What's New in System Center Advisor?
System Center Advisor (http://www.systemcenteradvisor.com/) is an online service that analyzes installations of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (and later versions), Windows Server 2008 (and later versions), Exchange Server, and SharePoint 2010.
One of the advantages of System Center Advisor is that we are constantly improving our features to address customer needs. Be sure to subscribe to this page to be notified about our latest and greatest additions and enhancements.
What’s new in October 2013
Lync Server 2013! In October we add support for analyzing Lync Server 2013 installations.
Note
Just as with Lync Server 2010, you’ll need to create a Run As account before you can use Advisor. See Set the Run As Account for Lync Server for information.
We also added new rules for other workloads, so look for new information about your existing deployments.
What’s new in September 2013
This month we added support for Windows Azure Active Directory, both users and groups. You can now create an Advisor account by using the administrator account for your Windows Azure Active Directory domain. You can also add an organizational account to an existing Advisor account.
After you add an organizational account to Advisor, you can add users or groups from Active Directory.
Note
For the best performance results, limit the number of Active Directory groups associated with a single Advisor account to two – one for administrators and one for users. Using more groups might impact Advisor’s performance when you log into the Advisor portal.
You will see changes throughout the Advisor portal to reflect this new support – in the sign in pages, in the Account information pages, and in user information. For example, you can now see the type of account (Microsoft account or Organizational user or group) in the Manage Users window.
For more information about Windows Azure Active Directory, see What is Windows Azure Active Directory?
For information about adding an organizational account to your Advisor account, see Add a Windows Azure Active Directory Organization to an Existing Advisor Account.
What’s new in August 2013
August is a big month for Advisor. We’re pleased to announce the following improvements and additions.
In August we welcome System Center 2012 SP1 – Virtual Machine Manager as a monitored workload in Advisor. If you have VMM installed in your environment, look for new alerts about configuration and configuration of your agents and servers.
We also recently released Update Rollup 4 for Advisor. This rollup provides the following:
- More robust Run As account settings
- Advisor agent display fixes
- Stabilization for the Advisor agents and gateways
On the Operations Manager side, we released two fixes for the Advisor Connector:
- Update Rollup 3 for Microsoft System Center 2012 SP1 – Operations Manager
- Updated management packs for Advisor
What’s new in April 2013
We are pleased to announce that you can now use Advisor as an attached service in System Center 2012 SP1: Operations Manager. What does this mean? Customers that currently have Operations Manager can use Advisor through the Operations console to view Advisor alerts and configuration information. To learn more about using Advisor as an attached service, see Viewing System Center Advisor Alerts in the Operations Manager TechNet library.
Don’t have Operations Manager? Don’t worry – we didn’t change a thing about Advisor itself. You can still use Advisor to view your alerts and configuration information and changes, just like you did last month. And, while you’re at it – check out System Center 2012 SP1, to see all the management and monitoring capabilities available.
What’s new in March 2013
This month we added support for Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012. You can install agents and gateways on these servers, as well as view analytics data for these servers.
Later in March, we will also be releasing an update through Microsoft Update to update your installed Advisor agents.
What’s new in January 2013
As of January 2013, Advisor is a free service. You no longer need to have a Software Assurance account to continue to use Advisor beyond the free trial period. In fact, there is no more free trial period!
We also added new rules this month for several of the workloads.
What’s new in November 2012
In November, Advisor welcomes Microsoft Lync Server 2010 as a monitored workload. If you have Lync Server in your environment, look for new alerts about its performance and availability.
You might notice that when you log into Advisor, you’re now asked for a “Microsoft account.” Windows Live ID has been renamed “Microsoft account,” so while this may seem like a change, it’s not – just use your existing credentials to sign in.
What’s new in V1.1
April 2012 introduces the following new features as part of the V1.1 release of Advisor.
- Support for System Center 2012 – Operations Manager. You can use Advisor on the same computer as the System Center 2012 version of the Operations Manager agent. See Planning Considerations for System Center Advisor for more information.
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012 analysis.
- Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and later analysis.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and later analysis.
- Additional PowerShell cmdlets to support running Advisor in environments that require action accounts (or RunAs accounts). For information, see Set the Run As Account For SharePoint
What’s new in V1?
As of this release, Advisor is a benefit of Microsoft’s Software Assurance program.
If you are new to Advisor, welcome! We’ve been hard at work the past year making this service everything you see today. Part of our success relies on feedback from you, our users and partners. If you think of something that would improve this service, please do not hesitate to tell us. You can click Feedback on any page to send us your thoughts. Make sure to visit this page regularly for information about our latest improvements. If you are an existing Advisor user, check out FAQ: System Center Advisor and Software Assurance for details about how this change affects you.
