Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

February 2022

Advanced Oracle Monitoring on Microsoft SCOM within Minutes

Monitor your Oracle databases, instances, tablespaces, pluggable databases, processes, system global area (SGA), clusters, automatic storage management (ASM), listeners, disk groups, and more within minutes. Discover Oracle objects automatically and track the overall health of your Oracle environment easily. Spot and act on Oracle latency issues as they appear. Generate detailed Oracle performance reports with a mouse-click. Use build-in Oracle tasks to speed up operations.

Dashboard Fridays: Sample Pingdom dashboard

Join Adam Kinniburgh and Ashley Thompson in this latest Dashboard Fridays episode on Pingdom. This dashboard gives an overview of Pingdom checks using PowerShell scripts against the Pingdom API. In this short video, we'll demonstrate how this dashboard was built using SquaredUp dashboards, the challenges it solves, and how you can easily replicate it in your own environment.

Hybrid Monitoring for Azure and Microsoft 365

Business analytics and business continuity go hand in hand. Microsoft 365 as well as Azure services are used by companies around the globe to achieve better business outcomes. Learn why a hybrid approach to Azure and Microsoft 365 monitoring can be beneficial and what steps to take to get clear insights into SLA fulfillment.

Disk performance collection on virtual appliances in VMware

A virtual appliance is a pre-integrated, self-contained system that combines a software program (e.g., server software) with just enough operating system to run correctly on industry-standard hardware or a virtual machine, such as VMware. Virtual appliances offer many advantages for enterprise IT, including the ability to package a solution as a single product to quickly create ready-to-use systems in the cloud or on-premises, with little to no setup.

Track down high PVS device rates with release MetrixInsight for CVAD - v1.4.22004.x

Track down high Citrix Provisioning Services device retry rates with our new MetrixInsight for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) SCOM Management Pack release. MetrixInsight for CVAD is a CITRIX® Ready SCOM Management Pack for monitoring Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, Citrix License Server, Citrix Provisioning Services, Citrix StoreFront and Application Delivery Controller, formerly known as NetScaler.

SquaredUp 5.4: New ODBC data source

We just released the new SquaredUp 5.4 with some brilliant new features. Taking center stage was the new ODBC data source. (If you missed the release announcement you can catch up by reading the quick overview blog post where you can also watch the full release webinar.) With SquaredUp 5.4, you can now instantly visualize any data from almost any database with the addition of ODBC.

Dashboard Fridays: Sample SQL Page Timeframe dashboard

When writing a SQL query, getting the date and time to format correctly can be a real pain. What is the current date and time, and how is it formatted? What happens if I want the date and time from 30 days ago? This SQL Page Timeframe dashboard demonstrates how the current date is picked up from the server hosting SquaredUp and how the Page Timeframe button impacts the date and time in a SQL query. Several different examples are demonstrated.

SCOM 2022 coming soon: the most exciting updates

Great news for the SCOM community – SCOM 2022 is going to be released in the spring! SCOM isn’t going anywhere and it’s only getting better. We saw this proven in the Big SCOM Survey Results 2021 where more than half of respondents said they were going to increase their SCOM deployment to monitor more of their existing and new infrastructure.

Limit the risk of ransomware with OpsLogix VMware MP

Ransomware is not a new concept within IT security. However, much focus is now being brought to it as the scale, number, and cost of these attacks are increasing worldwide. Though these attacks are aimed at organizations, the outcome can significantly impact consumers and individuals as well. The impact these attacks have on healthcare systems, schools, and power providers is significant and can have devastating consequences.

SCOM 2022: the most exciting updates

Technical Evangelist, SquaredUp Great news for the SCOM community – SCOM 2022 is here! SCOM isn’t going anywhere and it’s only getting better. We saw this proven in the Big SCOM Survey Results 2021 where more than half of respondents said they were going to increase their SCOM deployment to monitor more of their existing and new infrastructure.

SCOM is a great addition for monitoring Kubernetes - and this is why!

Kubernetes is one of the most prominent container orchestration platforms available today. As cloud-native- and container solutions gain attention, so is Kubernetes. The platform that Google open-sourced in 2014 has even become the standard for container management for private- and public cloud. With the new approach towards cloud-native application development, where microservices and containers are essential, there is a big focus on software development and how to migrate to the cloud.

Dashboard Fridays: Sample SQL AdventureWorks Dashboard

Join Adam Kinniburgh and Shawn Williams in this latest Dashboard Fridays episode on SQL AdventureWorks. Microsoft provides a common dataset called AdventureWorks when learning how to use SQL Server. Using SquaredUp, the AdventureWorks dataset can easily be visualized in any organization. In this short video, we'll demonstrate how this dashboard was built using SquaredUp dashboards, the challenges it solves, and how you can easily replicate it in your own environment.

SCOM Notifications: Kill your legacy email subscriptions in favor of Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a product that already before the pandemic started to gain popularity and, during, helped employees communicate and collaborate in their new remote offices. There are precursors to Teams - in Microsoft's portfolio, Skype for Business was retired last year, and after that, the increase of Teams users have been skyrocketing. Why Teams differ from some of the other communication alternatives is the many functions of teams that allow for much more than a chat, call, or virtual meeting.

New release: SquaredUp 5.4 - Bring your answers to the surface

SquaredUp 5.4 is here and it’s got some brilliant new features and upgrades to help you troubleshoot and find answers faster than ever. You’ll find the upgrades across all three SquaredUp editions – for SCOM, Azure, and the free Community Edition. Here are the highlights in the new release: Check out our release webinar for a detailed walkthrough and demo.

Dashboard Fridays: Sample au2mator Services Dashboard

Our au2mator customers heavily use the au2mator Self Service Portal to present automation as a delegated task to the Service Desk, Users, and Admins. This dashboard shows how au2mator were able to visualize all their services within a single SquaredUp dashboard. Using SQL, PowerShell, Azure Log Analytics, and Web Content, au2mator made a dashboard that looks simple but visualizes a lot. Join Adam Kinniburgh and special guest Michael Seidl from au2mator as they demonstrate how this dashboard was built, the challenges it solves and how you can get the dashboard pack!

Defining your naming conventions: The key to a structured SCOM environment

When it comes to sophisticated software like System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), where a structure is vital to maintain your environment, your naming conventions are the key to long-term success. Many different people are involved in the process of monitoring. To maintain documentation and procedures, you must define how you should name parts used in SCOM. Everything from the management group name to groups, management packs, override management packs, views, and folders.

Containerization and Kubernetes Monitoring

As cloud-native solutions are gaining recognition and becoming a common approach to developing applications, more attention has been directed towards container orchestration and Kubernetes. Both concepts within the realm of IT have been around for a while. Thanks to the technologies' maturing and cloud adoption, they've recently gained significant attention. We all know that software containers are far from traditional shipping containers, yet they function similarly: they standardize and combine.