Inside Microsoft® Operations Manager

 

Volume 3 Issue 2

March 2007


Welcome to this edition of Inside Microsoft® Operations Manager, your source for news and information about Operations Manager. 

In this edition:

-    Authoring Management Packs - Philip Best

-    Security Groups in Operations Manager 2007 - Randy Roffey

-    Management Pack News

-    Operations Manager Support Articles

-       Operations Manager Tips brought to you by momcommunity.com

 

With the pending release of System Center Operations Manager 2007, we thought we would give you as much information as we can on the subject.

 

If you have an article you would like to submit for inclusion in a future edition of Inside Microsoft® Operations Manager, please send it to info@silect.com

 

Authoring Management Packs

by Philip Best

 

The following is an excerpt from Part I of Philip's whitepaper on Management Pack authoring. See below for a link to view the entire article.

 

Change Management
You know how to notate when a change has taken place, where to store a management pack when it does change; now, what to change? With the forthcoming release of Operations Manager 2007 (SCOM) and its new notion of a “sealed” management pack; you’ll need an approach to making changes that will work for both MOM 2005 and SCOM. The approach that works for me is this:

 

1. Only enable, disable, or override rules in vendor management packs

2. Custom rules, and modifications outside the above, should reside in a custom management pack.

a. If making modifications to a vendor rule, copy and paste it into the same rule group structure, make the modifications, and disable the original rule.

3. Have a regularly scheduled release, in whatever frequency makes sense for your organization. Notify all concerned parties that this is the policy and exemptions will be rare.

The exact mechanics of deciding how many custom management packs to author and other issues will be addressed in future articles. However, even if you have only Microsoft authored management packs, you’ll still need at least one management pack to contain all the customized Microsoft rules that work around issues particular to your environment.

 

Please view the complete MOM Authoring article on momcommunity at the following location (you need to sign in to view the article):

http://www.momcommunity.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=9672

 

Philip Best practices systems management for Deloitte Services LP, despite his formal training in economics. He’s an avid reader and occasional thinker on all things software configuration management related.  He resides in Nashville, TN with his wife Erika, their son, Lance, and a particularly deranged cat. He can be reached at pbest@deloitte.com

 

 

Security Groups in Operations Manager 2007

by Randy Roffey

Operations Manager 2007 utilizes Roles to manage security within the console.  In an attempt to implement administration of the Role membership I came across a couple of issues that can be a little tricky to resolve. 

 

By default the OpsMgr Administrator Role contains only the Builtin\Administrator group.  In order to better manage membership in this Role I first tried adding my user account but quickly discovered it had to be a Global Group. I also discovered that I was unable to remove the Builtin\Administrator group from this role until after I had successfully added a new group. The first issue I encountered was adding a group to the OpsMgr Administrator Role and then removing the Builtin\Administrator group, only to find out membership in the new group did not provide sufficient access to the Role within the console. I needed to put the original group back.  With some research I found instructions on “How to Reset the Administrator Group in Operations Manager 2007”.  The required steps are summarized below.  If you would like to email me I would be happy to share more details.

 

I suggest first creating a Global Security Group such as OpsMgrAdministrators, eventually be sure to place your account in this group. Next use MOMADadmin.exe, based on an article by Rory McCaw of (infront consulting) as a reference,  to prepare AD for AD Auto AgentAssignment.  Be sure to include later steps such as modifying a certain registry value to enable AD integration.   His article can be found here:

http://www.infrontconsulting.com/AD_OpsMgr2007.pdf

 

I had problems adding the new group to the Operations Manager Administrator Role. I ended up reviewing the MomAuth.xml file and discovered the SID for the new group was there but the group could not be saved or seen in the Ops Mgr. console.

 

  1. I stopped the  OpsMgrSDK service on the RMS

  2. Edited the MomAuth.xml file in notepad (removing the SID I did not want) and saved the file

    1. This file is on the RMS server (installation directory)

    2. <RMSServer>\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\SDK Service State

  3. In notepad with wordwrap off, select all and then copy the MOMAuth.xml to your clipboard

  4. Next I had to run a SQL query to Update AuthorizationStore in the Operations Manager database (see below)

 

update authorizationstore

set Data = '<paste the new MomAuth.xml content here>’

 

  1. Restart the SDK service on the RMS box and then was able to add the group in the Ops Console.

  2. You may have to exit the console and go back in before you can see the new group.

  3. Then and only then did I remove the Builtin\Administrator group from within the Ops console.

  4. When launching the Operator console you will now be prompted for credentials to connect with.

 

Randy Roffey is a long time IT Pro who currently works for Silect Software. Randy can be contacted at randyr@silect.com

 

Management Pack News

A number of new or updated Management Packs have been released by Microsoft recently. Here's a summary:

 
Feb. 19, 2007 Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 Management Pack
Feb. 14, 2007 Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Management Pack for MOM 2005
 
Feb. 6, 2007 Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005
Jan. 26, 2007 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 MP for MOM 2005
   

 

Please refer to the Management Pack Catalog for complete descriptions of these and other MOM Management Packs.

