New Management Packs for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2

Anyone who’s seen my present Microsoft’s Virtualisation & Management story, will know I spend quite a bit of time focussing on System Center Operations Manager.  For me, I think it’s the mission control of the System Center Suite, where, typically, IT Admins’ would spend the majority of their time.  Whether it’s proactive monitoring and alerting, or reporting through Service Level Dashboards, Operations Manager gives us excellent insight into the environment, whether it’s physical, or virtual.

How does Operations Manager get it’s knowledge about Technology-X?

Simple.  Management Packs.  Important to note, MP’s are not written by the Operations Manager team.  They are written and developed by the team (Microsoft or 3rd Party) that makes that respective technology.  Exchange MP is written by the Exchange team, SharePoint MP by the SharePoint team, and so on.

Where do you get these Management Packs?

Well, with Operations Manager 2007 R2, you can search and import MP’s right into the Operations Manager interface, however, those who’ve used Operations Manager for some time, will know you have to visit the MP Catalogue.  If you’ve not used the MP Catalogue for a while, the first thing you’ll notice is that the site has been moved into the PinPoint set of sites, and in my view, isn’t quite as easy to find the MPs as before, but I’m sure it’ll get better with time.  Don’t shoot the messenger on that one!

New Management Packs?

Well, a few highlights for me include:

Operations Manager Management Pack for Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) 2010 (Download)

This MP monitors Forefront TMG and includes monitors and rules to track the deployed topology & features, performance, availability, and reliability of Forefront TMG components. With detailed alert information, you can quickly identify and troubleshoot Forefront TMG issues, minimizing time-to-resolution when problems occur. You can collect and analyze performance trends and metrics, and obtain performance information that allows you to manage bottlenecks, identify capacity requirements, and proactively manage your Forefront TMG deployment to resolve issues before problems occur.

• Topology and feature deployment
• Events indicating service outages
• Alerts indicating configuration issues and connected data source changes
• Verification that all dependant services are running
• Configuration storage synchronization

Operations Manager Management Pack for Windows 2008 R2 Direct Access Server (Download)

Through Operations Manager, the Direct Access Server Management Pack supports the following features:

Automatic discovery of the Direct Access Server and its components, including:

• IP-HTTPS Gateway
• ISATAP Router
• Network Security Component
• 6to4 Router
• Teredo Relay
• Teredo Server

Monitors that identify:

• Status of DA Server and its components
• Denial of service (DoS), spoofing, and replay attacks
• ICMP and data traffic queue overflows
• Utilization of available IPsec states on the DA Server

Operations Manager Management Pack Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 (Download)

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 management pack is designed to be used for monitoring Exchange 2010 events, collecting Exchange component-specific performance counters in one central location, and for raising alerts for operator intervention as necessary. By detecting, sending alerts, and automatically correlating critical events, this management pack helps indicate, correct, and prevent possible service outages or configuration problems, allowing you to proactively manage Exchange servers and identify issues before they become critical. The management pack monitors and provides alerts for automatic notification of events indicating service outages, performance degradation, and health monitoring.

The Exchange Server 2010 Management Pack includes rules and scripts to monitor and report on performance, availability, and reliability of all Exchange 2010 server roles including.

• Mailbox Server Role
• Client Access Server Role
• Hub Transport Server Role
• Edge Transport Server Role
• Unified Messaging Server Role

Operations Manager Management Pack for Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (Download)

The Management Pack for Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (FPE) allows you to discover FPE installations and components and to monitor them within System Center Operations Manager 2007. When there is an issue that may impact the availability, configuration, or security of your FPE deployment, Operations Manager uses the management pack to detect the issue, alert you to its existence, and facilitate diagnosis and corrective actions.

• Support for Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (FPE)
• Discovery and monitoring of key FPE services
• Monitoring of product license status
• Monitoring of the availability and configuration of scan jobs
• Monitoring of scan engine and definition updates
• Diagnostic and recovery tasks related to engine updates and service recycling
• Performance views of message scanning rate across scan jobs
• Discovery and monitoring of FPE running with an Exchange CCR cluster

Operations Manager Management Pack for SharePoint 2010 Beta (Download)

This System Center Management Pack is for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products Beta, which includes monitoring for:

• SharePoint Server 2010
• Project Server 2010
• Search Server 2010
• This Management Pack monitors important Events, Performance Counters, Services, and SharePoint Health Analyzer Rules found in SharePoint 2010 Products.
• This Management Pack lets operators know when incidents occur which could endanger the health of the SharePoint farm; notifications can either be:
• Components displayed in a red unhealthy status in the System Center Operations Manager diagram view.
• Alerts sent directly to the Operator (this notification happens only for critical incidents).

Operations Manager Management Pack for Windows Power Management (Download)

The Power Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 R2 enables you to monitor and manage the power consumption of computers running Windows Server 2008 R2.

This management pack provides:

• Visibility into power consumption
• Visibility and control of power policy
• Ability to lower power consumption during non-business hours to reduce overall power consumption
• Ability to limit power consumption
• Ability to detect excessive power consumption

These are just a few of the MP’s available, however, don’t just import them all and expect everything to be perfect.  Importing of MP’s should be phased, otherwise, as expected, you’ll get a lot of alerts, as the thresholds won’t be ideal for your environment in every case.  So, import, tweak and tailor, a few at a time, and what you’ll end up with is a more tailored, more relevant, monitoring environment.

These, and all other MPs, can be found on the Management Pack website (or downloaded with Operations Manager 2007 R2).