Azure Automation: Setting “Run As” Account on Hybrid Worker Groups!

I just want to post a little new feature I found a couple of days ago as a small NYE treat! It is now possible to set a “global” Run As account on a hybrid worker group! This feature removes any difference between SMA and AA Hybrid Workers, meaning that you can transfer any runbooks directly! (Contact me if you need help) By Default the Hybrid Workers run as “LocalSystem”, while SMA runbook workers run as a specified service account. It is possible to change the service account for the Microsoft Monitoring Agent, but that is not best practice and [...]

By |2015-12-31T13:46:30+01:00december 31st, 2015|Azure|3 Comments

How to create Mac OS X OSD resources with Parallels for ConfigMgr

For those already using Parallels Mac Management for SCCM here’s a little guide for creating the boot image and netrestore image. Boot Image Build and start a clean Mac with latest OS X version. Login with the admin user and create the following folders in Documents: Boot SSHKeys Open the Terminal application. Navigate to the SSHKeys folder. Example: “cd /Users/%accountname%/Documents/SSHKeys/” Run the following command: ssh-keygen -t rsa When asked about filename just enter id_rsa. When asked about a passphrase just press enter for default selection which is blank. In the SSHKeys folder there should now be two files located: id_rsa [...]

By |2015-12-22T13:29:08+01:00december 22nd, 2015|Configuration Manager (SCCM), OS Deployment|3 Comments

Managing Mac OS X devices with ConfigMgr and Parallels

Xmas is not far away now, but before we hit that one special holiday during the year I want to throw one more blog out into cyberspace. Managing those Mac OS X devices once and for all! ConfigMgr 2012 started out with a proposed solution to how we could start managing those silver things from the Apple company, it just wasnt quite as easy as we would like it to be. We needed all kinds of special little configs and tweaks to be made and on top of it we needed to bring in the PKI infrastructure with a transition [...]

By |2015-12-22T13:03:39+01:00december 22nd, 2015|Configuration Manager (SCCM), OS Deployment|Kommentarer lukket til Managing Mac OS X devices with ConfigMgr and Parallels

Hardware overview with Power BI

In the true spirit of christmas, I will share some cool tricks on how to get deeper into Power BI. My good friend and collegue Henrik Hoe started out by showing a little bit on how to get started with Power BI, I will extend upon that and show you how easily create a live view of SCCM inventory data. First of all, we need to have Power BI Dekstop installed. For easy access to my SCCM database I installed it on my SCCM Primary Site (it is a test environment so that okay, but normally you would not do [...]

By |2017-08-22T09:57:20+01:00december 21st, 2015|Visualization|2 Comments

December 18th: Unattended Java 8 update 66 installation

This is a request we often get from our customers as Oracle often updates Java. This blogpost takes the newest version of Java 8 as an example, and on this date (December 18th) it’s Java Version 8 Update 66. Through the different updates the installation method has changed, but the general idea is the same, so it should be possible to use this for the next updates of Java version 8. First off we want to obtain the newest version of Java, and in an offline installer version, we can get that from Oracle’s own site. Keep in mind that [...]

By |2017-08-22T10:00:01+01:00december 18th, 2015|Packaging & Installation|Kommentarer lukket til December 18th: Unattended Java 8 update 66 installation

December 17th: Azure AD Connect – Step by Step (Pixi Book Style)

A Coretech Christmas Tale. Once a upon a time customers were having difficulties connecting their on-premise Active Directory to Azure AD. Throughout this post We will tell the story about "Test-users-1" and his journey from his well-known On-Premise AD (AD.Sandbx.dk) to the exciting Cloud know as Azure. If you are a customer and wish to recreate "Test-User-1" journey. Then it can easily be done by following his steps and completing your own POC for Azure AD. ___________________ Attached to this blog are a Word Document that in details shows all steps of the proces in 6 easy steps. Create Azure [...]

By |2015-12-17T09:00:54+01:00december 17th, 2015|Azure, Office 365|4 Comments

SCSM Send Email for Cireson Analyst Portal

07-12-2016 Updated to support Cireson Portal 6+ Many people still use the community solution called Send Email made by Travis Wright for Incident and later extended to Service Requests by Patrick Sundqvist. This allows the analyst to write a message to the Affected User or other related users on the Incident or Service Request and wrap the message in a nice email notification with prefilled information of your own choosing. Example:   At the same time you can control what should happen to the Incident or Service Request after the email has been sent – for example if the Message [...]

By |2017-08-22T09:28:44+01:00december 15th, 2015|Service Manager (SCSM), Tools|1 Kommentar

December 11: Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) Resources at your fingertips

I know it's a pompous title, but that still the idea behind what I want to show next. As an IT-Pro I am used to staying up to date on the latest technology that I am working with. And with On-premises solutions like traditional ConfigMgr implementations, staying up to date is not too hard with a little bit of effort since new features and updates are not added daily as opposed to what is going on in the Cloud. Now for some time now I have been working with Cloud services like Microsoft Intune and eventually EMS after the suite [...]

