Operations Manager: Ops Manager General

A New Home for Walter Chomak's blog

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:08:52 GMT

Our friend Walter Chomak (http://wchomak.spaces.live.com/) previously posted September 16th, 2008 that his blog would become less active due to some internal projects he was taking on at Microsoft (see http://wchomak.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!F56EFE25599555EC!1657.entry). Well a week later, he's back! - but at a new location. See http://blogs.technet.com/wchomak/ for his latest postings.

Ops-Mgr blog with 200,000 Hits!?!?!

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:15:08 GMT

On August 28, this blog passed the 200,000 mark for page views since its creation! Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the blog via articles, comments, or questions. We are glad this blog serves a useful purpose :). Thank you also to everyone who has sent words of thanks and encouragement regarding System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Unleashed. Authoring books is a lot of work, but hearing how it has helped so many makes that all worthwhile!

- Kerrie, Cameron, John, and Andy 8/28/08

OpsMgr Answer This: Why should I go to Operations Manager 2007 when I can stay with MOM 2005 or use WhatsUp Gold or ... ?

Thu, 29 May 2008 05:24:22 GMT

We are starting a new series: OpsMgr Answer This questions. These are questions that you probably have asked yourself (or others) more than once. In this series, the writers of the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed book will offer their opinions to some of those (sometimes rhetorical) questions. The first question we are discussing is, Why should one go to Operations Manager 2007? You may be using MOM 2005 and be perfectly happy with it. There is an adage: "if it works, don't break it" - so why go to Operations Manager 2007?

Andy Dominey suggests:

Because of all the additional functionality OpsMgr gives you (not listing them as you all know the score there).
MSFT is heading into the enterprise management space with X-Platform and NASM and this new version of MOM lays the groundwork in the architecture to support these components later on.
WhatsUp Gold doesn’t provide effective and synthetic monitoring of Windows applications.
MOM 2005 will be going out of support sooner than you might think :-) (and NO we haven't heard anything about this, but you know how Microsoft works)

From John Joyner:

Most compelling single reason = MOM 2005 only monitors servers. OM 07 monitors both servers and applications as objects. Dependencies between monitored objects permit cross-platform event correlation that was not possible with MOM 2005.
Management Pack availability - New applications from Microsoft and third party vendors are getting new OM 07 MPs released for them, not MOM 2005 MPs.
Interoperability with other System Center applications - Example: VMM 2008 requires OM 07 for monitoring. Service Desk will use OM 07-style management packs.

Cameron Fuller says:

First, let's look at MOM/OpsMgr versus WhatsUp Gold: WhatsUp Gold provides an environment with up and down monitoring, gathering of events, performance information, SNMP information in the network. It also provides reporting and notification functionality. From a high level it is really a good question of why MOM or OpsMgr versus WhatsUp Gold. The key reasons to go with a MOM or OpsMgr solution versus WhatsUp Gold are:

Issue identification – The Microsoft solutions gather specific information to identify issues based upon the products being monitored. IE: The Exchange Management Pack gathers specific event ID information versus gathering all error level alerts on a system.
Decreased noise – The alerts generated by MOM and OpsMgr are more targeted as a result of how issues are identified and result in less noise.
Issue resolution – The knowledgebase contained within management packs was developed by the product team which created the product (as an example, the Exchange team helped to develop the Exchange management pack), and is combined with MCS information to provide assistance with resolving issues identified within the environment. These issues can be more quickly resolved through leveraging tasks that are also provided as part of the management packs. When issues are identified, Operations Manager provides notification to the appropriate personnel so that they can respond to the issue more expediently.
More Proactive – Faster issue identification and issue resolution combined with product knowledge provides a more proactive monitoring solution. Let’s take as an example an Exchange issue. An issue is identified based upon the number of drive reads and writes when compared with the management pack levels for what is acceptable on the Exchange server. An alert is generated notifying that the system is not performing optimally. Additional spindles can be added or faster storage can be used to address the issue before it affects the user community.

Regarding MOM 2005 vs. OpsMgr 2007, funny you should ask that. This is a great question that I have spent a lot of time thinking about. In fact, I did a presentation at MMS 2008 (S031) on the differences between MOM 2005 and OpsMgr 2007 and why you should go to the most recent version; I just posted my slide deck at http://systemcenterforum.org/wp-content/uploads/Why_Move_to_OpsMgr_2007.zip. The media version of it will be available on the MMS 2008 DVDs. The highlights of the presentation in are in the following table:

MOM 2005 Pro's	OpsMgr 2007 Pro's
Simpler Architecture	Beyond server monitoring
Lighter Hardware Requirements	Less noise
All components highly available	Searchable User Interface
More management packs	Faster / Real-time reporting
More intuitive interface	Smaller Data Warehouse
Faster user experience	More granular security / Role-based
Simpler reporting	Health focused
Easier to write management packs	Distributed Applications
If it ain't broke, don't fix it?	Enhanced network monitoring
	Audit Collection Services
	Agentless Exception Monitoring
	Synthetic transactions
	End-to-end monitoring

Kerrie Meyler offers:

There is a review of OpsMgr 2007 in the current issue of Redmond Magazine - see http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?editorialsid=2467, which includes a comparison of some of the MOM 2005 and OpsMgr 2007 features and real world application of those differences.

