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.
Lync Server 2013! In October we add support for analyzing Lync Server 2013 installations.
We also added new rules for other workloads, so look for new information about your existing deployments.
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.
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.
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:
On the Operations Manager side, we released two fixes for the Advisor Connector:
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.
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.
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.
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.
April 2012 introduces the following new features as part of the V1.1 release of Advisor.
As of this release, Advisor is a benefit of Microsoft’s Software Assurance program.
In addition to the V1 excitement, we’ve also added the following:
As always, watch this space – more exciting features coming soon.
For SQL Server:
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!
More new alerts! We added the following alerts this month:
For Windows Server:
More of what's new in previous months
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