SCSM 2012 Data Warehouse DWDataMart Full

Recently i nearly got myself into a dead lock where my SCSM 2012 Data Warehouse Management Server goes dead as the disk space use up by the DWDataMart Log.

Since the backup of the database failed weeks ago and unfortunately no one noticing it, the DB log file grows to 23GB and immediately flood out the hard drive.

I soon come to a very useful SQL command which can truncate the DB Log. Also not that by doing this, you lost the recovery option of that period, so do think twice before using this command.

BACKUP LOG DWDataMart TO DISK = N'e:DWDataMart.bak'

GO

DBCC SHRINKFILE('SM_LOG', 1)

GO

This is a simple command that safe my day. :-)

You can also apply this to clean up the DWRepository as well in case the log use up all the space.

SCSM 2012 Data Warehouse Cube Processing Keep Failing

I personally find it very annoying when you imported a management pack (MP) in your SCSM and the next day all Cube Processing job failed without reason.

Have been seeking high and low for fix this and finally with combine article from Technet and forums by hundreds miserable user same as myself, the cube processing can be fixed using below method

Firstly lets Disable Data Warehouse Cube Processing jobs via Power Shell (make sure to change to correct Program Files install directory for SCSM):

Import-Module '%ProgramFiles% \Microsoft System Center 2012\ServiceManager\Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Warehouse.Cmdlets.psd1'
Disable-SCDWJob "Process.SystemCenterConfigItemCube"
Disable-SCDWJob "Process.SystemCenterWorkItemsCube"
Disable-SCDWJob "ProGetcess.SystemCenterChangeAndActivityManagementCube"
Disable-SCDWJob "Process.SystemCenterServiceCatalogCube"
Disable-SCDWJob "Process.SystemCenterPowerManagementCube"
Disable-SCDWJob "Process.SystemCenterSoftwareUpdateCube"

Login to the server hosting the Analysis service and run the powershell script, just remember to change the$Server.Connect and the $DWASDB with the correct server (being the name of the SQL Server) and database name. It usually runs for 5-15 minutes. In my case, it took me about 45 minutes, so not to worry if the Powershell hung. When complete, you can verify by looking at the properties at one of the dimensions

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.AnalysisServices")

$Server = New-Object Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Server
$Server.Connect("serverdw.blog.com")
$Databases = $Server.Databases
$DWASDB = $Databases["DWASDataBase"]
$Dimensions = New-Object Microsoft.AnalysisServices.Dimension
$Dimensions = $DWASDB.Dimensions

foreach ($Dimension in $Dimensions){$Dimension.Process("ProcessFull")}

Now you have to enable back all the cube processing job you have disabled earlier.

Enable-SCDWJob "Process.SystemCenterConfigItemCube"
Enable-SCDWJob "Process.SystemCenterWorkItemsCube"
Enable-SCDWJob "ProGetcess.SystemCenterChangeAndActivityManagementCube"
Enable-SCDWJob "Process.SystemCenterServiceCatalogCube"
Enable-SCDWJob "Process.SystemCenterPowerManagementCube"
Enable-SCDWJob "Process.SystemCenterSoftwareUpdateCube"

The final step to do is to process all the cubes

Notice that the cube processing finish without error.

hope this help out all other out there with SCSM 2012 Cube Processing issue.

Hyper-V 2012 : VLAN Trunking

During one of our Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 deployment (without GUI) on HP 160 G5, we have come across a very interesting finding of the built-in capabilities where you can now TRUNK VLAN without HP Network Configuration Utility (HPCU)

It was both the shock an excitement that night when both myself and Hafiz found that by adding a DWORD to the registry and a clean restart... VOILA ! the VLAN trunking works as expected.

This is the location to find for the registry key that you have to add.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}\00xx

xx could be any number so you must open each key and look for your network adapter. If you are using NIC Teaming you probably need to do this for both adapters or all adapters that set up your team, in case you have more than two.

So, what is so great about this ?

Remember back in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, you need to install HPCU (Not an option). After the installation, you have to use HPCU to create VLAN(802.1q) with the NIC port of you choice. 

And the next complication was that for each VLAN that you trunk, there will be additional Network Adapter create for that particular VLAN

Imaging you have 2 NIC ports and you have 5 VLANs that you need to trunk them for the VMs. This will gives you 10 extra Network Adapters show in Network Connections window. MESSY !!!

Now that we can do this without HPCU, you only need to specify the VLAN in the Virtual Network of the VM that want to connect to.