Matt Goedtel on Operations Management : Guides

Updated Deployment Guide - Operations Manager Reporting on Windows Server 2008

mgoedtel — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:21:00 GMT

Today I have updated the Deployment Guide for Operations Manager 2007 Reporting on Windows Server 2008. This was due to some confusion from those who downloaded the doc and were attempting to setup this configuration in their environment. I received a few e-mails and determined this needed to be addressed accordingly. Specifically I had verbiage in a paragraph in the section "Installing SQL Server 2005 with Service Pack 2" where I eluded to the fact installing SQL 2005 with Reporting Services should be performed using a slipstreamed version of SQL 2005 with SP2. I don't remember why I had that statement in this paragraph, but there is no technical reason from my experience why you cannot install SQL 2005 RTM and then apply Service Pack 2. It has worked fine for me on various occasions.

Thanks to those who have pointed this out and sorry that this caused any unnecessary confusion.

This updated version will also be uploaded on the http://www.opsmanjam.com site within a day or so.

OpsMgr 2007 - SQL Server Log Shipping Guide

mgoedtel — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:16:00 GMT

Being Chris Fox is busy right now with authoring/updating docs for Operations Manager 2007 R2, I am going to post this guide on my blog until it is uploaded on the OpsManJam site. This document I authored, provides the following guidance:

This document provides deployment guidance for installing and configuring the SQL Server 2005 Log Shipping feature as an option to provide redundancy of the Operations Manager operational database between two SQL Server 2005 servers in the same management group. This configuration is intended to compliment your recovery strategy.

Enjoy!

Update - Moving the Operations Manager Reporting Server

mgoedtel — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:05:00 GMT

You probably have noticed in the latest released of the Operations Manager 2007 Backup & Restore Guide, as well as the Operations Manager 2007 Operations Guide, that we have not provided a set of procedures for moving the Operations Manager Reporting Server (which has a dependency on SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and would be included also). This has been one of the commonly requested scenarios that customers have been asking for lately, and understandably so.

To bring you up to date, a short while ago we had come up with a draft of the steps necessary to mvoe it, conducted some testing and uncovered a configuration issue. Not getting into details as to what the configuration issue was, it was deemed important enough to file a bug with the product group and ensure it will be addressed in Service Pack 1.

When Service Pack 1 for Operations Manager 2007 is released, shortly thereafter we intend on providing a set of procedures to support the move of the Reporting Server. Fortunately, that is right around the corner so I respectfully ask that you bear with us and hang tight just a little bit longer.

While I am on the topic of Disaster Recovery for Operations Manager, I wanted to let you know that we are looking to address the gaps, need for additional detail, and guidance for other scenarios. Undersatnding that this guide has been a bit "light" and doesn't help with your planning efforts, all I can share with you now is the fact I am pushing hard to make this a priority and help author a more detailed document. If you have suggestions, please feel free to send them my way so we can consider them based on relevance and commonality.

Key Concepts Guide Released for Operations Manager 2007

mgoedtel — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 06:34:00 GMT

Earlier the Product Group released the Key Concepts Guide whitepaper that you can download from the Microsoft Download Center - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3a633532-1dde-49b6-930f-7df50b69b77b&displaylang=en.

This guide provides great details in understanding the following in Operations Manager 2007:

Overview of model-based design
Service models and understanding relationships
Health models
How Operations Manager implements models
Discovery
Changes between 2005 and 2007
Customizing the out-of-the-box models

I strongly encourage you to download and review this guide, especially as a precursor in consideration for developing your own Management Pack or custom rules to compliment an existing MP you have imported in your Management Group. It is not intended to be a Management Pack authoring guide, so don't think I classify it as such. There is one in the works by the Product Group, that will put the existing Authoring CHM file to shame (in my opinion). It simply provides the foundation to understand the underlying structure of Operations Manager model-based design for Management Packs.