The biggest change in OpsMgr 2007 versus MOM 2005 is in its approach to monitoring. OpsMgr incorporates end-to-end monitoring - not just server monitoring with MOM 2005 as John mentioned, but the health of applications (including identified components across the network) and services. Which would you prefer to know?

Your General Ledger application is impacted because its database is down (OpsMgr 2007), OR
Server43 is not available and a database server is not reachable, and now you have to ask what is on that server and what applications/functionality does that impact? (MOM 2005)

In addition, as Cameron points out, OpsMgr 2007 incorporates security log monitoring (ACS), agentless exception monitoring (AEM), and client monitoring. If these are important to you, you should implement Operations Manager 2007.

Also of import is Andy's reference to the announcement that with Service Pack 2 OpsMgr will incorporate monitoring UNIX and Linux platforms as part of the base product and that the related code will be open source - yes, even at Microsoft pigs can fly! - and that SP2 will include NASM (Network Aware Service Management), which is an integration of EMC Smarts' Systems and Network Management Solution with OpsMgr.

Don’t forget PowerShell - the ability to script and run in batch just about anything you can do using the OpsMgr console - and in some cases, things you can't do with the console.

What are the downsides of OpsMgr 2007? If you are using MOM 2005, this really is a brand new product and not an upgrade, so there will be a learning curve. Think of going to NT4 from Windows AD domains (but also think of the improved functionality!). Along with the increased functionality, there are new areas of the user interface to learn.

And another new MOM (OpsMgr) MVP!

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 18:01:49 GMT

Kerrie Meyler was just awarded Microsoft MVP status in MOM. It goes without saying that Kerrie is very excited and humbled! (Now she will try to come down to earth long enough to finish copy-edit review for System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed.)

Kerrie would like to extend a huge Thank You to everyone who has supported her in this effort!

OpsMgr Podcasts!

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:10:22 GMT

About 6 months ago, Kerrie and Cameron presented at TechEd 2007. While we were there, we did a podcast for Microsoft (see http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!3D3B8489FCAA9B51!187.entry) and also several for our publisher, Pearson Education, who publishes the SAMS Unleashed series among others. The Pearson ones are now released (timed to be near the release of the OpsMgr 2007 book), and are available at

http://www.informit.com/content/podcasts/8/ON_MIC_MeylerFuller_01.mp4 and http://www.informit.com/content/podcasts/8/ON_MIC_MeylerFuller_02.mp4

(If you are wondering what "DAD" is in OpsMgr 2007, you will be interested in reading Chapter 15, "Monitoring Audit Collection Services.")

Normally we don't duplicate information between this blog and the cameronfuller.spaces.live.com blog, but we are so excited to see the podcasts available that this information is here as well as at http://cameronfuller.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!A231E4EB0417CB76!1082.entry.

The Bridge Between OpsMgr and System Center Essentials: Remote Operations Manager

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:38:45 GMT

Today we'll talk a bit about a new product you may not have heard about - Remote Operations Manager. This is a hybrid application, and intended for the Service Provider; Remote Operations Manager (ROM) enables the Service Provider to use OpsMgr to deliver a managed services solution to their Essentials customers.

ROM integrates System Center components installed on the ROM service provider network (OpsMgr management group) and a customer network running the Essentials server.

Essentials itself is a new product - it is not the newest version of Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Workgroup Edition! Essentials combines the management and monitoring features of OpsMgr with a desktop component that includes software distribution and update support. Essentials can only support 30 monitored servers (31 including itself), so by design it is for use by the small or medium-sized organization.

OpsMgr becomes ROM by implementing architectural changes in the management group, importing the Service Provider management pack, and connecting Essentials to the service provider by converting a customer's Essentials server to Service Provider mode. An OpsMgr management group with the additional ROM features actually does not look any different in the Operations console, other than the new views added from the Service Provider management pack.

By itself, an Essentials server is an all-in-one OpsMgr management group, capable of importing management packs and monitoring computers and devices; just like an OpsMgr management group. Without ROM, Essentials is the primary and only monitoring engine in the small business' network. Using ROM, the primary monitoring engine becomes the remote instance of OpsMgr run by the ROM service provider.

