Edge Show 112 – New Widgets & Dashboards with Operations Manager in System Center 2012 R2

In this episode Symon interviews Daniel Savage, Principal Program Manager Lead on the System Center Operations Manager team, to discuss the new dashboards and visualizations available in Update Release 2 (https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2929891).  These widgets provide more detailed information about alerts, health, images, classes, SLAs, performance, websites, PowerShell, state, and topology.

For more information about the new widgets, visit https://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2014/04/24/new-widgets-and-dashboard.aspx.

The interview with Daniel begins at [09:05]:

• -[09:40] How does Operations Manager analyze and display data?
• -[10:35] What is the difference between a widget and a dashboard?
• -[11:00] Which widgets shipped with the System Center 2012 and 2012 R2 initial release?
• -[11:40] How is Update Release 2 installed to enable the new widgets?

At [12:00] Daniel demos how to create a new dashboard

• -[12:30] Which widgets are new?
• -[13:35] How do you publish a dashboard to a web console?
• -[14:45] What does the 'state' of a system indicate?
• -[15:05] Is it possible to drill down into an alert to provide more information?
• -[15:50] What type of states can the tiles display?

At [16:35] Daniel demos the new topology wizard

• -[17:45] What type of requirements are needed for the SQL Server that supports the Operations Manager database?
• -[18:25] How do you display PowerShell information in a widget?
• At [19:10] Daniel demos how to create a PowerShell Grid widget
• -[19:25] Where does the PowerShell script run and under what security context?

At [21:10] Daniel demos how PowerShell can be used to query Bing and return data

• -[21:45] How extensible is this solution?
• -[22:20] Is it possible to query information from internal applications or websites?

At [23:05] Daniel demos how to create custom widgets in Visual Studio

• -[23:35] What are the best practices to optimize the speed of the visualizations?
• -[25:40] How do the Operations Manager widgets compare to VMware vCenter Operations Manager?
• -[26:30] Where can people go to learn more?

• -Blog post: https://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2014/04/24/new-widgets-and-dashboard.aspx.
• -Wiki: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/24133.operations-manager-dashboard-widgets.aspx

News:

• -[00:35] Microsoft shows its commitment to security with the Microsoft Interflow platform: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/dn750892 
• -[01:45] Two new Microsoft Azure datacenters available in US East 2 (Virginia) and US Central (Iowa): https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/regions/#services
• -[02:25] Machine Learning public preview is now available for Microsoft Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/machine-learning
• -[03:40] Several updated Virtual Machine & BizTalk Server images are now available in Microsoft Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/virtual-machines & https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/biztalk-services
• -[04:25] Windows Apportals is now available which allows companies running Windows 8.1 to use customizable productivity widgets: https://www.microsoft.com/enterprise/apportals/default.aspx
• -[05:25] Microsoft acquires InMage to enhance disaster recovery solutions to Microsoft Azure: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2014/07/11/microsoft-acquires-inmage-better-business-continuity-with-azure
• -[06:15] Microsoft Azure StorSimple releases the StorSimple 8000 Series storage appliance: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/storsimple/default.aspx
• -[08:00] Microsoft Azure Certified Program is announced providing certification to Azure Virtual Machines: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/gallery/virtual-machines/partner-program

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