Introduction
Putting servers into maintenance mode within the Microsoft SCOM console is a long and tedious task, especially if you have lots of servers that need to be done all at once.
In very large environments, open the SCOM management console can take a long time, you then have to search for one of your many servers, right-click, enter maintenance mode, fill out the details required (length, reason), click OK. Rinse and repeat for your list of servers.
My Solution
I have created an application that allows administrators to import lists of servers, and put them all into maintenance mode, with just a few clicks. My application makes it quick and easy to search for and find the exact servers you need, add them to a list and export that list for future use.
It was written out of the need of putting large numbers of servers into maintenance mode every week for scheduled and staggered Windows patching. Looking after 300+ servers (a small deployment), it was a pain to find the required servers and put them in to maintenance every week.
The application starts simply enough, just waiting for a list of servers to be entered. Either by manually typing, copy/paste a list, or drag and drop and existing text file.
Main Screen
If you just want to search SCOM, you can do that too. Click the “Search SCOM” button. There are several special search options too. For example, to find all servers currently in an error state, enter !e into the search field. The full list is shown below…
!e – servers in an error state
!w – servers in a warning state
!o – servers marked as OK
!m – servers in maintenance mode
!n – servers not being monitored
Once you have found the servers you need, select them and click “Add”. You can also right-click a server and choose Show Maintenance History to open a new window and see the maintenance history for the selected server.
Search SCOM
Searching for any Citrix servers that are currently in an error state: “CTX !E”
Filtering Search Results
Clicking “Next >” from the main screen will take you to the maintenance options page where you can enter the reason for putting the selected servers into maintenance.
These options, can be exported along with the server names for reuse.
The WhatIf.? option allows you to test the maintenance procedure, without making any changes to your infrastructure.
When you are ready, click “Start/Update”
Maintenance Options
In the screen shot below, I selected two Citrix Data Collector servers, and put them into maintenance mode.
Successful Operation
If your environment has any cluster services, this application will handle putting all the cluster resources into maintenance mode too, a difficult and long winded task in the SCOM console.
Change Log
| Date | Description |
|---|---|
| 2015-03 | Added: Show Maintenance History option. Right click a server from the Search SCOM list. |
| 2015-02 | Fixed: Scheduled Task GUI Fixed: Other GUI Issues Added: Excluded Servers Option |
| 2014-12 | Initial Public Release |
Download
If you are interested in this tool, please download it from the link below…
