Category Archives: Tools

SCOM: Extensible Network Monitoring Management Pack Generator tool

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A new tool has been released to assist in creating management packs for network monitoring get it here

I know from experience that having to walk a MIB file manually in order to determine which OIDs to use can be a tedious process. Tools like this one should make the whole experience much more manageable.

Tool Details

      Network Monitoring Management Pack Generator tool package includes a UI tool – SNMP_MPGenerator.exe and a command line tool – NetMonMPGenerator.exe.
    • SNMP_MPGenerator tool has an inbuilt MIB browser. Users can load MIB files, search through the Object Identifiers (OIDs) related to devices and components they wish to monitor.
    • This tool would support custom network devices in addition to already supported device type such as Switch, Router, Firewall and Load Balancer. Users can define monitors and rules targeted to the network devices.
    • Users can also discover and monitor discrete components of network devices. They can create monitors and rules for device components such as Processor, Memory, Fan, Temperature Sensor, Power Supply, Voltage Sensor and Custom device components.
    • Users can define monitors and rules for multiple devices in a single project file and generate a single Management Pack for all those devices.
    • NetMonMPGenerator.exe is a command line tool for users who wish to generate MP through command line. Users would need to provide an input XML to the command line tool to generate custom MP. The input XML would have all the device information and workflows (monitors and rules) defined on the device.

SCOM: Version 2.0 of Tim Culhams SCOM healh check script

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Tim Culham has been promising version 2 of his health check script for a while now and let me tell you it was worth the wait, it offers a great overview of the health of a SCOM management group on a single page, get it here.

Great stuff Tim.

Features:

  • A Data Volume graph where you can instantly see the amount of Alerts, Events, Performance Data and State Changes over the last 7 days
  • The Health State of your SCOM Agents
  • A Graph of your Alert Statistics – how many Open or Closed Alerts
  • Your Management Server Health, Versions, Server Uptime & the number of Workflows they are running. Now updated to include Gateways! Also CPU, Disk and Memory Graphs for each!
  • Any Open Warning or Critical Alerts for your Gateways and Management Servers.
  • The Top 5 Alerts by Repeat Count (use this to identify recurring problems)
  • The Top 5 Events by Computer (see which computers are the noisiest)
  • Your Operational Database & Data Warehouse Servers…how much space they are using, free space, file sizes and locations.
  • Your Operational Database and Data Warehouse Backups. Make sure they are running.
  • Are the Databases being groomed? You’ll be able to tell instantly!
  • Find out what is using all of the space in your Operational Database & Data Warehouse Databases.
  • The Reporting Server and Web Console Server URL’s and if they are OK.
  • The Status of your Scheduled Reports
  • If there are any Overrides in the ‘Default Management Pack’
  • What Discoveries ran in the last 24 Hours and what Properties were changed?
  • Identify agents that are lower than the highest version installed. Use this to see which agents should be upgraded to the most current version
  • Identify Agents that are not Remoteable.
  • Is Agent Proxying Enabled?
  • What Objects are in Maintenance?
  • And it’s available in 2 different colors!

The future of SCOM, learnings from the technical preview.

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A question I’ve often posed regarding SCOM is, “Why do should we be using 3rd party utilities to perform certain functions?” and the one that comes up most frequently is scheduling maintenance mode.

Well it’s finally here and i’m not surprised to see it as the first feature cropping up in the community blogs, as it is exciting, we’re finally getting the ability to create maintenance mode schedules from inside the product.

You can find this feature under the administrators node in the console.

I for one am certainly looking forward to see what other surprises are in the System Center goodie bag, more to follow.