Version 6.0.62623.0 of the Exchange Server management pack requires Operations Manager 2007 R2 and is specifically for the Exchange 2007 product.

How to Install the Exchange 2007 MP

1. Download the Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack (URL). The Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack Guide is included in the download and labeled “OM2007_MP_EX2007_R2.doc.”
2. Read the Management Pack Guide[md]it’s just over 100 pages so all the configurations are not discussed here. This is a complicated management pack, and the document spells some important pieces of information you will need to know including how to enable discovery, as well as optional configurations available for the Exchange 2007 management pack. Marnix Wolf also has a good write-up on this, available at http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/2009/07/quick-guide-to-get-native-exchange-2007.html.
3. Import the Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack (using either the Operations console or PowerShell). If you have Exchange clusters, add the cluster management pack before adding the Exchange Server 2007 management pack.
4. Deploy the OpsMgr agent to all Exchange Servers. The agent must be deployed to all DCs. Agentless configurations will NOT work for this management pack.
5. Enable Agent Proxy configuration on all Exchange Servers identified from the groups. This is in the Administration node, under Administration -> Device Management -> Agent Managed. Right-click each Exchange 2007 server, select Properties, click the Security tab, then check the box labeled “Allow this agent to act as a proxy and discover managed objects on other computers.” Perform this action for every Exchange 2007 server, even if you add server after your initial configuration of OpsMgr.
6. Check to make sure Exchange 2007 Service shows up under Monitoring -> Distributed Applications as a distributed application that is in the Healthy, Warning, or Critical state. If it is in the “Not Monitored” state, check for Exchange servers that are not installed or in a “gray” state.
7. Windows PowerShell and the Operations console need to be installed on the RMS. If not already installed, do so at this time.
8. The Exchange 2007 management pack is designed to not automatically discover any Exchange 2007 Server roles so you can phase in monitoring. See the management pack guide for details on how to enable discoveries.
9. Create an Exchange2007_Overrides management pack to contain any overrides required for the MP.

Exchange MP Tuning / Alerts to look for

The following alerts were encountered and resolved the following alerts while tuning the Exchange 2007 management pack (listed alphabetically by Alert name):

Alert: Exchange 2007 ExBPA Generate Alert Rule

Issue: Application log size should be increased to 40MB.

Resolution: Logged into each system, opened the event viewer and changed the properties of the application log to 40960, and closed the alerts because they were generated by a rule not a monitor.

Determined the default domain policy was set to 12160. To change this, implemented a new group policy linked to the Exchange servers OU to set the application log file size to 40960. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc778402(WS.10).aspx for details on how to configure this policy.

Alert: Exchange 2007 ExBPA Generate Alert Rule

Issue: There are multiple different alerts generated based upon the ExBPA. In this case, the issue was the Exchange fatal information on the server is not set to automatically send to Microsoft for analysis.

Resolution: As this particular environment does not allow these servers to have Internet connectivity, the rule had to be disabled. To do so, open the Operations console and navigate to Authoring -> Management Pack Objects -> Rules; look for Exchange 2007 Best Practice and sort by the rule name of Crash upload logging is disabled. Overwrote this rule to disable it for all Exchange 2007 servers then closed the alert.

Alert: RPC latency is above the threshold

Issue: One Exchange server in the environment was reporting this frequently and automatically closing itself as part of the IS RPC Latency Monitor alert monitor. Per product knowledge, these commonly occur due to issues communicating with the Active Directory service or due to disk bottlenecks. This specific server is experiencing high disk queue lengths on the C drive and both storage group drives.

Resolution: This server cannot be upgraded and is scheduled for replacement with new mailbox servers. In the interim, configured an override for this object of class: Exchange IS Service, and set the new threshold to 100 from the default value of 50 to minimize the number of alerts on this issue on this server. The override value will vary depending upon what the actual daily average is for the particular server, which can be determined by right-clicking on the alert, opening the performance view and seeing the RPC Averaged Latency counter over a period of time.

Alert: Exchange 2007 Test Local Mail Flow Alert

Issue: An Exchange 2007 mailbox server was failing when attempting to perform a local mail flow test. Logged into the server and reviewed the event logs but found no relevant information. Opened the Exchange Management Shell and ran the “test-mailflow” command. Received a message that “No mailbox databases were found on SERVERNAME to perform the operation. Check if the user has permission to read the Exchange configuration from Active Directory.” This server does not have any user mailboxes on it (it is scheduled for decommissioning).

Resolution: Created an override to disable this alert and reset the health for this through the Exchange 2007 distributed application.

The Office SharePoint Server 2007 management pack and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 management pack are separate management packs. This discussion focuses on the Office SharePoint Server 2007 management pack, as this is the more current version of the two.

