents and their feedback has helped simplify experiences further.

How does it look like

Here are few screenshots of onboarding and managing monitored VMs using the extensions:

What’s next

As we expect more SCOM customers transitioning their monitoring to SCOM MI, we aim to make that process seamless through the following capabilities:

More at-scale onboarding experiences: Onboard monitoring agents at-scale via ARM template, Azure policies and Azure Automation catering to varied entry points.
Scheduled updates: Provide flexibility to schedule agent updates as per Org’s change management process.

What are you waiting for?

We are excited to see how you will use the extensions to monitor your Azure and Arc enabled machines. Here are some resources to help you get started: Monitor Azure and Off-Azure Virtual machines with Azure Monitor SCOM MI extensions

For any questions, comments, feedback, please reach out to: systemcenterfeedback@microsoft.com.

Thank you for your continued support and feedback.

Azure Monitor SCOM MI Team

Announcement: System Center 2025 is here

AakashMSFT — Mon, 13 May 2024 11:10:39 GMT

Managing IT datacenters is a complex task involving multiple teams and solutions. These IT environments grow quickly across local datacenter, cloud and co-locations, along with diverse array of management tools. Since its release in 2008, Microsoft System Center has provided leading-edge capabilities that deliver a simplified datacenter management experience to keep you in control – whether on-premises, in the cloud, or across platforms.

Today, we are excited to announce System Center 2025, the next release of our Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) will be GA (General Availability) in the fall of 2024, which means all SC products VMM, DPM, SCOM, SM & SCO will be released in its 2025 form by Q4CY2024. This release includes enhancements that provide support for infrastructure modernization, capabilities to manage heterogenous infrastructure while embracing enhanced security.

Manage heterogenous infrastructure and workloads

By delivering System Center 2025 (VMM, DPM, SCOM, SM & SCO) together with Windows Server 2025, we are bringing you management support for the latest Windows Server version right from Day 0. Being cognizant of your preference to manage heterogenous infrastructure with a single management plane, we are adding support for management & monitoring of Azure Stack HCI 23H2 clusters with VMM & SCOM 2025. You will also have enhanced experience while converting VMware VMs to Windows Server through VMM. The support for latest versions of Linux distros will be available with the General Availability of SCVMM 2025. DPM 2025 brings the capability to exclude specific disks from backups in Hyper-V environments, offering flexibility and efficiency in data protection strategies. Furthermore, it integrates seamlessly with SharePoint Subscription Edition and provides virtual TPM (vTPM) support for VMware.

Embrace enhanced security

We continue to enhance security in System Center products to ensure all operations, storage & authentication mechanisms used are secure and reliable. In System Center 2025, we have significantly reduced the number of scenarios which uses CredSSP and NTLM as the authentication mechanism. All VMs created through VMM will default to Generation 2 which provides faster and secure booting. With the support of Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.3, System Center products support the latest version of encryption technology, ensuring that all data transmissions are protected by the latest security standards. Recognizing the importance of safeguarding sensitive information, DPM 2025 introduces the capability to securely store passphrase in Azure Key Vault, significantly increasing data security by leveraging Azure’s robust cloud infrastructure. Support for OLEDB 19 further underscores DPM 2025’s commitment to security.

Support Infrastructure Modernization

Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM also gives the ability to perform lifecycle operations such as start, stop, create, scale, resize and delete your SCVMM managed VMs that are hosted in customers' datacenters. All these activities are governed by Azure Role Based Access Control (RBAC) enabling your teams to perform VM operations in a self-service fashion. This will serve as an effective replacement to the end-of-life approaching Windows Azure Pack.

Lastly, In System Center 2025, we are discontinuing Azure Profiles feature of VMM and System Center Service Provider Foundation (SPF) as these capabilities are now being built into Arc-enabled VMM.

Where do you start?

Thank you for being a valuable System Center customer – your passion and feedback has helped us shape this new release and we are excited for the journey ahead. For early to System Center 2025 (VMM & DPM), sign up here.

System Center 2019 Update Rollup 6

Karthik_KR07 — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 05:36:26 GMT

We are delighted to announce the release of Update Rollup 6 for System Center 2019. As System Center 2019 is approaching the end of mainstream support next month, this Update Rollup comes with timely enhancements and bug fixes to support your existing configurations. This article gives detailed information on the new enhancements.

Virtual Machine Manager

Arc blade enhancements

We recently introduced Azure management capabilities like Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Azure Update Manager, VM Insights and more for Arc-enabled SCVMM VMs. You can discover guidance on how to get started with Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM and install Arc agents at scale from the Azure Arc blade in the SCVMM product. If you are running WS 2012 and 2012R2 hosts and VMs, you can also get to know the forward-looking options as these OSes went out of support by 10th October 2023. Read more about Arc enabled SCVMM here.

Refer to the KB article for additional details on the issues that are fixed with VMM 2019 UR6.

Data Protection Manager

Update Rollup 6 for System Center Data Protection Manager 2019 brings you stability improvements and bug fixes along with the following new features:

Support for Windows and Basic SMTP Authentication for sending DPM email reports and alerts.
List online recovery points for a data source along with the expiration dates.

Refer to the KB article for additional details on the issues that are fixed with DPM 2019 UR6.

Operations Manager

SCOM 2019 UR6 is available with a rich set of bug fixes, security enhancements and Unix/Linux/Network monitoring fixes and changes. Refer to this KB article for details.

Orchestrator

Web Console filtering is now improved for both Job and Instance views. Initial load time of the navigation tree on the Web Console reduced with optimizations made in the API authorization cache. You can us the latest release of plink.exe with Run SSH command activity. Refer to the KB article for complete details on the issues that are fixed with SCO 2019 UR6.

We are committed to delivering new features and quality updates with UR releases at regular cadence. For any feedback and queries, you can reach us at systemcenterfeedback@microsoft.com.

