​System Center Operations Manager is a big deal. On April 24th, Erik Gilreath discussed SCOM and uncovered: why SCOM is so rarely installed, why that's a mistake, easy steps to install, what you should be doing with it, and what it can do that other people's products can't.

1. SCOM – The Unsung Hero of
the System Center Suite

2. Quick Facts
About Us
• 23rd Year
• Grand Rapids &
Royal Oak
• 30 Staff
Approach
• Vendor
Independent
• Non-reseller
• Professional
Services Only
Partnerships
• Microsoft Gold
• VMware
Enterprise
• Citrix Silver
• Cisco Premier
• Novell Gold

3. Microsoft Gold Partner
Competencies
Four Gold
Eight Silver
Successes
Customer
Excellence Award
Virtual Technical
Specialist (VTSP)
Managed Partner
Numerous Partner
Awards
Pinpoint
Microsoft’s official
partner directory
5-star rating

4. Expertise

5. Get Social with C/D/H
facebook.com/cdhtech@cdhtweetstech
www.linkedin.com/company/cdh

6. Today’s Agenda
• Brief overview of SCOM
• Some real-life experiences with SCOM
• Why SCOM is so rarely installed
• SCOM installation tips
• Setting up email alerting
• Monitoring services with SCOM
• Using Synthetic Transactions to monitor
website performance
• Global Services Monitoring
• System Center Advisor
• Network Monitoring

7. Your Presenter
Erik Gilreath
MCSE, MCITP, CNE, CCNA, CCDA, CCA, CCEA
• Consultant with C/D/H
• Currently focusing on System
Center, infrastructure and
virtualization
• Been with C/D/H since 1999
erikg@cdh.com

8. What is SCOM

9. What SCOM is NOT

10. Why SCOM is so rarely installed
• First iterations were less than stellar
• Easy to install poorly
• More complicated than it looks
• Poor planning
• Not understanding what SCOM really does
• Bad reputation from people who did it
wrong

11. Why it’s a mistake not to install:
SCOM in real life
• Notifications of system issues
• Notifications of possible problems
• Alerts of performance issues
• Correct issues with the use of scripts
• Generates help desk tickets

12. SCOM Installation Tips
• Decide ahead of time what MPs to install
– Exchange / IIS / SharePoint / SQL / etc
• Install one MP at a time
– Let it bake a week or two
– Start with Windows Core
– Create custom MP for each installed MP for
overrides
– Name each custom MP with the same starting
letters
• Alert Monitors vs. Alert Rules

13. Email Alerting
• Configure a Channel
• Configure Subscribers
• Configure Subscriptions
– Group
– Class
– Severity
– Specific test
– Etc…

14. Monitoring Services

15. Monitoring Services

16. Synthetic Transactions
• Real time actions performed on monitored
objects
– Test website responsiveness
– Monitor database performance
– TCP port monitoring

17. Global Service Monitoring
• Azure based service that ties into SCOM
• Available free to any with Software
Assurance
• Monitors from both inside and outside
– Monitor applications from 15 different locations
• Two kinds of monitors
– Web Application Availability
– Visual Studio Web Tests

18. Global Service Monitoring -
Installation
• Signup for GSM:
https://orgaccount.microsoft.com/signup?offerIds=BE2A46EF-0639-43a4-8323-BB5E1D4340D3
• If doing Visual Studio tests, import the Alert
Attachment MP:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj899889.aspx
• Import the GSM MPs into OpsMgr 2012 SP1
• Configure GSM in OpsMgr 2012 SP1 with
your GSM account
• Start configuring tests!

19. Web Application Availability Monitor
• Test is defined as one URL from one
Location
• One test every 5 minutes is the most
frequent interval
• Total tests = # tests * # locations
• Total tests cannot exceed 25 per
subscription

20. Visual Studio Web Tests
• Test is defined as one .webtest file
• One test every 5 minutes is the most
frequent interval
• Total tests = # tests times # locations
• Total tests cannot exceed 25 per
subscription
• Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2012 or
Visual Studio Ultimate 2010 required to
view test results

21. System Center Advisor
• Cloud-based service that examines your
Microsoft-based installations
• Available free to everyone
• Alerts generated due to improper
configuration, potential issues, missing
patches, or simply straying from best
practices
• Remediation recommendations based on
a compilation of thousands of MS Support
cases

22. How System Center Advisor works
SERVER
CONFIGURATIONS
Microsoft Servers
BEST PRACTICES
& RECOMENDATIONS

23. Network Device Monitoring
What SCOM delivers
• Out of the box discovery,
monitoring, and reporting
• Memory utilization, processor
utilization, port traffic volume,
port error analysis & port
packet analysis
• Server to network
dependency discovery
• Support large number of
device vendors

24. Royal Oak
306 S. Washington Ave.
Suite 212
Royal Oak, MI 48067
(248) 546-1800
Grand Rapids
15 Ionia SW
Suite 270
Grand Rapids, MI 49503
(616) 776-1600
Thank You
www.cdh.com