Using OpsMgr is relatively straightforward.
The OpsMgr monitoring environment can be accessed through three sets of
consoles: an Operations Console, a Web Console, and a command shell. The
Operations Console provides full monitoring of agent systems and administration
of the OpsMgr environment, whereas the Web Console provides access only
to the monitoring functionality. The command shell provides
command-line access to administer the OpsMgr environment.
Managing and Monitoring with OpsMgr
As mentioned in the preceding section, two methods
are provided to configure and view OpsMgr settings. The first approach
is through the Operations Console and the second is through the command
shell.
Within the Administration section of the Operations
Console, you can easily configure the security roles, notifications, and
configuration settings. Within the Monitoring section of the Operations
Console, you can easily monitor a quick up/down status, view active and
closed alerts, and confirm overall environment health.
In addition, a web-based monitoring console can be
run on any system that supports Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or
higher. This console can be used to view the health of systems, view and
respond to alerts, view events, view performance graphs, run tasks, and
manage maintenance mode of monitored objects. New to OpsMgr 2007 R2 is
the capability to display the health explorer in the Web Console.
Reporting from OpsMgr
OpsMgr management packs commonly include a variety of
preconfigured reports to show information about the operating system or
the specific application to which they were designed to work. These
reports are run in SQL Reporting Services. The reports provide an
effective view of systems and services on the network over a custom
period, such as weekly, monthly, or quarterly. They can also help you
monitor your networks based on performance data, which can include
critical pattern analysis, trend analysis, capacity planning, and
security auditing. Reports also provide availability statistics for
distributed applications, servers, and specific components within a
server.
Reports are particularly useful for executives,
managers, and application owners. These reports show the availability of
any object within OpsMgr, including a server (see Figure 13.6),
a database, or even a service such as Lync Server 2010 that includes a
multitude of servers and components. The availability report in Figure 1 shows that the LS1 Server was available until after 8:00 a.m. and then was down through 11:00 a.m.
The reports can be run on demand or at scheduled
times and delivered through e-mail. OpsMgr can also generate HTML-based
reports that can be published to a web server and viewed from any web
browser. Vendors can also create additional reports as part of their
management packs.
Using Performance Monitoring
Another key feature of OpsMgr is the capability to
monitor and track server performance. OpsMgr can be configured to
monitor key performance thresholds through rules that are set to collect
predefined performance data, such as memory and CPU usage over time.
Rules can be configured to trigger alerts and actions when specified
performance thresholds
have been met or exceeded, enabling network administrators to act on
potential performance issues. Performance data can be viewed from the
OpsMgr Operations Console.
In addition, performance monitors can establish
baselines for the environment and then alert the administrator when the
counter subsequently falls outside the defined baseline envelope.
Using Active Directory Integration
Active Directory integration provides a way to
install management agents on systems without environmental-specific
settings. When the agent starts, the correct environmental settings,
such as the primary and failover management servers, are stored in
Active Directory. The configuration of Active Directory integration
provides advanced search and filter capabilities to fine-tune the
dynamic assignment of systems.
Integrating OpsMgr Non-Windows Devices
Network management is not a new concept. Simple
management of various network nodes has been handled for quite some time
through the SNMP. Quite often, simple or even complex systems that use
SNMP to provide for system monitoring are in place in an organization to
provide for varying degrees of system management on a network.
OpsMgr can be configured to integrate with
non-Windows systems through monitoring of syslog information, log file
data, and SNMP traps. OpsMgr can also monitor TCP port communication and
website transaction sequencing for information-specific data
management.
New
to OpsMgr 2007 R2 is the capability to monitor non-Microsoft operating
systems such as Linux and UNIX, and the applications that run on them,
such as Apache and MySQL. OpsMgr monitors the file systems, network
interfaces, daemons, configurations, and performance metrics. Operations
Manager 2007 R2 supports monitoring of the following operating systems:
HP-UX 11i v2 and v3 (PA-RISC and IA64)
Sun Solaris 8 and 9 (SPARC) and Solaris 10 (SPARC and x86)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (x86/x64) and 5 (x86/x64) Server
Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 (x86) and 10 SP1 (x86/x64)
IBM AIX v5.3 and v6.1
Note
The previous operating systems are first-class citizens
in Microsoft’s parlance because they are treated as equals with the
Windows operating systems. Agents can be pushed from the console,
operations data is collected automatically, tasks can run against the
agents, and all major functions are supported.
Special connectors can be created to provide
bidirectional information flows to other management products. OpsMgr can
monitor SNMP traps from SNMP-supported devices as well as generate SNMP
traps to be delivered to third-party network management
infrastructures.
Exploring Third-Party Management Packs
Software and hardware developers can subsequently
create their own management packs to extend OpsMgr’s management
capabilities. These management packs extend OpsMgr’s management
capabilities beyond Microsoft-specific applications. Each management
pack is designed to contain a set of rules and product knowledge
required to support its respective products. Currently, management packs
have been developed for APC, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, F5, HP, IBM, Linux,
Oracle, Solaris, UNIX, and VMware to name a few.
