SCOM – The Unsung Hero of

the System Center Suite

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

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

Expertise

Get Social with C/D/H

facebook.com/cdhtech @cdhtweetstech

www.linkedin.com/company/cdh

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

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

What is SCOM

What SCOM is NOT

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

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

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

Email Alerting

• Configure a Channel

• Configure Subscribers

• Configure Subscriptions

– Group

– Class

– Severity

– Specific test

– Etc…

Monitoring Services

Monitoring Services

Synthetic Transactions

• Real time actions performed on monitored

objects

– Test website responsiveness

– Monitor database performance

– TCP port monitoring

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

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!

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

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

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

How System Center Advisor works

SERVER CONFIGURATIONS

Microsoft Servers

BEST PRACTICES & RECOMENDATIONS

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

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