Tell a Friend05.15.06
Microsoft Operations Manager 2005: Simplifying Network Management
Small organizations and large enterprises alike face the often daunting task of managing critical network infrastructure. Network Administrators frequently spend countless hours diagnosing network problems by combing through huge operating system log files, technical notes, and details provided by stand-alone utilities.
A common request of IT management and administrators is to be notified of potential network issues before they occur, so a proactive response can be made. In the event a problem does arise, having a centralized view that contains network infrastructure-wide events and alerts can dramatically reduce troubleshooting time.
Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 provides a vast array of capabilities for managing a Windows-based infrastructure in any sized environment. MOM 2005 plays a central role in Microsoft's management initiatives, and virtually all Windows Server System and many third party products plug into MOM.
MOM 2005 provides a central console for monitoring and alerting, and can send email and pager notifications to administrators allowing them to rapidly respond to network issues. Imagine the benefit of automatically being informed that a server is running out of disk space, a print queue is stuck, or a user account has just been locked out.
The capabilities of MOM can be extended through MOM Management Packs. Microsoft has developed Management Packs for products such as Exchange Server, SQL Server, and Internet Information Server (IIS). These management packs also include proactive monitoring of items such as Exchange mail queues, database backups, and Website availability. This functionality allows MOM to not only monitor for events after they happen, but detect critical issues before they cause end-user problems.
Many third party products can be managed by MOM as well. These add-ons are provided by hardware and software manufacturers and they extend the monitoring of MOM to things such as server hardware, storage systems, UPS systems, backup software, and network devices.
All monitoring events and alerts are displayed in the centralized MOM Operator Console, which features an Outlook-like interface and task-oriented menus and panes. Based on the alert or system selected, the task pane displays context-oriented items for managing a specific system or service. From the MOM Operator Console, an administrator can perform many tasks such as restarting a service, running command line utilities, or launching a remote console.
The Operator Console also displays a diagram view of monitored systems, highlighting systems in red, yellow, or green based upon system status. In many environments, this diagram view can provide a quick status of systems from across the room, without an administrator directly at the console.
The MOM Operator Console has built in information for troubleshooting and resolving reported alerts. When an alert is highlighted, associated events and data specific to the alert are displayed. The display includes technical information for resolving the alert, and links to additional event-specific information on the web.
MOM 2005 uses a highly scalable Microsoft SQL Server database, and has both an Operator Console that can be installed on a server or workstation, and a web-based management console.
System data and history in the MOM database is available through MOM Reporting, which uses the SQL Reporting Services web-based application. These reports can provide management level information regarding service level availability, maintenance, and performance. MOM Reporting also provides detailed data to administrators regarding specific events, event history, and system availability.
From small organizations with 10 servers to those with hundreds, any sized environment can benefit from Microsoft Operations Manager 2005. A MOM implementation can grow with your environment and allow administrators to break free of responding to events after they happen; providing a more consistent and reliable network infrastructure.