Manage the latest versions of Azure Stack HCI with SCVMM

Karthik_KR07 — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 15:45:27 GMT

Azure Stack HCI is a hybrid cloud solution that lets you run virtualized workloads on-premises with direct access to Azure services. It combines the performance, security, and scalability of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) with the flexibility and innovation of Azure.

As a datacenter scale customer, to take full advantage of these new capabilities, you need a powerful and reliable management solution that can handle the complexity and scale that comes with large scale deployments. To address these requirements, customers can continue to leverage System Center components as the management solution for larger deployments of Azure Stack HCI 23H2 clusters for a select set of scenarios while leveraging Arc based management of HCI clusters for other scenarios.

Supported Azure Stack HCI scenarios with System Center

The following scenarios will be supported in SCVMM to manage Azure Stack HCI 23H2:

Addition and management of Azure Stack HCI clusters.
Ability to provision and deploy Virtual Machines (VMs) on the Azure Stack HCI clusters and perform VM lifecycle operations.
Management of storage pool settings, creation of virtual disks, creation of cluster shared volumes (CSVs) and application of QoS settings.
Migration of VMware and Windows Server based workloads to Azure Stack HCI.
Management of Azure Stack HCI clusters using the same PowerShell cmdlets used to manage Windows Server clusters.

Supported Azure Stack HCI scenarios through Azure and WAC

The following scenarios will continue to be supported only from the Azure Portal/WAC to manage Azure Stack HCI 23H2:

Creation of Azure Stack HCI clusters.
Register and unregister Azure Stack HCI clusters is built into deployment now.
Upgrading Azure Stack HCI 22H2 clusters to 23H2 whenever upgrade becomes available.
Enablement of Azure benefits on VMs running on Azure Stack HCI clusters.
All new Azure Stack HCI 23H2 features like GPU-Partitioning, SDN Multi-site, etc.
All Azure Stack HCI features that were previously unsupported with SCVMM like Stretched clustering with 22H2.
Azure based VM self-serve capabilities and Azure management services through Azure Arc-enabled HCI.

When is the support for Azure Stack HCI 23H2 coming with System Center?

Azure Stack HCI 23H2 support will be added to the next LTSC version of System Center. The General Availability of the next LTSC version of System Center will be closer to the General Availability of Windows Server 2025.

Contact us

The System Center team is committed to delivering new features and quality updates with the LTSC and UR releases at regular cadence. For any feedback and queries, you can reach us at systemcenterfeedback@microsoft.com.

Benefits of moving to Azure Monitor SCOM managed instance

AakashMSFT — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 04:39:04 GMT

In this blog, let’s highlight the cost-benefit of moving from your existing SCOM on-prem to Azure Monitor SCOM MI.

If you are using System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) to monitor on-premises and hybrid cloud environment, you might be wondering whether you should migrate to Azure Monitor SCOM managed instance or keep your SCOM on-premises deployment. In this blog, we will compare the two options in terms of cost benefits (up to 44% when fully migrated to SCOM MI), and help you make an informed decision based on your specific needs and goals.

What is Azure Monitor SCOM managed instance?

Azure Monitor SCOM managed instance is a cloud-based service that provides the same functionality as SCOM on-premises, but without the hassle of managing and maintaining the infrastructure. You can use SCOM MI to monitor your resources on and off Azure, as well as integrate with other Azure services such as Log Analytics, Azure Managed Grafana, and Power BI. SCOM MI is fully compatible with your existing SCOM management packs and agents*, so you can migrate your existing monitoring configuration and data with minimal disruption.

What are the cost benefits of Azure Monitor SCOM managed instance?

Azure Monitor SCOM MI offers several cost benefits over SCOM on-premises, such as:

Reduced infrastructure & maintenance costs: You don't need to bother about maintaining infrastructure such as server racks, network cables, electricity, cooling, physical security, datacenter lease. Moreover, hardware infrastructure is a depreciation cost. SCOM MI runs on Azure's scalable and reliable infrastructure, which means you only pay for what you use, and you don't have to worry about downtime or performance issues.
- You can save additionally on Azure Infrastructure with savings and reserved plans.

Reduced IT labor costs: SCOM MI is fully managed by Microsoft, which means you get updates, patches, scalability, and security. Since you don’t need to retrain your staff on SCOM management packs and, the efforts required to provision, patch and scale SCOM MI service is significantly less, we estimate ~40% reduction in time (labor cost) required to maintain & operate SCOM MI.
Optimized licensing costs: You don't need to purchase, renew, or manage any licenses for your monitoring solution. SCOM MI is offered as a PAYG model, which means you only pay a monthly fee based on the number of monitored objects and the amount of data ingested. You also get access to all the features and capabilities of Azure Monitor, which can enhance your monitoring experience and provide additional insights and value.
- For more information on SCOM MI licensing, refer here.

To illustrate the cost benefits of SCOM MI, we have created a comparison table of the estimated annual costs for a typical scenario of monitoring 500 VMs. The table does not include optional SCOM MI integration i.e., data ingestion to Log Analytics, usage of Grafana.

Disclaimer: Below table includes representative numbers only. For accurate Azure costs, refer to Pricing Calculator | Microsoft Azure. Also, we assume that the duration of migration between SCOM to SCOM MI is completed quickly (<3 months) and not as a long-term migration project.

