An efficient IT enterprise requires a proactive approach to monitoring and managing Windows servers and applications to avoid service outages and downtime. Intelligent monitoring tools can help you keep your organization's infrastructure running at acceptable service levels. A primary requirement of monitoring tools is that they be easy to deploy and manage so that using them consumes minimal IT resources. To address these requirements, Microsoft announced Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2000, an enterprise monitoring solution that provides comprehensive event management, proactive monitoring and alerting, reporting, a built-in knowledge base, and trend-analysis capabilities. After working with many customers to deploy MOM, we have some suggestions that will help smooth your MOM implementation.
Installation Prerequisites
Before starting a MOM implementation, verify that your environment meets all the prerequisites. You can't install the MOM server on a domain controller (DC); you must install it on a dedicated member server that's running Windows 2000 Advanced Server Service Pack 2 (SP2) and that has access to a DC.
MOM provides an interface that you can use to determine whether your system has all the prerequisites for the MOM server software. When you place the MOM CD-ROM in your CD-ROM drive, the MOM setup program displays a menu with several options. Select the Setup Prerequisites option to display a list of the required software. Figure 1 shows that the Setup Prerequisites program has detected that Win2K or later, Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS), Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 1.1 or later, Microsoft IIS, Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 4.01 or later, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), and Microsoft Office Graph Component are already installed on the machine. You should install the remaining items before you proceed with MOM installation. You can install some of the components, such as the Microsoft Access 2000 or later runtime environment, the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC) log file size, and the browscap.ini file, without leaving the Setup Prerequisites dialog box. Other components, such as Microsoft SQL Server (or Win2K or later, if it wasn't installed), might require you to exit the dialog box, install the required software, and return to the dialog box.
Figure 2 shows the Setup Prerequisites dialog box after you've installed all the prerequisite software on the machine. At this point, clicking Setup initiates the installation program.
If you plan to install the MOM database on a separate server, you must do so before installing the MOM server because the MOM server installation program checks for the availability of the database. Installing the MOM database separately requires one custom MOM installation in which you install only the database and another custom installation in which you install everything except the database.
MOM Management Packs
MOM has a modular architecture designed to let you customize your use of the product according to your specific needs. You start with the MOM base management pack—sets of predefined computer attributes, processing rules, providers, and scripts—and tweak the settings to suit your environment. MOM's base management pack modules, which Table 1 lists, include almost everything you'll need to monitor core Windows services. During MOM installation, you select only the management pack modules that are relevant to your organization. If you find later that you need another module, you can install it then. Loading unnecessary modules simply takes up space in the MOM database and clutters the MOM management console.
In addition to the base management pack, Microsoft provides an application management pack that contains the modules that Table 2 lists. You can install application management pack modules after you install the base MOM software. Some of the application management pack modules, such as the one for Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server and Exchange Server 5.5 , require extra configuration to work properly.
MOM's modular architecture also lets third parties develop management packs that integrate with the MOM console. Some examples are NetIQ's Extended Management Packs (XMPs), the Citrix MetaFrame XP Management Pack for MOM, and Hewlett-Packard's (HP's) Compaq Management Pack (CMP) for Microsoft Operations Manager. (For a list of MOM partners, go to http://www.microsoft.com/mom/partners/default.asp.)
You can also extend MOM yourself. If you have internal applications that generate events and that write to log or other files, MOM can capture this information and use it to monitor the applications. MOM SP1 includes a new software development kit (SDK2) to help with customization.