Operations Manager 2007 Performance and Scalability Whitepaper

Download Operations Manager 2007 Performance and Scalability Whitepaper here.

Brief Description
Operations Manager 2007 Performance and Scalability Whitepaper
This document describes performance and scalability guidelines to consider when planning a Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 deployment.

Release Date Changes
May, 2007 Original release of this document
July 2, 2007 Updated in this release: Cover page, Copyright
November 1, 2007 Updated in this release: Cover page, ACS Content added

Operations Manager 2007 Performance and Scalability Whitepaper

Download Operations Manager 2007 Performance and Scalability Whitepaper here.

Brief Description
Operations Manager 2007 Performance and Scalability Whitepaper
This document describes performance and scalability guidelines to consider when planning a Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 deployment.

System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Management Pack

Download Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Management Pack here.

Overview
The Microsoft Configuration Manager 2007 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 provides proactive monitoring of your Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 environment. This management pack includes:
• Detection and monitoring of all Configuration Manager servers and dependent services
• The alert driven state
• The site hierarchy diagram,
• Performance and backlog monitoring and configuration
• Performance and availability reports.

Before you install the Configuration Manager 2007 Management Pack, read the Configuration Manager 2007 User's Guide. The guide includes the instructions you need to correctly deploy, configure and use the management pack.

Feature Bullet Summary:
The System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 provides improved capabilities for Configuration Manager 2007 monitoring, including the following:
• Monitoring the starting and stopping of all Configuration Manager 2007 services, including critical dependent services like Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), IIS Admin Service, World Wide Web Publishing Service, Windows Deployment Services Server, Trivial FTP Daemon, Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) and Microsoft SQL Server™.
• Alerting the Configuration Manager 2007 administrator to critical Configuration Manager 2007 status messages.
• Monitoring backlogs of discovery data records (DDRs), software inventory, hardware inventory, status messages, state messages, and software metering on both primary site servers and management points.
• Monitoring outbox backlogs on site systems.
• Monitoring a component and site system role health.
• Monitoring collection evaluation, state message summarization, and site maintenance tasks, including site backup.
• Monitoring SMS Executive crash dumps.
• Monitoring general CPU, Memory, and Disk system resource usage. • Monitoring processing rates.
• Monitoring the performance trends of many Configuration Manager performance counters by using views and reports.
• Product knowledge content for all alerts and processing rules.
• Detecting all Configuration Manager 2007 computers, classes, and computer groups.
• Configuration Manager 2007 views.
• Reports displaying performance, availability, and configuration of Configuration Manager 2007 server groups. These linked reports leverage the enhanced reporting of Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 for performance, configuration, and availability trends.
• Tasks for executing Configuration Manager 2007 Administrator console applications.
• Computer State view containing the health of all Configuration Manager 2007 server roles and the Configuration Manager 2007 Client.
• Site Hierarchy and Site State views for displaying the health of sites in a hierarchy and the hierarchy itself.
• Service Discovery of important Configuration Manager 2007 server and Configuration Manager 2007 client information.
• Topology diagram of the Configuration Manager 2007 site hierarchy.
• Configuration Manager 2007 configurable alerting on distributed program execution failure through Configuration Manager 2007 program properties.


Management Pack Release History:
11/13/2007 - Version 6.0.5000.10 - Original release of the English version

Updated Windows Server 2000/2003 Operating System Management Pack Guide

Download the updated Windows Server 2000/2003 Operating System MP Guide here.

Microsoft has updated the guide for the Windows Server 2000/2003 Operating System MP for the second time in 2 weeks.
No update to the MP, just the documentation.

Overview
The Microsoft Windows Server 2000/2003 Operating System Management Pack provides monitoring of the basic health indicators of a Windows Server system, such as processor, memory, disk health, availability, and key performance metrics. Optional rules and monitors can be enabled to provide in-depth discovery and monitoring of the Windows Operating System.

QFE Fixes:
1. Network Adapter Connection Health Monitor is now functional for long descriptions, multiple network adapters with the same description, and enhanced monitoring of network adapters
2. Localization Issues of script of executable failing to run on agent machines in Hungarian and French local versions are fixed

Feature Summary:
• Key Processor performance indicators
• Logical and Physical Disk performance and free space
• Memory utilization
• Network health
• Health monitoring of key Windows Operating System Services
• Comprehensive performance collections
• Availability, and Event reports

Management Pack Release History:
Initial Release 3/23/2007 Version 6.0.5000.0
9/28/2007 - Updated release Version 6.0.5000.25
10/23/2007 - Updated MP Guide - Software Version still 6.0.5000.25
11/8/2007 - Updated MP Guide - Software version still 6.0.5000.25

Operations Manager 2007 Key Concepts Document

Download Operations Manager 2007 Key Concepts document here.