Cost category	SCOM on-premises	Azure Monitor SCOM managed instance
Infrastructure (Hardware + Software) To monitor 500 VMs, you need 2 SCOM servers with Windows OS, 1 SQL server with Windows OS, server racks, storage disks etc.	$13,812 (annually)	$27,780 (no discount) $12,586 (max discount)
Maintenance cost (Security, lease, electricity, network, etc.)	$4,443 (annually)	$0 (included under infra cost)
IT labor cost (administration)	$116,800 (annually)	$70,080 (annually)
Licensing System Center license to manage 500VMs is $75,747. If you are using all SC products, the operating license cost for SCOM will be least ($12,625). SCOM MI license is $6/VM/month.	$12,625 (If all SC products used) $75,747 (If SCOM only used)	$36,000 (annually)
Annual cost range	$147,680 to $210,802	$118,666 to $133,860
Costs savings (once you move to SCOM MI to monitor 500VMs)	20% if SCOM onprem only used & No Azure discounts applied 36% if all SC products used, max Azure discounts applied 44% if SCOM onprem only used, maximum Azure discounts applied

As you can see, Azure Monitor SCOM managed instance can save you up to 44% of the total costs of SCOM on-premises, considering you migrate to SCOM MI quickly. Of course, your actual costs may vary depending on your specific requirements and preferences, but the table gives you a general idea of the potential savings you can achieve by migrating to Azure Monitor SCOM managed instance. If you are interested in moving other System Center products to Azure and want to know the cost analysis, we recommend you build a Business case with Azure Migrate | Microsoft Learn.

How to get started with Azure Monitor SCOM managed instance?

If you are interested in trying out Azure Monitor SCOM managed instance, you can start here. You should talk to your Microsoft sales representative for clarity on plausible discounts and actual cost savings.

If you have any questions or feedback, you can leave your comments below. We would love to hear from you and help you with your monitoring needs.

*SCOM 2022 Agent (as of Feb’24).

References

Ankur Gupta

GA Announcement: Bring Azure to your SCVMM managed environment through Azure Arc!

Karthik_KR07 — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 10:50:37 GMT

We’re excited to announce that System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) enabled by Azure Arc is now generally available to manage SCVMM resources in Azure.

With SCVMM enabled by Azure Arc, you can:

Enable Azure services at scale to govern, protect, configure, and monitor your SCVMM VMs
Procure Extended Security Updates (ESUs) for your Windows Server 2012 and 2012R2 machines running on SCVMM managed estate
Discover and onboard existing SCVMM managed VMs to Azure.
Browse your SCVMM resources (VMs, templates, VM networks, and storage) in Azure, providing you with a single pane view for your infrastructure across both environments.
Empower developers and application teams to self-serve VM operations on demand using Azure role-based access control (RBAC).
Perform various VM lifecycle operations such as start, stop, pause, and delete VMs on SCVMM managed VMs directly from Azure.

With the recent release of SCVMM 2022 Update Rollup 2, the Azure Arc tab gives guidance to get started with your Arc journey by deploying Azure Arc Resource Bridge and to use Azure Management services based on your requirement.

Read our detailed GA announcement blogpost here - Announcing GA of SCVMM enabled by Azure Arc.

YouTube walkthrough video by John Savill: Azure Arc-Enabled System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) Walkthrough

Announcement: SCOM is now available in Azure too!

AnkurGuptaPM — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 05:04:05 GMT

We are excited to announce the General Availability of Azure Monitor SCOM managed instance (SCOM MI). We built this new capability with you, our SCOM users, in mind so that you can bring SCOM monitoring capabilities and configurable health models to Azure Monitor and the cloud. With this added capability Azure Monitor enables you to modernize the monitoring configuration for your applications and migrate them to Azure at your own pace.

You can monitor workloads running everywhere with SCOM MI, as it is hosted in Azure and has the capability to monitor workloads running on Azure and off-Azure. Furthermore, all investments you have made in SCOM hitherto are preserved since SCOM MI is compatible with existing SCOM management packs (MPs) and existing configurations on the on-prem setup can be easily replicated to SCOM MI.

With GA, SCOM MI enables SCOM capabilities in Azure, simplifies management of SCOM infrastructure, and enables the common set of Azure Monitor tools for correlation, analysis, visualization, and response to the collected telemetry with SCOM MI or other data sources supported in Azure Monitor. SCOM MPs for Core OS (Windows), SQL Server, Oracle, Exchange, SharePoint, and the different Windows roles have been validated for SCOM MI. Moving a SCOM setup to SCOM MI leverages cloud advantages and cuts down the total ownership cost (including infrastructure, software, and operational expenses) by as much as 30% over a multi-year period. (The calculator can be found here. Please add specific charges for SQL MI, VMSS, and the SCOM MI instance to the calculator)

Key Benefits and Value additions

Azure based lifecycle management of the System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) setup, including deployment, updating, and decommissioning.

Hands off maintenance of the SCOM instance, including the databases, management servers, and SCOM updates. A managed experience where you don’t have to deploy and plan the upkeep of SCOM, thereby reducing manual intervention and increasing efficiency.
Get informed about the latest available SCOM updates and One-click experience to patch their instances.
Simple Azure based capability to adjust (scale) the SCOM setup based on the number of servers to monitor. Add/Remove SCOM management servers without updating the agents.
[In preview] Manage the agent deployment on monitored servers using the Azure control plane through VM extensions
[In preview] Simplify management of SCOM gateway servers on Arc-enabled machines via VM Extensions, and Azure managed identities instead of certificates

Integrated experience to Interpret and Respond to data collected with SCOM MI & other sources supported by Azure Monitor

View all SCOM alerts with Azure Monitor alerts and use all capabilities to respond to alerts (including those with ITSM tools such as ServiceNow)
Integrate SCOM events data in an LA workspace to get a systemwide view and deeper insights by looking across data from different data sources.
Modern Power BI reporting, replacing the SCOM data warehouse and the SSRS deployments.
[In preview] Advanced dashboarding and analysis using Azure Workbooks and Azure Managed Grafana

Consistent experiences for monitoring workloads on Azure and off Azure

Monitor all your workloads by using the same SCOM MPs that are used for on-prem monitoring with SCOM. With SCOM MI, all Windows-based 1P MPs are supported along with other popular MPs like M365, AzureMP, Cert-based monitoring MP among others
For monitoring off-Azure workloads (enabled via Azure Arc), utilize SCOM MI and get an identical monitoring experience as you will get for your Azure and on-prem workloads

Here are what some of our customers and partners, who tried SCOM MI during preview, have to say:

“Moving our server monitoring to SCOM Managed Instance has reduced the complexity and simplified the management of the underlying SCOM infrastructure including provisioning, patching, and scaling. This enables us to leverage the benefits of Operations Manager while supporting our direction to modernize by adopting PaaS and SaaS solutions” – PCL Constructions, Canada

"Azure Monitor and SCOM can finally come together on a single, unified platform through SCOM MI. This not only relieves the burden of all infrastructure related concerns but is also ingeniously managed by Microsoft. Ist support for the concept of Management Packs, allows you to focus on what truly counts. With SCOM MI, you can be confident in a consistent monitoring experience." - Stoyan Chalakov, Microsoft MVP, SCOM user and fan

"Azure Monitor SCOM MI takes away the burden of maintaining a monitoring infrastructure and integrating it into a cloud mindset. Meanwhile, being able to deliver the deep and customizable way of monitoring through SCOM that we have trusted for over 2 decades. Picking the best of both worlds and giving development opportunities going forward. Excited about the future!" - Bob Cornelissen, Microsoft MVP

“At Silect where our focus is on innovation, Azure Monitor SCOM MI has ensured our hybrid IT infrastructure is providing the services we need to continue to deliver value and innovation to our customers without having to worry about scaling, patching and maintaining the SCOM components. The introduction of Azure Monitor SCOM Managed Instance is possibly the most exciting change we’ve seen in the 20 years we’ve been delivering solutions to customers using SCOM.” - Harold Dyck, Founder & President, Silect Software Inc.

Get started with modernization of SCOM deployments and continue with migrations to Azure.

Get started with Azure Monitor SCOM MI
A description and comparison of different capabilities in Azure Monitor
Learn More about Azure Monitor SCOM MI
A comparison between SCOM On-Premises and SCOM MI

System Center 2022 Update Rollup 2

Karthik_KR07 — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 09:27:46 GMT

We are delighted to announce the release of Update Rollup 2 for System Center 2022. This Update Rollup comes with enhancements to manage the on-prem datacenters and to aid the cloud migration journey. SCVMM comes with four times faster ESXi to Hyper-V VM conversion performance to assist in the migration of VMs while Azure Migrate Business Case can now be discovered and generated from SCOM in-product experience. This article gives detailed information on the new features and enhancements.

Virtual Machine Manager

Arc blade enhancements

Enhanced VM conversion performance from VMware to Hyper-V

SCVMM now comes with 4x improved speed while converting your VMs from ESXi based to Hyper-V based. With support now added for VMware VMs with disk sizes greater than 2TB, you can now leverage SCVMM as a V2V conversion tool and a datacenter management tool. Learn more about how to use this enhancement.

Support for latest Linux Guest OSes

SCVMM 2022 UR2 brings support for latest Linux Guest OSes like Ubuntu Linux 22.04, Debian 11, Oracle Linux 8 and 9.

Refer to the KB article for additional details on the issues that are fixed with VMM 2022 UR2.

Data Protection Manager

Update Rollup 2 for System Center Data Protection Manager 2022 brings you stability improvements and bug fixes along with the following new features:

Recover key files and folders quickly from online Windows VM backups for VMware and Hyper-V without downloading the whole recovery point.
You can now backup VMware VMs running on vSphere 8.0.
You can directly connect to SMTP servers supporting Basic SMTP Authentication for sending DPM email reports and alerts (in addition to the existing Windows Authentication).
If your VMware VM has high I/O utilization and backups fail with a quiescing error (ApplicationQuiesceFault), DPM can auto-retry with crash consistent backups to meet your SLAs.

Refer to the KB article for additional details on the issues that are fixed with DPM 2022 UR2.

Operations Manager

Generate Azure Migrate Business Case from SCOM

Discover Azure Migrate, generate Business Case and Assessment through SCOM Console.

Additionally, there are many critical Bug fixes as part of Update Rollup 2. Refer to the KB article for details.

Service Manager

Modern Authentication (OAuth) is now supported with email notifications in System Center 2022 Service Manager. For detailed setup info, refer to Configure Service Manager notifications.

Refer to the KB article for details on the issues that are fixed with SCSM 2022 UR2.

Orchestrator

Web Console filtering is now improved for both Job and Instance views. Issues with Monitoring activities have been fixed in this release. Refer to the KB article for complete details on the issues that are fixed with SCO 2022 UR2.

We are committed to delivering new features and quality updates with UR releases at regular cadence. For any feedback and queries, you can reach us at systemcenterfeedback@microsoft.com.

Introducing Azure management capabilities for Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM

Karthik_KR07 — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 11:29:22 GMT

With Azure Arc, we want to bring the goodness of Azure to the customers wherever they are. As part of this mission, Azure Arc-enabled System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) (preview) solution enables customers to manage their SCVMM VMs using Azure.

Arc-enabled SCVMM allows customers to connect their SCVMM environment to Azure, enabling them to discover, onboard at-scale, and perform VM lifecycle operations from Azure on their SCVMM managed VMs.

Azure management capabilities for Arc-enabled SCVMM VMs

Today, we are excited to announce additional capabilities for Arc-enabled SCVMM preview. With this update, we are introducing Azure management services support for Arc-enabled SCVMM VMs. Customers can start leveraging Microsoft Defender for Cloud to secure their SCVMM VMs, use VM insights to monitor them through Azure Monitor, use Azure Update Manager to patch them and more.

All the Azure management capabilities that are available for Arc-enabled servers are now available for Arc-enabled SCVMM. With the ability to install Azure Arc agents at-scale directly from Azure, our customers can accelerate and scale the adoption of Azure services for their entire System Center managed estate.

