This week Microsoft released a new 6.6.2.0 version of SQL Server Management Pack (MP) for System Center Operations Manager (SCOM). The following MPs were updated:

• SQL Server MPs for SQL Server 2005/2008/2012/2014
• SQL Server Replication MPs for SQL 2008/2012/2014

In this post, I will briefly analyze the most important new features available for IT operations and SQL administrators in the new release.

Major improvements:

• Support for the high-contrast mode and theming
• Performance optimization on the Instance level
• Overhaul of default set of tiles for Datacenter and Instance dashboards
• Ability to add metrics and monitors to Datacenter dashboard from any child object
• Security fixes: the dashboards now take into account user rights and permissions

Minor changes and bug fixes:

• Fixed bug related to monitoring through named pipes and shared memory when TCP port is not set
• Fixed performance metrics error that may occur on some localized versions of Windows
• Fixed multiple bugs in monitor tiles on SQL Server Summary Dashboard
• Fixed transaction log free space monitor functionality
• Added new type of events from failed discoveries; added a new rule that collects such events
• Added overrides to prevent various scripts timeout failures
• Reorganized Summary Dashboards tiles for SQL Server 2008 and 2012

Let’s look closer at those improvements and other bug fixes in this MP.

Installation:

As usual, it is necessary to download MP MSI, run it to extract MP and MPB files, and import MP/MPB files. There should be no issues with the installation: For this article, I installed the MP in two SCOM environments. In the first environment after the MP import there were no issues with initial dashboard work. In the second environment once I opened Datacenter dashboard, right after the MP import, there was an error! In the screenshot below, you can see that the dashboard shows zeroes, and there is a red error alert at the right-top corner of the dashboard: This is something new! When I worked with the previous version of the Datacenter dashboard, the console just crashed in case of any dashboard errors. Now the console provides information about the error and allows the user to check the details to understand the root cause. A click on “Details” will show more information: In my case, the message states that since I’ve just installed the MP a certain wait time is required to gather all the necessary data. If the error message is not clear enough or if you want to dig deeper, there is a way to view additional information about the error: Now it is clear that the SQL stored procedure used in SQL Dashboards was not yet deployed. Depending on the size of your environment, it may take up to 24 hours to complete deployment of data providers and stored procedures and to perform the initial data collection. While I was researching the error, it went away on its own. It took just a few minutes to gather the data and display the dashboard correctly: Now we have SQL MP installed and can review all the new features. Stay tuned for VIAcode posts on performance optimizations, dashboard improvements and review of other new features. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!