Swan(sea) Song – personal research during my six years at Swansea ... and bey...
[SCUG.BE 01/10/2014] SCOM Authoring
1.
2. Jan Van Meirvenne
System Center Consultant
• Expertise: SCOM and SCORCH
@JanVanMeirvenne
www.scug.be/jan
3. Authoring Crash Course
Scenario Introduction
Ways of authoring: 2007
• Tools
• Demo
Ways of authoring: 2012
• Tools
• Demo
Tips and Tricks
4. How does a management pack work?
Which tools are available for content creation?
What is the right tool for the right job?
How do I write my own awesome management pack?
What if my awesome management pack doesn’t work?
17. SCOM console
• Pro: Wizard-based
• Pro: Quick Deployment of complex monitoring (Templates)
• Con: Limited in possibilities (add, not create)
• Con: Dynamically generated XML (difficult to edit)
• Con: Working directly on management group
• Tip: use to learn XML structures
18. Visio
• Pro: Visual Approach
• Pro: Great to discuss MP with customer
• Pro: Drag and drop
• Con: Very limited in possibilities
• Con: Need Visio
19. MPAuthor
• + Wizard-based
• + Define new classes
• Limited in scenario’s
• Version- and source control
20. Visual Studio Extension
• + Full content control
• + Snippets
• + Integrated Source Control
• Steep learning curve
• Need to have VS Pro / Ultimate license
21. My masterpiece doesn’t do a thing,
what now?
• 1: Import Error
• 2: Operations Manager Eventlog on agent / server
• 3: Trace workflow
22. When to use what?
• Console
• Overrides
• Simple monitor/rule update or addition
• Visio
• Health Model
• Customer
• MPAuthor
• Simple workload creation
• VSAE
• Go-to tool if you are not afraid to dig in XML (not hard!)
23. Think performance
Use auto-generating tools to learn XML
Test!
Use descriptions and or Product Knowledge
Review with application owner, improve your masterpiece
XML structure
Object-based
Types
Monitoring
Feature
Dashboard
Security
Language
Sealed or unsealed
“Molds” for monitored objects and their
coherence
Both can contain properties
Inheritance
Version-specific classes
Common Attributes
Instantiated by discoveries
Best Practices
Avoid too many classes (use groups)
Avoid volatile classes
Runs with periodic intervals on agents
Create objects hosted by targeted machine
WMI / Registry / Script
Best Practices
Initial discovery registry (seed)
Detail discovery WMI / script
Avoid volatile data (config churn)
Intervals
Registry: 5 minutes
Script: 4 hours
Wmi 4 hours
Rule of thumb: 1 day
Attached to monitored objects
Up to 3 states
Types
Unit
Dependency
Aggregation
Influences health reporting
WMI / Registry / Script
Can run diagnostics and recoveries
Attached to monitored objects
Multi-purpose
Perf Collection
Event Collection
“Scheduled Tasks”
Stateless alert generation
Supression
Does not influence health reporting
WMI / Registry / Script