Enable guest management for your Arc-enabled SCVMM VMs at-scale

Enable Microsoft Defender for Cloud and view security recommendations for Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM VM

Enable Azure Update Manager to view the available updates and to create an update schedule

Enable VM insights to view and monitor performance data

Start your Arc journey anywhere

Our customers can start with Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM, install agents at-scale, and enable Azure management, observability, and security solutions, while also benefiting from the existing VM lifecycle management capabilities. Alternatively, customers can start with Azure Arc-enabled servers and add Azure management solutions, provision VMs and virtual hardware capabilities through Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM. This essentially means customers can start with their Arc journey anywhere and incorporate the other one later without any disruption. With both options, customers will enjoy the same consistent experience.

How to get started

Existing customers: Existing Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM customers will need to perform a one-time operation to switch to the latest version by following these steps.

New customers: New Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM customers should review the documentation and follow these steps to connect their SCVMM Management server to Azure Arc.  

Navigate to Azure Arc -> Machines tab to view the consolidated list of Arc machines

For existing customers that use Azure Arc-enabled servers for VMs in their SCVMM managed environment, by connecting their SCVMM management server to Azure Arc, they can get additional capabilities such as virtual machine provisioning, ability to perform virtual hardware operations (adding disks, resizing, power cycling operations etc.).

Also, if you were/are a user of Windows Azure Pack (WAP), now you can get all the capabilities of WAP like VM lifecycle self-servicing capabilities, role-based access control, and more of Azure’s goodness in the form of various management capabilities with Arc-enabled SCVMM.

Learn more

Azure Arc: https://aka.ms/arc

Azure Arc-enabled SCVMM technical docs: Overview of the Azure Connected System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Contact us

You can write to us with your feedback and queries at arc-vmm-feedback@microsoft.com

Agent recommendations for SCOM users

AakashMSFT — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 08:56:16 GMT

A SCOM user can currently use SCOM agent or Log Analytics agent (aka MMA) to monitor Virtual machines & send data to SCOM servers and optionally, send the data to Azure Log Analytics workspace. However, Microsoft has notified all Log Analytics Agent users about its deprecation roadmap and has recommended to migrate to Azure Monitor Agent as documented at Migrate from legacy agents to Azure Monitor Agent. As the deprecation data of August 31, 2024, is nearing, please refer to the table below for high level recommendations.

Timeline -->	Currently	Until Aug2024 (recommendation)	After Aug2024 (Recommended agent)
Requirements
Send data to SCOM Servers	SCOM Agent	SCOM Agent	SCOM Agent
Send data to SCOM Servers	MMA	Migrate to SCOM Agent	SCOM Agent
Send data to LA workspace	SCOM Agent	Migrate to AMA	AMA
Send data to LA workspace	MMA	Migrate to AMA	AMA

Lastly, the following FAQs should help you with concerns on the validity & supportability of SCOM agents. Feel free to post your queries in the comments section, if any.

FAQs

What are the current supported versions of SCOM? How can I distinguish if I am using SCOM agent or Log Analytics agent?

All the supported versions of SCOM Agents are listed in the below articles. Any version that is not listed here is not supported for communication with SCOM servers. For quick reference, agent versions 10.20.x are Log Analytics build. SCOM 2016, 2019 and 2022 agent builds are 8.0.x, 10.19.x and 10.22.x respectively. Refer to the table for the full list of version numbers.

SCOM 2022 Agent version

SCOM 2019 Agent version

SCOM 2016 Agent version

How do I check the version of a SCOM agent?

Refer to below steps to identify the version of an agent. Cross check the version to the list displayed in Agent version articles.

1. On SCOM Operations Console > Administration > Agent Managed > Check the “Version” Colum.

2. On a SCOM Management Server, run the below in PowerShell

Get-SCOMAgent –name server.domain.com | select displayname,version

3. On the specified agent machine > Control Panel > Microsoft Monitoring Agent > Properties > “Product Version” property.

4. Run the below in PowerShell on the agent-managed machine:

$Agent = get-itemproperty -path “HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Operations Manager\3.0\Setup";$Agent.CurrentVersion

When will Log Analytics Agent go out of support?

Aug 31, 2024. More information at We're retiring the Log Analytics agent in Azure Monitor on 31 August 2024 | Azure updates | Microsoft Azure

Will SCOM agent be supported when Log Analytics agent go out of support?

Yes, the lifecycle of SCOM agent is dependent on the lifecycle of SCOM software. The agent is supported as defined in Microsoft lifecycle policy. Refer to System Center 2022 Operations Manager and System Center 2019 Operations Manager to view the Support end dates.

Can I use SCOM agent to send data to Azure Log Analytics workspace?

You can use SCOM agent to send data to LA workspace until Aug 31, 2024. After that date, the scenario will be unsupported, and you should use Azure Monitor Agent (AMA) to send data to Log Analytics workspace. You can continue to use the SCOM agent to send data to SCOM servers.

Can I use SCOM agent to send data to SCOM server?

Yes - There is no change to the core functionality of SCOM Agent.

What should I do to send data to Azure Log Analytics workspace?

You can install Azure Monitoring Agent side-by-side SCOM agent on the desired machine. SCOM agents will send data to SCOM servers while AMA will send data to Azure.

Should I migrate from Log Analytics agent to SCOM agent? If yes, how?

To send monitoring data to SCOM server, you should use supported agent i.e., SCOM agents (refer to Q#1). To migrate from Log Analytics Agent to SCOM Agent, follow below steps.

If you are using SCOM 2022 application, use SCOM2022 installer EXE to install SCOM agent on the same machine and then upgrade to latest Update Rollup. This is in-place upgrade.
If you are using SCOM 2019 application, you uninstall Log Analytics agent, use SCOM2019 installer EXE to install SCOM agent on the same machine and then upgrade to latest Update Rollup.

General guidance on how to install SCOM agent is described at Install Windows Agent Manually Using MOMAgent.msi.