In addition to the V1 excitement, we’ve also added the following:
- Server health view. You can now view more detailed information about the status of your agents and gateways.
- We improved the agent and gateway troubleshooting documentation to use some of those cmdlets to perform diagnostics. You can check it out at System Center Advisor Troubleshooting.
What’s new in November 2011
We beefed up our troubleshooting documentation for the agent and gateway, including some information about those connection issues you’ve been seeing. You can check out the updated information in System Center Advisor Troubleshooting.
As always, watch this space – more exciting features coming soon.
What’s new in October 2011
Dashboards! When you log into Advisor, you now see an all-up view of alerts and server information. You can drill into alert and configuration details from the new dashboard.
Simplified setup and a separate configuration tool. No more relying solely on registration keys to change the configuration of your agents or gateway. You can use the Configuration wizard to change port and proxy information for your gateway or to change the gateway that your agents report to. For information, see Use the System Center Advisor Configuration Wizard.
PowerShell. That’s right, Advisor has gone PowerShell. For information about the System Center Advisor cmdlets, enable them by entering add-pssnapin microsoftadvisorsnapin at a PowerShell command prompt. To list the available functions enter get-help scadvisor.
New alerts. We added the following alerts this month:
For SQL Server:
- SQL Server msdb system database does not have connect permission for guest user – for more information see You should not disable the guest user in the msdb database in SQL Server.
- Virtual host driver detected that can cause stability problems for SQL Server – for more information see Using virtual host drivers could lead to data consistency problems with the SQL Server Database Engine.
- SQL Server missing update 2506235 to allow proper I/O processing for encrypted databases on hidden schedulers – for more information see FIX: An access violation may occur when a database is enabled for Transparent Database Encryption in SQL Server 2008 or in SQL Server 2008 R2.
- SQL Server feature "Instant File Initialization" is not enabled – for more information see File initialization takes a long time for SQL Server database-related operations.
- SQL Server database contains unsupported .Net Framework Library assembly – for more information see Using unsupported .Net Framework assemblies with SQLCLR may cause problems after .Net upgrades.
For Hyper-V Server: Missing Operating System update KB2263829 might cause Hyper-V virtual machines to lose network connectivity on Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 systems. For more information see The network connection of a running Hyper-V virtual machine may be lost under heavy outgoing network traffic on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
For Windows Server: Service Pack 1 is no longer supported on Windows Server 2008. For more information see Service Pack 1 for Windows Server 2008 & Windows Vista End Of Support.
Stay tuned to this space – we have more updates coming soon!
What’s new in September 2011
More new alerts! We added the following alerts this month:
For SQL Server:
- MS DTC configuration for “network DTC access” might result in SQL Server linked server errors – for more information see Recommended MSDTC settings for using Distributed Transactions in SQL Server.
- SQL Server has encountered a database availability error: Msg 17207 – for more information see How to troubleshoot Error 17204 and 17207 in SQL Server.
- SQL Server has encountered a database availability error: Msg 17204 – for more information see How to troubleshoot Error 17204 and 17207 in SQL Server.
- SQL Server database contains unsupported .Net Framework Library assembly – for more information see Using unsupported .Net Framework assemblies with SQLCLR may cause problems after .Net upgrades.
For Windows Server:
- Missing Operating System Update KB 2541014 may cause this computer to not hibernate or generate a machine memory dump when a Stop error condition occurs – for more information see Hibernation does not work or memory dump file is not created after you install Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1.
- Secure channel failure detected – for more information see Event ID 5722 is logged on your Windows Server-based domain controller.
What’s new in August 2011
- We added the following alerts:
- SQL Server feature "CLR integration" might result in memory errors or CLR load failures in the 32-bit version of SQL Server – for information, see Various memory errors are logged to SQL Server error log when using SQL CLR objects.
- High CPU usage by Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) – for information, see How to Troubleshoot High LSASS.EXE CPU Utilization on an Active Directory Domain Controllers.
- Potentially risky audit failure settings detected – for information, see How To Prevent Auditable Activities When Security Log Is Full.
- A possible STOP error caused by audit failure has been detected – for information, see How To Prevent Auditable Activities When Security Log Is Full
- In response to customer issues, we’ve added a new guided deployment that details everything you need to do to get Advisor working in your environment. You will see this guide the first time you log into Advisor – you can also view it from the Servers page, by clicking View on-premise setup guide.
- Was that alert helpful to you? Or did we completely miss the mark? You can now give each alert a positive (happy face) or negative (sad face rating). We’ll use this feedback to determine which alerts to update or remove in the future.
- Did you know that you can monitor your Advisor gateway with System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2? For information, see Monitor the System Center Advisor Gateway