SCOMathon 2021 – A big thank you

Thank you SCOM community for once again making SCOMathon a huge success! This year, our virtual conference on all things SCOM spanned not one, but two days, across multiple time zones – from Australia to the West Coast of the United States and everywhere in between. 

Our 24 different sessions and three expert panel discussions covered topics including the future of SCOM, best practice tips, upgrades, use cases and more – and we are pleased to say that our #SCOManiac attendees had a blast!  

• “Thank you for this SCOMATHON it was great”

• “This is awesome, I am having a ball, I feel like I am 7 again”

• “Thanks to all the organizers of this great event! See you at SCOMathon 2022!”

• “Connecting with SCOM enthusiasts is always welcome. SCOMathon was fantastic. With it being over two days and sessions being pre-recorded, we had chance to catch the sessions we missed and meet more speakers and enthusiasts. Looking forward to the next event”

• “Thanks guys, amazing content this year”

• “Thanks everyone – it was a blast! I had a ton of fun just hanging out and talking about technologies.”

We also managed to raise a total of $7,428 for Doctors Without Borders. SquaredUp is donating a dollar for each attendee of every session to the medical NGO who is providing aid for Covid-19 patients all around the world. Kudos to all of you for making this possible! 

If you couldn’t make it to the event this time, not to worry, below you will find our event highlights and links to session recordings. Our SCOMathon Slack channel will also live on as a SCOM discussion hub, so head over there to connect with your fellow #SCOManiacs! 

Event highlights 

The future of SCOM 

• Opportunities for SCOM, a reflection on The Big SCOM Survey Richard Benwell, CEO and Founder of SquaredUp shares his thoughts on what The Big SCOM Survey’s results say for the future of SCOM and the opportunities for SCOM’s development and use as part of the fabric of a modern monitoring strategy.

• SCOM roadmap update, MP updates and more Aakash Basavaraj, Microsoft SCOM Program Manager and the SCOM Product team share an update on where SCOM is heading next, including MP developments and a demo of the eagerly awaiting M365 MP in its production form.

• SCOM yesterday, today and tomorrow Microsoft MVP Cameron Fuller shares the story of SCOM – from its inception in the MOM days to the present, finishing with his thoughts on what SCOM’s future might look like.

• Panel Discussion: What is the future of SCOM? An expert panel discussing what the future might hold for SCOM. Panelists: Cameron Fuller, Microsoft MVP and Cloud & Datacenter Management Specialist; Bob Cornelissen, Microsoft MVP and Managing Consultant at Topqore; Bruce Cullen, Director of Products at Cookdown; John Joyner, Microsoft MVP and Senior Director; John Liss, Founder & CEO at LissProductions

PowerShell and SCOM 

• PowerShell and SCOM, do it efficient Microsoft Customer Engineers Ruud Van Den Hooff and Serge Zuidinga explain some of the best practices when using PowerShell to author custom monitoring and automation in SCOM, from efficient scripts to practical benefit.

• Fun with advanced native dashboards in the SCOM console Microsoft Senior Customer Engineer for SCOM, Wei Hao Lim, shows you how to unlock more of the native SCOM console’s ability using PowerShell driven templates, including rotating dashboards to keep your boss happy!

• Enriching SCOM alerts with PowerShell System Centre Architect Dujon Walsham takes you through the process of adding whatever you need to the SCOM alerts you get from the MPs you already have. CI data from your CMDB, details of what MP the alert comes from and more!

Beyond infrastructure monitoring 

• How to approach monitoring applications and go beyond infrastructure monitoring Kevin Holman, Microsoft Principal Customer Success Engineer helps get you started with monitoring your mission-critical business applications using Visual Studio and other MP authoring tools, sharing common pitfalls and how to avoid them.

• Using SCOM as part of modern DevOps: an evolution Polypore’s Global Technical Applications Manager Yannick Grasser shares how they use SCOM’s APM capabilities to gain deep insight into internally developed .net applications. See how they tie SCOM into ServiceNow and Azure DevOps with rich dashboarding and automated syncing to achieve a modern, scalable end-to-end DevOps process.

SCOM upgrades  

• SCOM upgrades demystified Bob Cornelissen, Microsoft MVP and Topqore Managing Consultant, takes you through everything you need to know about SCOM upgrades – from lifecycle management to planning for future SCOM upgrades.

Security 

• Securing SCOM and why it is important Nathan Gau, Senior Consultant at Microsoft, shows us how to enjoy the benefits of SCOM while minimizing risk.

Thanks again to each and every one of you for making SCOMathon a huge success. Remember to join the SCOMathon Slack channel to keep up to date on all things SCOM and stay in touch with the community.

Don’t forget, your fellow #SCOManiacs are just a Slack message away!