Convert VMware VMs to Hyper-V faster with SCVMM

Karthik_KR07 — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 07:08:40 GMT

SCVMM has been your trusted datacenter management tool for years and with the latest hotfix (KB5030053) for SCVMM 2022 UR1, we are bringing you new enhancements which allow you to leverage SCVMM both as a V2V conversion tool and a datacenter management tool. These improvements will address your needs effectively while migrating to Hyper-V (Windows Server).

Improvements

3-4 times faster V2V conversion speed while converting VMware VMs to Hyper-V in the VMM fabric.
Support for management of VMware VMs with disk sizes greater than 2TB

Benefits

These enhancements will significantly bring down the downtime during migration and extend support to VMware based VMs of higher sizes. Read more about how to convert VMware VMs in the SCVMM fabric to Hyper-V in this article.

Pre-requisites

To apply this patch, you must have System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2022 UR1 installed.

Instructions to apply:

Download the self-extractor from here. Detailed instructions to apply and revert the patch are captured in this article - KB5030053.

Note: The above update is not available from Windows Update and will not be installed automatically.

For any feedback and queries, you can reach us at systemcenterfeedback@microsoft.com.

Discover Azure Migrate from SCOM

Bhavna_Appayya — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 10:15:07 GMT

Generate Azure Migrate Business Case & Assessment with System Center Operations Manager

System Center customers are increasingly looking to capitalize on the technical and financial flexibility, efficiencies, and capabilities on the cloud that aren’t possible with on-premises IT infrastructure. If you are one of these customers wondering how to begin your cloud migration journey- Azure Migrate is your answer. System Center Operations Manager(SCOM) is a component of System Center that provides infrastructure monitoring of vital applications and your data center. Now you can generate a business case using SCOM without deploying an appliance. All machines that SCOM monitors will be assessed to generate the business case. This new capability in SCOM allows you to discover and understand everything you need to know about your on-premises environment by generating a complete inventory that can be used in Azure Migrate to assess machines at scale with a comprehensive business case analysis calculating cost savings from migration and modernization. Lets now go ahead and explore the new feature in SCOM .

1. First Navigate to the Monitoring tab of your SCOM server and click on “View Potential Savings” to figure out how to go about calculating infrastructure cost savings from migrating to Azure

2. Importing the windows server management pack is recommended for better accuracy in assessments as it includes performance data. Then Click on the “On-prem inventory” link below to download your on-prem inventory details in the CSV format. Follow this by a click on the azure migrate link to navigate to the Azure Migrate portal and login using your azure subscription details. Create a new project and select "Discover" and in discover machines select “Import using CSV”. Upload the CSV file that got generated in SCOM and click on "Import".

3. That’s it you are ready to create a business case .Business case reports will give you all the costs and savings you can make by migrating to Azure, along with the recommended azure services and other details.

4. Next you can trigger assessments as well to measure cloud readiness, identify risks and estimate complexity of migration.

Here is how you can get started Discover Azure Migrate from SCOM .

What’s Upcoming?

Microsoft is working to add more capabilities like addition of ‘Management costs & capabilities’ to business case & assessments. This will provide an even more holistic and accurate cost assessment that can help you make the decision to migrate to Azure.

For any feedback and queries, you can reach us at systemcenterfeedback@microsoft.com Stay tuned for more !

SCSM 2019 - How to configure Notification Channel with Exchange Online mailbox

AakashMSFT — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 06:29:32 GMT

Note: This article applies for configuration of Email notifications with Exchange Online for SCSM2019 only. For SCSM2022 users, we have released a new Hotfix that adds support for Modern Auth.

Introduction

Microsoft Service Manager (SCSM) uses SMTP server to send notification emails. If the sender mailbox is an Exchange Online mailbox, then you may face some issues because Basic Authentication has been deprecated. Please be informed that SMTP Authentication is still available in Exchange Online (see last section at Deprecation of Basic authentication in Exchange Online).

As a solution, SCSM can be configured to use one of the options mentioned in this article. Here’s a comparison of each option.

Steps to configure a SCSM Notification Channel with SMTP AUTH (Option 1)

Use this option if you want to send email to people inside and outside your organization.
Follow the steps at Configure Service Manager notifications to connect SCSM with your SMTP server (first hop).

Select Anonymous or Windows Integrated authentication, depending on your STMP server configuration.

Set the Return e-mail address as per your SCSM sender’s email address:

Configure your SMTP server to connect with Exchange Online (second hop).

Steps to configure a SCSM Notification Channel with DIRECT SEND (Option 2)

Use this option if
- Your requirement is to only send messages to recipients in your own organization who have mailboxes in Microsoft 365 or Office 365
- There is no requirement to send email to recipients outside of your organization.
Follow the steps at Configure Service Manager notifications to connect SCSM directly to your Exchange Online tenant MX endpoint.

Set your Tenant’s MX endpoint as the SMTP server name. (Please consult your Exchange Online admin to get your MX endpoint)

Set the Return e-mail address as per your SCSM sender’s email address:

Verifying & Troubleshooting

For Option 1 first hop, which is to your SMTP server:

Verify with the PowerShell script below if your SMTP server accepts Anonymous authentication:

$mailParams = @{ SmtpServer = '127.0.0.1' # set your SMTP Server's address Port = '25' # set your SMTP Server's port UseSSL = $false From = 'senderEmail@YourTenant.onmicrosoft.com' # set sender’s email address To = 'recipientEmail@YourTenant.onmicrosoft.com' # set recipient’s email address Subject = 'Test with PowerShell using SMTP AUTH' Body = 'This is a test body' } Send-MailMessage @mailParams

Verify with the PowerShell script below if your SMTP server accepts Windows Integrated authentication:

$WFRunAsAccountName = "YourDomain\YourWFusername" # set your Workflow RunAs account's domain/username in SCSM $WFRunAscredential = Get-Credential -UserName $WFRunAsAccountName -Message "Enter pwd of the Workflow Run As Account in SCSM" $mailParams = @{ SmtpServer = '127.0.0.1' # set your SMTP Server's address Port = '25' # set your SMTP Server's port UseSSL = $false Credential = $WFRunAscredential From = 'senderEmail@YourTenant.onmicrosoft.com' # set sender’s email address To = 'recipientEmail@YourTenant.onmicrosoft.com' # set recipient’s email address Subject = 'Test with PowerShell using SMTP AUTH' Body = 'This is a test body' } Send-MailMessage @mailParams