How to Install the SharePoint MP

1. If your environment is running SharePoint 2007, download the Office SharePoint Server 2007 Management Pack from the Management Pack Catalog. The Office SharePoint Server 2007 Management Pack Guide is included in the download and labeled “Microsoft_Office_SharePoint_Server_Management_Pack_Guide.doc.”
2. Read the Management Pack guide, which includes tips such as resizing the Windows System and Application logs to at least 10240 in size.
3. Import the Office SharePoint Server 2007 management pack (using either the Operations console or PowerShell).
4. Create a SharePoint_Overrides management pack to contain any overrides required for the MP.

The Office SharePoint 2007 management pack does not support agentless monitoring.

SharePoint MP Tuning / Alerts to look for

The following alerts were encountered and resolved when tuning the various SharePoint management packs (listed in alphabetical order by Alert name). Alerts from the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 management pack are also provided as additional information in the event similar issues are found in the SharePoint 2007 version of the management pack.

Alert: Can not load virus scanner

Issue: SharePoint 2003 alert. This looks for event number 1000 from the source of Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 containing the description.

Resolution: There is no virus scanner on this system specifically for SharePoint, so this rule was disabled for this system.

Alert: Failed to load index

Issue: This appears to be a side effect of an underlying corruption that occurred on an index. See http://objectmix.com/sharepoint/298641-sharepoint-search-index-corrupt.html.

Resolution: This environment had three SharePoint servers; two of them were for SharePoint content and the third server to provide indexing. In SharePoint Central administration it was determined there was no indexing server. Configured the third server to perform indexing and these issues no longer occurred.

Alert: Failure in loading assembly

Issue: Per the management pack guide: Discovery for the SharePoint Portal Server Management Pack relies on the file wssDiscovery.exe. This file is run automatically when you import the Management Pack. You must configure the Agent Action Account so that is has administrative access to the SharePoint Portal Server API and administrator rights to the SQL Server databases.

Resolution: For this to work correctly, you must enable Proxy. Be sure to enable Proxy for each of the SharePoint (including SharePoint 2003) servers.

Alert: IIS Stop Command

Issue: IIS was stopped on the server while a portal protection program was installed on the system. This action was performed by a system administrator. This is an alert rule so it will not close automatically.

Resolution: Created a web monitor for the SharePoint website. Changed the severity of this item from 2 to 1 (critical to warning) as this is by itself not a critical situation. If the website was down as a result, that would be a critical situation but these are checked separately with web monitors.

Alert: Index is corrupt

Issue: Index corruption identified on multiple SharePoint servers.

Resolution: This environment had three SharePoint servers; two of them were for SharePoint content and the third server to provide indexing. In SharePoint Central administration, it was determined there was no indexing server. Configured the third server to perform indexing and these issues no longer occurred.

Alert: Query server removed from rotation

Issue: This appears to be a side effect of an underlying corruption that occurred on an index. See http://objectmix.com/sharepoint/298641-sharepoint-search-index-corrupt.html.

Resolution: This environment had three SharePoint servers; two of them were for SharePoint content and the third server to provide indexing. In SharePoint Central administration, it was determined there was no indexing server. Configured the third server to perform indexing and these issues no longer occurred.

Alert: Sweep Synch failed

Issue: Errors reported on various SharePoint servers in the server farm. This appears to be a side effect of an underlying corruption that occurred on an index. http://objectmix.com/sharepoint/298641-sharepoint-search-index-corrupt.html

Resolution: This environment had three SharePoint servers, two of them were for SharePoint content and the third server to provide indexing. In SharePoint Central administration, it was determined there was no indexing server. Configured the third server to perform indexing and these issues no longer occurred.

Alert: The Microsoft Single Sign-on Service State

Issue: This service is not running on the SharePoint 2007 servers in the environment. This service is used to store login credentials for 3rd party applications so you can create links from SharePoint to those apps and auto login users if they aren’t using Windows Authentication. That is the only reason you would need to have it running.

Resolution: This functionality was not in use in the environment, so created an override to disable the alert, and stored it in a Sharepoint_Overrides management pack.

Alert: The Office SharePoint Server Search Service State

Issue: Office SharePoint Server Search is not running. This appears to be a side effect of an underlying corruption that occurred on an index. See http://objectmix.com/sharepoint/298641-sharepoint-search-index-corrupt.html.

Resolution: This environment had three SharePoint servers; two of them were for SharePoint content and the third server to provide indexing. In SharePoint Central administration, it was determined there was no indexing server. Configured the third server to perform indexing and these issues no longer occurred.

Alert: Unable to discovery sharepoint components

Issue: Per the management pack guide: Discovery for the SharePoint Portal Server Management Pack relies on the file wss Discovery.exe. This file is run automatically when you import the management pack. You must configure the Agent Action Account so that is has administrative access to the SharePoint Portal Server API and administrator rights to the SQL Server databases.

Resolution: For discovery to work correctly, you must enable Proxy. Be sure to enable Proxy for each of the SharePoint (including SharePoint 2003) servers.