Roll Out New Configuration Manager Distribution Point with PowerShell

Here is a quick example how to install new Configuration Manager Distribution Point with PowerShell. As you see we have many options to expand this script. We can install Windows Server features, reboot it remotely, install additional software etc. It all depends how you wanna install and configure it. #Import the Module Import-Module $env:SMS_ADMIN_UI_PATH.Replace("\bin\i386","\bin\configurationmanager.psd1") $SiteCode = Get-PSDrive -PSProvider CMSITE #Change the connection context Set-Location "$($SiteCode.Name):\" #New DP Information $DistributionPoint = 'DP01.4demo4.com' $SiteCode = 'PS1' # Test the connection to server     Test-Connection `         -ComputerName $DistributionPoint # OPTIONAL - Install Windows Server Roles and Features     Install-WindowsFeature `         -Name [...]

Don’t be fooled by the new Site Server Servicing Window in ConfigMgr 1511

In ConfigMgr 1511 you have a new maintenance windows when you open the site server properties. That’s NOT for traditional software updates but for the new ConfigMgr Updates and Servicing model. You get to the maintenance windows in the Administration workspace, Site Configuration, Sites. Right the primary site and select properties. In the Maintenance Window tab, create a maintenance window (and make sure you call it something like ConfigMgr Dynamic update Only). I did a few tests and the maintenance window do not apply to traditional software updates. According to my tests normal software software updates will still apply unless [...]

By |2015-12-09T19:43:25+01:00december 9th, 2015|Configuration Manager (SCCM)|4 Comments

System Center Configuration Manager 1511 – Dynamic updates

Looking at the life of an IT Pro today, people like you and me are being challenged like never before. Long gone are the days where we only focused on traditional desktop management, today we are also challenged with managing mobile devices, like iOS, Android, Windows Phones and tablets. MAC OS 10, traditional desktops, road worriers, cloud services, SLA and visualization demands from from management and the list just goes on and on. In the middle of everything, right there in the eye of the Tornado is You....often trying to put out fires instead of spending time on being more [...]

By |2015-12-09T13:59:19+01:00december 9th, 2015|Configuration Manager (SCCM)|9 Comments

When Power BI met the SCCM Community

SCCM Community meet Power BI – Power BI meet the SCCM Community… This blog post is the part 1 of 2 blog posts – and as you can see it’s all about introductions. Power BI is not a “new” thing, it’s been around for some time but is really just now starting to take off. (https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/) So what is Power BI? It’s a new online service for us to get insight of our SCCM data, and for us to further display data internally or to others. Previous versions was a coop between Power BI and Office 365, but now we [...]

By |2015-12-03T23:06:28+01:00december 3rd, 2015|Configuration Manager (SCCM), Office 365|1 Kommentar

December 3rd – SQL Stored Procedure in a SCOM Widget

Download Stored Procedure: [download id="270" format="1"] Download Web Site: [download id="269" format="1"] If you already knows about the Widgets in SCOM you have perhaps thought about how to execute a stored procedure against a SQL server directly from your console. However – I have used the following use-cases a couple of times before and used it for presenting different information. In this Use-case its about creating a widget which is able to show the current performance on the SQL Server database disk for your SCOM implementation (Web Browser Widget): First of all – why produce and present this information. Often when [...]

By |2015-12-03T12:00:00+01:00december 3rd, 2015|Operations Manager (SCOM), Visualization|Kommentarer lukket til December 3rd – SQL Stored Procedure in a SCOM Widget

December 2nd: Part 2: Uninstall Java (or any other software) with ConfigMgr Compliance Baselines

It's December 2nd and Christmas is just around the corner! Yesterday Jakob kicked off the Coretech December Calendar with a great post about "Triggering a webhook from a SharePoint workflow using Out-of-the-box Activities" (Check out his blog post here: http://bit.ly/1N16fte).  That was the  first, this is the second post in the Coretech blog series that will continue until December 24th - Christmas Eve! :) In Part 1 (http://bit.ly/1PlnDPr) I explained how you can utilize ConfigMgr Compliance Baselines for uninstalling software like Java, Adobe etc. with the help of PowerShell and WMI. Well in Part 1 we used the Win32_Product class which is not recommended [...]

December 1st: Azure Automation: Triggering a webhook from a SharePoint workflow using Out-of-the-box Activities

Welcome to this year Coretech December Calendar! Today is the 1st of december and we have a great little christmas treat for you! This is the first post in a series of posts, published every day in December. Today's subject is Triggering Webhooks from SharePoint! One of the great new features in Azure Automation is Webhooks! Webhooks is everywhere! More and more cloud services support them. Basically it is a simple HTTP Post sent to a web service that starts the runbooks. We can then send a bunch of data with the post and have the runbook receive these dato. [...]

By |2015-12-01T12:00:00+01:00december 1st, 2015|Automation, Azure|7 Comments