For Option 1 second hop, which is from your SMTP Server to your Exchange Online tenant:
If email messages are successfully sent to your SMTP server but not relayed to Exchange Online, then it’s possible that Exchange Online is denying SMTP authentication requests coming from your SMTP server. In this situation, Exchange Online must be configured to allow authenticated SMTP submissions. All four steps mentioned at Error: Authentication unsuccessful must be made. Please note that each step can take a few minutes to take in effect. After you follow these four steps, you can use the PowerShell script below to verify if Exchange Online accepts authenticated SMTP submissions.

$ExchOnlineMailboxAddress = "sender@yourdomain.com" # set the sender's email address $credential = Get-Credential -UserName $ExchOnlineMailboxAddress -Message "Enter pwd of the sender's mailbox" $mailParams = @{ SmtpServer = 'smtp.office365.com' Port = '587' UseSSL = $true Credential = $credential From = $ExchOnlineMailboxAddress To = 'RecipientUser@yourdomain.com' # set the recipient's email address Subject = 'Test with PowerShell using SMTP AUTH' Body = 'This is a test body' } Send-MailMessage @mailParams

For Option 2: Verify with the PowerShell script below.

$mailParams = @{ SmtpServer = 'YourTenantMX.mail.protection.outlook.com' # set your Tenant’s MX endpoint Port = '25' UseSSL = $true From = 'senderEmail@YourTenant.onmicrosoft.com' # set sender’s email address To = 'recipientEmail@YourTenant.onmicrosoft.com' # set recipient’s email address Subject = 'Test with PowerShell using DIRECT SEND' Body = 'This is a test body' } Send-MailMessage @mailParams

If you get error “Send-MailMessage : Unable to connect to the remote server” then this means that the port 25 to the MX endpoint is not opened.
You may check the recipient’s Junk Email folder.

Update SC Orchestrator Exchange Admin 2022 Integration Pack v10.22.1.*

Nikita_Bajaj — Wed, 24 May 2023 05:00:19 GMT

Exchange Admin 2022 Integration Pack v10.22.1.* has known issues and we strongly recommend customers to update to the latest build v10.22.2.5 that can be downloaded here.

What is the issue?

In SC Orchestrator, the Runbook Author role is responsible for creating and maintaining runbooks. Any malicious Runbook Author can gain privileges related to Exchange Online Server management tasks that are available with Orchestrator Administrator.

Runbook Authors can view the passphrase of the certificate (private key) configured to authenticate to the Azure Active Directory (AAD) application used by the Exchange Admin 2022 v10.22.1.* Integration Pack (IP). If they can additionally obtain a copy of this certificate private (.pfx), they can use the certificate to issue management commands to ExchangeOnline, posing as above mentioned AAD application identity via EXO PS (Exchange Online PowerShell) .

Masquerading the AAD application identity allows the malicious Runbook Author to bypass Orchestrator’s auditing and logging capability that is associated with Runbook execution and editing.

Who is affected?

Customers on SC Orchestrator 2022 using Exchange Admin 2022 Integration Pack v10.22.1.* to configure Exchange Online (M365 Exchange) servers are potentially .

Customers that use Exchange Admin 2022 Integration Pack to configure Exchange On-Premises servers are not affected.

How do I know if the vulnerability has been exploited?

Unfortunately, there is no direct way to detect if this vulnerability has been exploited. You might want to review Exchange Online audit logs to detect unexpected requests using Exchange Online PowerShell commands. Hence, it is strongly recommended to update the Integration pack to the latest version at the earliest.

Mitigation steps

Exchange Admin 2022 Integration Pack v10.22.2.5 and above have fixed this vulnerability by handling the certificate passphrase in a secure manner. The Orchestrator Administrator should follow these to mitigate the issue:

Review the ExchangeAdmin Integration Pack configuration steps on how to set up the AAD app and certificate.
Remove the existing certificate from the AAD application and install a new certificate with a different Private Key passphrase.
Delete the existing Exchange Admin 2022 IP configurations (that used the old certificate) using the Runbook Designer.
Uninstall and de-register ExchangeAdmin v10.22.1.* IP from Orchestrator.
Download ExchangeAdmin v10.22.2.5 (or above) here and deploy it.
Recreate the configurations that were removed in (3) with updated information of the certificate.
[Optional best practice] Ensure that the Private Key (.pfx) is secured on the disk and accessible (read) by the Orchestrator Service Account and access is restricted to other identities.

If you need help or have any questions, please create a Support request or ask community experts at Microsoft Q&A.

System Center 2019 Update Rollup 5

AakashMSFT — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 07:36:27 GMT

System Center team at Microsoft are glad to announce the general availability of Update rollup 5 for System Center 2019. Customers upgrading to UR5 for System Center 2019 will benefit with hybrid experience, added supportability of latest OS, bug & security fixes, and UI improvements. UR5 is available for Data Protection Manager (DPM), Operations Manager (SCOM) and Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) products.

As part of our commitment to help System Center customers better manage and modernize their data center environments, we have been releasing update rollups frequently and we will continue to do so in the future.

Data Protection Manager (SCDPM)

Feature Improvements

Support for backup of SQL Server 2022 & Windows Server 2022.
Support for backup of VMware VMs running on vSphere 7.
Support for sending DPM email alerts and reports via Microsoft 365 SMTP.

Key bug fixes

Restore of VMware VMs to alternate location fails with InvalidRequestFault if NIC is missing.
DPM works in IPv4 and IPv6 mixed environment automatically without PingBeforeConnect registry key.
DPM backups of VMware VMs disk to tape skips .vmdk disks.
DPM Storage Pool Volumes are erroneously marked as missing resulting in backup failure.