ROM is only available for license to service providers that are Microsoft partners, you cannot purchase it though retail or volume license channels. Once configuration is complete on both ends, the Service Provider can remotely manage a small business' network, through OpsMgr.

-- Taken as a sneak preview from our forthcoming book, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed. Thanks to our co-author John Joyner, who did the research and is our resident expert on ROM!

OpsMgr integration with a new System Center product: Virtual Machine Manager

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 05:25:38 GMT

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) beta 2 is now available. This is a new product, and offers opportunities for integration with OpsMgr.

What's new:

VMM is a “master” VM host manager that looks at all the VM hosts and VM guests in the enterprise.
You use VMM to add new VM hosts and provision new VM guests across the enterprise.
It can manage computers in the same domain, a trusted domain, and in a perimeter domain.
It has a new Convert physical server wizard. Also a Clone Server task.
VMM introduces the disk library concept, to create server disk image templates.
There is also a new Microsoft Virtualization management pack for Operations Manager 2007. This brings VMM management into the OM console.
See the OM 07 Operations Console in the screen shot below with the integrated VMM status and inline tasks.

Comment: With the OM 07 VMM web console views available to partners/customers using Microsoft Virtual Server, this can be a really nice MSP (Managed Service Provider) solution for managed Microsoft VM’s.

Thanks to our co-author John Joyner for researching and providing this screen shot!

More on TechEd 2007: OpsMgr podcast (In the Fish bowl)

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 17:43:51 GMT

While Kerrie and Cameron were at TechEd in June, Microsoft asked us to do a podcast for Microsoft for Virtual TechEd. Over 60 videotaped interviews were recorded in the "Fish Bowl" that week. The fish bowl was a little soundproof recording studio behind the TechEd bookstore, in the middle of all the action. It had a big leather sofa which filled up the entire room :)

Our podcast discusses our authoring experiences for the MOM 2005 Unleashed book and our upcoming System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed, which will be published by SAMS. The OpsMgr 2007 book is now over 50% author complete!

If you want to see the podcast (and see what we look like), it is available at Authoring Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Unleashed! The main page for Virtual TechEd is www.virtualteched.com.

We also did a podcast for Pearson (who publishes the SAMS Unleashed series) while we were at TechEd; we'll let you know how to access that once it is available.

Staying current on OpsMgr 2007 with Technology

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 13:49:28 GMT

With the sheer variety of sources available providing information on OpsMgr 2007, it becomes difficult to keep current with this product, as it continually evolves. Trying to keep up with the number of sources for information on this has become very complex! After working on this for a week or so, the approach outlined below has helped incredibly in keeping up with what's going on out there.

The goal: to develop a single searchable solution that provides all information we have already compiled on OpsMgr as well as the best of the Internet-based resources that were available.

Tackling RSS

First, let's focus on the RSS aspect of the equation. There are a huge number of blogs out there which may have information on OpsMgr. To trim this list down, we only chose blog sites which currently have items relevate to OpsMgr / MOM that have been posted since the beginning of the current year. The list is also limited to sites using Englsh as the default language (the RSS reader we are using doesn't currently translate entries). The results: Our favorite top 20 or so OpsMgr / MOM blogs to watch (ordered alphabetically; the contents of the OPML file which can be imported directly into Outlook 2007 and is at the end of this blog entry):

Andrzej: http://blogs.technet.com/alipka/rss.xmll

Andy Dominey: http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/adominey/rss.aspx

Cameron Fuller: http://cameronfuller.spaces.live.com/feed.rss

Eileen Brown's Weblog: http://blogs.technet.com/eileen_brown/rss.aspx?CategoryID=7898

Ian Blyth: http://ianblythmanagement.wordpress.com/feed

John Hann: http://msmvps.com/blogs/jfhann.rss.aspx

Justin Harter: http://jharter.spaces.live.com/feed.rss

Kerrie Meyler on Network World: http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/3630/feed

Management Updates / Microsoft Operations Manager: http://blogs.msdn.com/managementupdates.rss.aspx?CategoryID=5153

Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) Web Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/cliveeastwood/rss.xml

My ITForum: http://www.myitforum.com/rssfeed/

Most Recent KBs for System Center Operations Manager 2007 http://support.microsoft.com/common/rss.aspx?rssid=12584&ln=en-us&msid=fa8026752634c744bb02673f094222ce