Overview
This guide describes the key concepts required to understand Operations Manager. It describes modeling, how modeling is implemented in Operations Manager, and key changes between Operations Manager 2005 and 2007.

Reading this guide is a great way to get knowledge and understanding about Operations Manager 2007. This 30 pages document describes the change in architecure between MOM and Ops Mgr. How to build MPs and understand how they work. Discovery, Healt and Service modeling, Management Packs, Rules, Monitors, and Tasks and their Relation to Models.

Updated Print Service Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007

Download updated Microsoft Print Service Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 here.

Overview
The Microsoft® Windows® Print Server Management Pack monitors the performance and health of print servers running on Windows® 2000 and later Operating Systems. In addition to monitoring the health of print servers, this Management Pack can also provide insight into the status of shared printers.
By detecting, alerting on, and automatically responding to critical events and performance indicators, this Management Pack helps indicate, correct, and prevent possible operating system service outages.
By using embedded expertise, this Management Pack highlights performance, health, and availability conditions that indicate problems. It helps you identify issues before they become critical, thus providing you with a level of customer responsiveness that increases the overall availability and performance of your Windows Operating Systems. As a result, this Management Pack will reduce the cost of ownership by enabling proactive management and reducing resolution times for the issues identified.

Requires OpsMgr 2007 MOM 2005 Backward Compatibility MP Update) 6.0.5000.1 (or higher)


QFE Fixes made to the following issues (in version 6.0.5000.36):
-Print Server discovery scripts not running correctly
-Error connecting to data source

Management Pack Release History:
Initial Release for OpsMgr 2007 6/1/2007 Version 6.0.5000.0
11/1/2007 - Updated version 6.0.5000.36

Data Protection Manager 2007 MP Guide for Ops Mgr 2007

Download System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 Management Pack Guide for Operations Manager 2007 here.

Overview
The System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 (DPM) Management Pack Guide explains how to use the DPM Management Pack to monitor the state of data protection and recovery for DPM servers and the computers that they protect, and to monitor key health and performance indicators on DPM servers.
This guide presents an overview of the DPM Management Pack, provides instructions for deploying the management pack in an existing System Center Operations Manager 2007 environment, and provides a technical reference to the computer attributes, computer groups, notification groups, and rules that define the behavior of the DPM Management Pack.

Remote Operations Manager 2007 Deployment Guide

Download Remote Operations Manager 2007 Deployment Guide and RelNotes here.

Overview
The deployment guide discusses best practices for deploying Remote Operations Manager 2007. The guide includes the following:
• Architecture
• Security
• Requirements
• Service Provider Site Deployment
• Customer Site Deployment
• Post-Deployment Tasks

The Relnotes file contains a list of known issues for SC Remote Operations Manager.

Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate

Got this from Microsoft Connect today:

The product team is excited to announce the availability of the Operations Manager 2007 Service Pack 1 Release Candidate, on Microsoft Connect.
The key goals of this public distribution of the Service Pack 1 RC is to gain additional feedback from production deployments, to satisfy customers who are awaiting a stable product before the end of the year, and assure that the final RTM is of the highest possible quality.

The RTM of Service Pack 1 is targeted for mid-February 2008, and will:
* Address critical customer initiated issues, including a roll-up of all hotfixes.
* Improve the ability to deploy and use Operations Manager 2007.
* Enhance the supportability of Operations Manager 2007.

This Service Pack 1 RC is a publicly available release that is fully supported,
and which will be fully upgradable to the final RTM version of the Service Pack.

Support options include:
* A dedicated SP1 newsgroup at Microsoft.public.opsmgr.sp1 (available under http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx)
* Microsoft Customer Support Services (CSS)

To learn more about the service pack and to download the release candidate do the following:
1.Go to http://connect.microsoft.com and sign-in with your Live ID
2.Click on the "My Participation" link
3.Select the "System Center Operations and Service Management" link

For customers who were not already part of the OpsMgr beta they can sign-up via the http://connect.microsoft.com/systemcenter page.

Thank you, the Operations Manager team

MMS 2008 Registration is Open

The Registration for next years MMS event in Las Vegas is now open. Microsoft Management Summit 2008(MMS) will be at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dates are 28 April - 2 May. This is probably the best Microsoft Event if you are working with or interested in System Center products. Register here.