For the complete list of bug fixes and feature improvements in DPM module, please visit Update Rollup 5 for System Center 2019 Data Protection Manager.

Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)

Feature Improvements

Discover Arc-enabled SCVMM from VMM console. This discovery page provides guidance around pre-requisites and steps to Arc-enable the SCVMM deployment and navigation buttons to the Azure Portal to get started.

Arc blade in VMM console

VMware vSphere 7.0 & 8.0 and ESXi 7.0 & 8.0 support is added.

Key Bug fixes

VMM Console crashes with OutOfMemoryException when maintenance mode is started on hosts.

The Add-SCVMNetworkGateway Job takes very long time(2~4hours) to finish.
SCVMM mixes up Max Bandwidth values for host NICs with the same name.
Replica VM loses network connection after migration.
VMMService causes UDP port exhaustion and crashes.

For the complete list of bug fixes and feature improvements in VMM module, please visit Update Rollup 5 for System Center 2019 Virtual Machine Manager.

Operations Manager (SCOM)

Feature Improvements

Discover Azure Monitor SCOM Managed Instance (preview) from SCOM console. This discovery page provides documentation links about SCOM Managed Instance and steps to create SCOM Managed Instance.
Added supportability on Operations Manager Linux Agent for Rocky Linux 8, Alma Linux 8. systems with OpenSSL 3.0, RHEL 9.0 and Ubuntu 22
Added a registry key to enable Debugging mode during troubleshooting scenarios.

Key Bug fixes

Fixed multiple performance & crash related issues reducing usage interruption.
Fixed couple of issues related to Maintenance mode.
Security enhancements on Web Console and Kerberos Auth

For the complete list of bug fixes and feature improvements in SCOM module, please visit Update Rollup 5 for System Center 2019 Operations Manager.

We are committed in delivering new features and quality updates with UR releases at regular cadence. For any feedback and queries, you can reach us at systemcenterfeedback@microsoft.com.

Announcement: Adding Support for Latest Linux OS (Ubuntu 22.04 & RHEL 9) in SCOM 2019 & SCOM 2022

AnkurGuptaPM — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 06:16:31 GMT

We are happy to announce that SCOM 2019 & SCOM 2022 now have support for OpenSSL 3.0 which means that we are officially adding support for the latest Linux versions such as Ubuntu 22.04 and RHEL 9 via the Universal Linux MPs!

The latest support matrix for SCOM 2019 can be seen HERE

The latest support matrix for SCOM 2022 can be seen HERE

Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are highly popular Linux flavours with a vast and committed user-base, and supporting their latest needs is a priority for us and it is in line with our increased focus on making SCOM the tool-to-use for Linux Monitoring.

For SCOM 2019, you can start monitoring Ubuntu 22.04/RHEL 9 by importing the latest MPs from HERE.

For SCOM 2022, to start monitoring Ubuntu 22.04/RHEL 9, apply the hotfix patch given HERE and then import the MPs from HERE.

December 2022 monthly security updates for Hyper-V servers impacts SCVMM SDN deployments

Molish — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 13:06:46 GMT

Monthly security updates (KB 5021249 and KB 5021237) for Hyper-V hosts released on Dec 13^th, 2022, have known issues that impacts SCVMM managed SDN (Software Defined Networking) deployments and this creates failures with new VM creation and virtual network assignment.

Impacted scenarios:

If your infrastructure meets all the following criteria, then it is impacted; Please apply the fix shared below after patching.

SCVMM managed Hyper-V hosts (Azure Stack HCI clusters, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022) patched with KB 5021249 and KB 5021237 update.
SCVMM version 2019 or SCVMM version 2022 configured with Network Controller.

Impacted environments:

S.no.	VMM version	Hyper-V patched with KB 5021249 or KB 5021237	SDN Enabled	Impacted
1	VMM 2016	-	-	No
2	VMM 2019	2012 R2, 2016, 2019, HCI 21H2	No	No
3	VMM 2019	2012 R2, 2016	Yes	No
4	VMM 2019	2019, HCI 21H2	Yes	Yes
5	VMM 2022	2016, 2019, 2022, HCI 22H2	No	No
6	VMM 2022	2016	Yes	No
7	VMM 2022	2019, 2022, HCI 22H2	Yes	Yes

Issues:

If you don’t apply the solution after patching the Hyper-V hosts with KB 5021249 and KB 5021237, the following could occur:

New VM creation fails: Creating a new VM with Network adapter fails.
SLB Load Balancer or SDN RAS Gateway fails with an ‘EthernetConnection’ error
Attaching vNIC fails: Attaching a Network adapter to an existing VM .
Warning message during live migration: Live migration of Non-Highly Available VMs completes with ‘EthernetConnection’ warning message.

An error message like the one below is seen in these scenarios:

Solution:

If you encountered the above issues, after patching SCVMM managed Hyper -V hosts with KB 5021249 and KB 5021237, we recommend installing the appropriate Cumulative update from below on all SCVMM managed Hosts.

If you haven’t patched SCVMM managed Hyper-V hosts with ‘KB 5021249 and KB 5021237’ updates, we recommend skipping the updates ‘KB 5021249 and KB 5021237’ and manually install the following Cumulative updates on all SCVMM managed Hosts.

Cumulative updates:

Windows Server 2022: KB5022553 – Link to download the KB from Microsoft Update Catalog
Windows Server 2019: KB5022554 – Link to download the KB from Microsoft Update Catalog

Note:

The above updates are not available from Windows Update and will not be installed automatically.

You can manually import these updates into Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager. For WSUS instructions, see WSUS and the Catalog Site. For Configuration Manger instructions, see Import updates from the Microsoft Update Catalog.

For additional details and Frequently Asked Questions please refer to this KB article. If you need further help with this, please contact the Microsoft Support team by creating a support request.