 

 

Operations Manager Support Articles

Here are some recent support articles relating to MOM provided by Microsoft: 

 

Prerequisites and configuration settings that are required to make the Notification Workflow Solution Accelerator fully functional with Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894486/en-us

 

The Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 agent may not enter or exit maintenance mode when you use the MOMInfo.exe tool together with the maintenance mode parameter

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909633/en-us

 

You receive many error alerts after you import the Exchange Server Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891602/en-us

 

The "Last Contacted" column is not updated for MOM agents after you install Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Service Pack 1
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920735/en-us

 

Error message when you open the Operator Console in Microsoft Operations Manager 2005: "Error connecting to server: localhost"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922333/en-us

 

Event ID 25222 is logged when you use the Internet Information Server (IIS) Management Pack for MOM 2005 to monitor IIS

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922335/en-us

 

Error message when you try to install a Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 agent: "The Agent could not contact the MOM Server"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926644/en-us

 

Error message when you try to import Management Pack reports in Microsoft Operations Manager 2005: "Import failed"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925439/en-us

 

The MOM 2005 log provider only supports log file folders that reside on the same computer as the MOM agent
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928581/en-us

 

When you to try to install Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Workgroup Edition Service Pack 1 on a computer that is running Microsoft SQL Server 2005, the installation fails
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925480/en-us

 

How to check for an event storm by using MOM 2005 Reporting
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923103/en-us

 

Script error events may appear in the Alerts pane of the MOM Operations console
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922338/en-us

 

You receive error messages when you install Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 a computer that is running Microsoft SQL Server 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925644/en-us

 

                                                                            

Operations Manager Tips

 

This months tip is brought to you by momcommunity.com - 3,879 members and growing.

 

Question submitted by Arun:

 

Installing SQL server 2005 management pack for SCOM 2007

Hello guys,

Can someone help me out in installing SQL server 2005 management pack for scom2007...

the thing is.. i have a database in a different server and need to monitor through the scom 2007 installed in another server...



Response by Anders:

 

Have you installed a agent on that database server you want to monitor?
Then take a look in the RC1 Scenarios document, part 3.2.1 includes a step-by-step guide about importing management packs.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regards, Anders Bengtsson (mcse, mcp, mcsa:messaging) | anders AT contoso.se | Website: http://www.contoso.se
 


 

Another response by rackesh:


Hi Arun,

Are you able to find sql management pack for scom 2007 ?? because the one which i have is giving me following error while importing ..

Invalid Management Pack : Microsoft.SQLServer.Library.xml .: XSD verification failed for management pack. [Line: 1, Position: 118]
The 'ProductVersion' attribute is not declared.

 



Another response by abhi:

 

Hi,
well in RC2 we have SQL Server 2005 as well as SQL Server 2000 MP's.
In RC2\Opmanager software\ Managements Pack\
here we have all SQl Server Mp's

So Just go to SCOM 2007 Operation console and then in Administration tab go to Managemant Packs option then right click on that option and then Click on Import Managament Packs.

Then select the SQL Server MP's but here as SQL Server 2005(Discovery) MP,SQL Server 2005(Monitoring) MP,SQL Server 2000(Discovery) MP,SQL Server 2000(Monitoring) MP
are Dependent on SQL Server Core MP so u need to import this MP 1st and then discovery and monitoring MP(2000/2005) in this way u will be able to Import/install SQL Server In SCOM 2007.

Thanks
Abhishek.

 


 

momcommunity.com is an online resource center dedicated to serving users of Microsoft Operations Manager. momcommunity.com features a monitored discussion forum, news and articles relating to planning, installing and operating MOM. Registration is FREE – visit momcommunity.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silect Software is a proud sponsor of the 2007 Microsoft Management Summit

 

 

Please visit us in booth #519 for a preview of MP Studio 2007

 



 


 

Register now for the MP Studio web seminar being held every Wednesday at 11:00 EDT (GMT -5:00)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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MP Studio Links

 

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Operations Manager quick links:

 

 

Operations Manager 2007 RC2

 

 

Operations Manager 2007 Webcasts

 

MOM 2005 SP1

 

MOM Management Pack Catalog

 

Webcasts on Managing a Microsoft  Infrastructure

 

MOM 2005 Management Pack Development Guide

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside Microsoft® Operations Manager is brought to you by:

 

Silect Software Inc.

 

   
  

 

 

Events

 

 

MMS 2007

 

 

MP Studio Webcast

 

 

 

Links

 

 

Microsoft Management Strategy:

www.microsoft.com/
management

 

 

MOM community sites:

www.momcommunity.com

www.myITForum.com

www.momresources.org

 

 

 

Click here for information on Infront Consulting's Operations Manager 2007 Bootcamps

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

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