Microsoft IT Health Scanner Released!

Microsoft Essential Business Server team is excited to announce the release of Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner, the new diagnostic tool designed for administrators of small or medium-sized networks who want to assess the overall health of their network infrastructure. When run from a computer with the proper network access, the tool takes a few minutes to scan your IT environment, perform more than 100 separate checks, and collect and analyze information about the following: 

ü Configuration of sites and subnets in Active Directory

ü Replication of Active Directory, the file system, and SYSVOL shared folders

ü Name resolution by the Domain Name System (DNS)

ü Configuration of the network adapters of all domain controllers, DNS servers, and e-mail servers running Microsoft Exchange Server

ü Health of the domain controllers

ü Configuration of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) for all domain controllers

This tool is based on the well-known EBS Preparation Wizard, which the EBS team has originally built for customers who were deploying Essential Business Server 2008 (see more on Preparation Wizard here). Very soon, however, the team noticed that Preparation Wizard was widely used, not just by customers who were deploying EBS, but anyone with Active Directory in their network who wanted to verify the health of their environment. That should have come as no surprise – after all, Preparation Wizard ran over 100 different checks which were based on most common issues resolved by Microsoft Customer Support Services over the past 10 years!

Building on the success of the Preparation Wizard, the team is now introducing the Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner. Just like its predecessor, Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner scans your network, identifies various networking and provides links to knowledge based articles that explain how to correct these issues. The one main difference is that the new tool is completely EBS-agnostic. That is, if in order to run Preparation Wizard, the administrator had to answer several questions specific to EBS deployment. Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner, on the other hand, requires no prior EBS knowledge to run. And of course, this new tool is completely free!

Go give it a try!

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=155170

Thanks!

Julia Kuzminova
EBS Program Manager

http://blogs.technet.com/essentialbusinessserver/archive/2009/06/29/microsoft-it-health-scanner-released.aspx

 

IT Network Health Scanner Demo powered by EBS

As you may have picked up earlier this month we announced a tool that can help you support your IT network by discovering network issues and reporting how to resolve them.  Before you download it from here check out the video below.  Thanks to David F our Technical Product Manager for putting this together.

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Nick King – Product Manager

Posted: Thursday, July 23, 2009 7:43 PM by EssentialBloggers

Filed under: ebs, Preparation Wizard, Health, IT Scanner

http://blogs.technet.com/essentialbusinessserver/archive/2009/07/23/it-network-health-scanner-demo-powered-by-ebs.aspx

 

Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner

Brief Description

The Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner is designed for administrators who want to assess the overall health of their Active Directory and network infrastructure. The tool identifies common problems that can prevent your network environment from functioning properly.

On This Page

Quick Details

Overview

System Requirements

Instructions

Additional Information

Related Resources

What Others Are Downloading

Related Downloads

Quick Details

File Name:
HealthScanWizard.msi

Version:
2008

Date Published:
7/6/2009

Language:
English

Download Size:
2.6 MB

Estimated Download Time:
7 min 56K
Dial-up (56K)DSL/Cable (256K)DSL/Cable (768K)T1 (1.5M) 7 min

Overview

The Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner is a diagnostic tool that is designed for administrators of small or medium-sized networks (recommended up to 20 servers and up to 500 client computers) who want to assess the overall health of their network infrastructure. The tool identifies common problems that can prevent your network environment from functioning properly as well as problems that can interfere with infrastructure upgrades, deployments, and migration.
When run from a computer with the proper network access, the tool takes a few minutes to scan your IT environment, perform more than 100 separate checks, and collect and analyze information about the following:

  • Configuration of sites and subnets in Active Directory
  • Replication of Active Directory, the file system, and SYSVOL shared folders
  • Name resolution by the Domain Name System (DNS)
  • Configuration of the network adapters of all domain controllers, DNS servers, and e-mail servers running Microsoft Exchange Server
  • Health of the domain controllers
  • Configuration of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) for all domain controllers

If a problem is found, the tool describes the problem, indicates the severity, and links you to guidance at the Microsoft Web site (such as a Knowledge Base article) to help you resolve the problem. You can save or print a report for later review. The tool does not change anything on your computer or your network.

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System Requirements
  • Supported Operating Systems: Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2; Windows Server 2008; Windows Vista Service Pack 1; Windows XP Service Pack 2

          Note: make sure that you have installed the latest service packs and Windows operating system updates.
  • Required Software: .NET Framework 2.0
  • Minimum Screen Resolution: 800 x 600

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Instructions
  1. Click the Download button on this page to start the download.
  2. Do one of the following:
  • To start the installation immediately, click Run.
  • To save the download to your computer for installation at a later time, click Save.
  • To cancel the installation, click Cancel.

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Additional Information

The computer where you run this tool must be joined to your Active Directory domain. You must use an account that is a member of the Domain Admins group (or, when prompted, provide appropriate credentials) to scan the network environment.
This tool uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to collect information from the servers on your network. Before you scan the environment, make sure that WMI is enabled on the servers and that Windows Firewall is configured to allow traffic on the TCP ports that are required for remote WMI access. In most cases, these are TCP ports 135 and 445 as well as dynamically assigned ports in the range 1024 to 1034.

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Related Resources
  1. The Microsoft EBS Team Blog
  2. Windows Essential Business Server
  3. Windows Essential Business Server Technical Library

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What Others Are Downloading

Others who downloaded Microsoft IT Environment Health Scanner also downloaded:

  1. Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit
  2. IT Manager: Platform Solution Blueprint – Security
  3. Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server
  4. Risk and Health Assessment Program for Active Directory – Scoping Tool v1.1
  5. DPM 2007 Configuration Analyzer

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Related Downloads

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http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=dd7a00df-1a5b-4fb6-a8a6-657a7968bd11&displaylang=en

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