The MOM 2005 Operator Console
lets you perform many common
maintenance and security-related tasks
on your managed computers. For
example, you can query the IP configuration of any managed computer by
selecting IP Configuration in the Tasks
pane at the right of the console and
following the wizard. If the Tasks pane
isn’t visible, you can make it appear by
clicking Tasks on the toolbar.
The Tasks pane is context sensitive,
and by default, MOM 2005 Work-group Edition will run any task you
select against the currently highlighted computer(s) in the State view or the Computers and Groups view.
For some tasks, such as IP Configuration, the data collected will be returned as generated events and can be
seen in the Events view. For other
tasks, such as Computer Management
or Remote Desktop, MOM will open
an MMC snap-in or Terminal Services
session to the selected computer.
You can also launch the Microsoft
Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA)
from the MOM 2005 Operator Console’s Task pane. MOM Workgroup
Edition ships with MBSA 1.2. You can
update to the latest supported version
by downloading the MBSA Management Pack for MOM 2005 at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads.
When you select Run MBSA Scan
from the MOM 2005 Operator Console, a package containing the MBSA
executable is created and downloaded
to the target managed computer.
Alternatively, you can tell the managed computer to obtain the msse-cure.cab file from Microsoft or from a
virtual directory (vDir) on the MOM
server. (Look for more details in the
MBSA Management Pack Guide,
available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads.)
Once downloaded, MBSA scans the
local machine and returns the results
to the MOM 2005 Operator Console as
a series of events. Alerts are generated
from the events if there are any security-related items of interest, and the
state of the managed computer is
updated accordingly. You can view the
alerts and corresponding events by
clicking Alerts and Events in the lower
left pane of the console. Where appropriate, the Product Knowledge tab of
an Alert is populated with information
about how to correct the security issue
found by MBSA.
I’ve introduced you to the power of
MOM 2005 Workgroup Edition, but the real benefit lies in MOM Management Packs, which I’ll cover in detail
in a future article. I also recommend
that you visit the Microsoft Web site
dedicated to MOM, http://www.microsoft.com/mom, to learn more
about its features.
The compelling features of MOM
2005 Workgroup Edition, coupled with
the low price, make this version ideal
for small and midsized networks.
Larger networks can use the enterprise version of MOM, which has a
wealth of additional features, including the ability to create hierarchies of
MOM servers and powerful reporting
capabilities.