Mother: http://blogs.msdn.com/incarnato/rss.xml%20

Operations Manager Product Team Blog: http://blogs.technet.com/momteam/rss.xml

Operations Manager: http://ops-mgr.spaces.live.com/feed.rss

Rob Steven: http://blogs.msdn.com/rob_stevens/rss.xml

Rory McCaw: http://rorymccaw.spaces.live.com/feed.rss

Stefan Stranger: http://feeds.feedburner.com/myiti

System Center Forum: http://systemcenterforum.org/cagegory/news.feed/

System Center Operations Manager Command Shell: http://blogs.msdn/com/scshell/

Techlog: http://feeds.feedburner.com/techlog

Walter Chomak: http://wchomak.spaces.live.com/feed.rss

Tackling Newsgroups

To gather the newsgroup information within Outlook 2007, we purchaed NewsGator (www.newsgator.com) and configured it for the OpsMgr newsgroups. The following items are the OpsMgr-related newsgroups (the content of the OPML file, which can be imported directly into Outlook 2007 is at the end of this blog entry):

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.acs

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.ad

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.aem

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.authoring

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.docs

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.exchange

Microsoft.public.opsmgr/general

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.iis

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.managementpacks

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.powershell

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.reporting

Microsoft.public.opsmgr/sdk

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.setup

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.sql

Microsoft.public.opsmgr.ui

Websites

Still haven't found an effective way to monitor these other than to visit them regularly. Those that have RSS feeds are excluded from this list as they are covered above.

Management Pack Authoring: http://www.authormps.com

Microsoft OpsMgr Site: http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/opsmgr/default.mspx

Microsoft Webcasts on OpsMgr: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/opsmgr/2007/evaluate/webcasts.mspx

Microsoft TechCenter: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/opsmgr/default.mspx

MOMCommunity: http://www.momcommunity.com/

MyItForum: http://www.myitforum.com

System Center Forum: http://www.systemcenterforum.org

System Center Training: http://www.systemcentertraining.com/

Final Result

By combining Outlook 2007, RSS Feeds, NewsGroups/GatorNews, and Windows Desktop Search (WDS), we can now keyboard search on all the resources we need to keep up on the OpsMgr world!

OpsMgr.Rss.opml File

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<opml version="1.0">

<body>

<outline text="System Center Operations Manager Command Shell" type="rss"

xmlUrl="http://blogs.msdn.com/scshell/rss.xml"/

<outline text="Most Recent KBs for System Center Operations Manager 2007" type="rss"

xmlUrl="http://support.microsoft.com/common/rss.aspx?rssid=12584&ln=en-us&msid=fa8026752634c744bb02673f094222ce"/>

</body>

</opml>

OpsMgrNewsGroups.opml File

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<opml version="1.0">

<body>

<outline text="System Center Operations Manager Command Shell" type="rss"

xmlUrl="http://blogs.msdn.com/scshell/rss.xml"/

<outline text="Most Recent KBs for System Center Operations Manager 2007" type="rss"

xmlUrl="http://support.microsoft.com/common/rss.aspx?rssid=12584&ln=en-us&msid=fa8026752634c744bb02673f094222ce"/>

</body>

</opml>

A new MOM (OpsMgr) MVP

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 20:05:32 GMT

Cameron Fuller was recently awarded Microsoft MVP status in MOM, which became official today. Needless to say, Cameron is very excited! As Cameron will be co-authoring System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed, stay tuned for a great book!

In a Nutshell: 10 Compelling Reasons to use MOM

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 13:10:50 GMT

You do not have time to check the event logs on your mission critical servers at least once a day.
You don't know what your servers are doing at any particular point in time. This includes stuff like how many users are accessing a web server, how utilized your servers are, and how much free disk space you have.
If you've seen the movie "Groundhog Day", it feels like that. You solve the same problems over and over again. Every day, and in exactly the same way. Except unlike the movie, here you can really die.
You do not have sufficient internal expertise to solve the problems that come up, as they come up.
You don't find out there are problems until users call you. While this does get your attention, it probably means you're already in hot water. And those phone calls can be annoying.
You run out of resources like disk space and wish you had known in advance so you could perform upgrades or load balance files across your servers.
When (not if) a virus outbreak hits, it takes hours to figure out what service packs and hotfixes are applied to each server. And then its usually not good news ... and you probably haven' t tested them yet.
When Management asks your for a report on your systems, which usually is to justify YOUR purchase requests, it takes days or weeks to get the information for them in a form they will accept.
You have much better things to do than watch servers all day. Or all night. Or during vacation (what's that?)
You find out during the hard way during your performance review that your job and compensation depend on server and application reliability and performance.

If any of these areas resonate with you, you should investigate MOM! While there is humor here, these pain points are common to almost all users of Microsoft technologies ... and MOM can eliminate all of them to a great degree. Read about how to use MOM to monitor your enterprise and solve your operations mangagement challenges in our forthcoming book, listed on Amazon at http://tinyurl.com/yxtrqd.