Installed SCOM 2012 what now

[michael.lecomber]

Hi,

 

I'm completely new to the SCOM world and i'm having some issue with what to do after i've sucessfully finished the installation.

 

Everything is set and all good to go. At the moment i just want general monitoring of disk space and server availability but how is that achieved. I've already played around with it setting up management packs etc but couldn't get reliably working.

 

Can someone help with just some basic post install tasks?

 

Thanks in advance.

[BogdanR]

Hey Michael,

 

First, welcome to the SCOM world :-)

 

I believe/assume you have the latest version which is SCOM 2012 R2 UR11, correct ?

 

If not, please take a look here on how to upgrade your SCOM environment to the latest version: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/kevinholman/2016/09/06/ur11-for-scom-2012-r2-step-by-step/

 

Second, did you install SCOM into a test environment or directly into a production one ?

 

Third, your SCOM server is installed along with the database server (SQL instance) or are you keep them separately ? The reason I'm asking is because it's better to keep them apart, with time the two SCOM DBs (OperationsManager & OperationsManagerDW) tend to put more pressure on your SCOM server and it would behave more slowly, especially working with the SCOM console.

 

Fourth, did you already installed some of the SCOM agents on your environment ? SCOM requires the installation of an agent to be able to fully monitor a server/client. Of course there is also the possibility to choose an agentless way of monitoring devices, but for now it's not the case, it will put more pressure on your SCOM server, so stick with the agent way.

 

Fifth, depending on what exactly are you trying to monitor, let's say for starter that you only need to monitor the servers (later you can easily monitor clients and network devices as well) you need to import a couple of basic MPs (Management or Monitoring Packs as MS likes to call them), here are some for you to start with:

 

Windows Server Management Pack - https://www.microsoft.com/en-za/download/details.aspx?id=9296

 

Active Directory - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=21357

 

DNS - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=37141

 

DHCP - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39062

 

FileServer - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34970

 

SQL Server - https://www.microsoft.com/en-za/download/details.aspx?id=51645

 

CA (Certification Authority) - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34765

 

Of course there many others, depending on your infrastructure and requirements, here are some additional links:

 

https://unofficialsystemcentercatalog.wordpress.com/2012/12/27/operations-manager-is-there-a-management-pack-for/

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/16174.microsoft-management-packs.aspx

http://systemcentercore.com/

 

So, go ahead and install some of the ones I've just told you, and pretty soon you will see all kinds of critical, warning and informational alerts into your SCOM console :-)

 

Now the fun begins, just give it a week or so until the SCOM environment will settle a little, and then begin to filter the messages.

Be careful though that in SCOM world there are 2 types or alerts, some generated by monitors and other generated by rules, more info here (read them with attention because you don't want to ruin your environment already) :

 

https://scomanswers.com/2015/03/04/scom-rule-vs-monitor/

 

http://www.culham.net/scom/scom-rules-vs-monitors/

 

http://blog.wouters.it/2009/04/scom-monitor-vs-rule.html

 

 

Meanwhile be sure to check most of the SCOM blogs and official news from the MS OM team itself:

 

Microsoft:

 

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/momteam/

 

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/31909.ms-operations-management-suite-survival-guide.aspx

 

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/20796.the-system-center-2012-r2-operations-manager-survival-guide.aspx

 

Other valuable blogs:

 

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/kevinholman/

 

http://www.opsman.co.za/category/scom-2012-r2/

 

http://kevingreeneitblog.blogspot.ro/

 

https://scomandothergeekystuff.com/

 

http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.ro/

 

http://www.bictt.com/blogs/bictt.php

 

http://www.culham.net/category/scom/

 

https://stefanroth.net/

 

http://blog.tyang.org/

 

If you have any questions please let me know.

 

Good luck :-)

[michael.lecomber]

Brilliant!!! thanks for all the help, really helpful

 

I think i may have broken my environment already, is there a way of going back to a default installation without uninstalling and re-installing?

[BogdanR]

Hello Michael,

 

In a few words can you please explain what it's not working anymore ?

 

I mean can you be more specific, it's a SCOM server related issue, an SQL one or did you already manually close all the alerts from the console :-)

 

I'm trying to understand your SCOM environment first, to be able to provide the best answers to help you.

 

Btw, one of the quickest ways to verify/debug your infrastructure it's to check the SCOM logs by opening Event Viewer -> Applications and Service Logs -> Microsoft -> Operations Manager.

 

To answer your question, the only way of "going back" it's to restore an earlier back-up, if you are already protecting this SCOM server with a proper backup solution like EMC Networker, Symantec NETBackup, Microsoft DPM (Data Protection Manager) etc or if this SCOM server it's virtual, using an snapshot/checkpoint to revert to the initial one ( which personally I wouldn't recommend it in production environment from various reasons).

 

And since we're talking about backup, please also check these 2 links:

 

Microsoft:

 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh278864(v=sc.12).aspx

 

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh278860(v=sc.12).aspx

 

Blogs:

 

https://stevethompsonmvp.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/sql-server-backup-recommendations-for-configuration-manager/ (I know it's for SCCM but the principle also applies to SCOM as well).

 

 

Other then that, the other way should be to debug/repair it somehow but that requires some experience, patience & luck.

 

Regards.

[michael.lecomber]

Hey,

 

So im not sure what i've done but theres a server which has the agent installed that has no disk space on C: left but its not flagging what so ever.

 

Yea im thinking to re-install and go through it thoroughly.

[BogdanR]

Hey,

 

Usually when you are out of space on C: your SCOM agent also stop. You can easily check this by opening the Services tab (services.msc) and verify the status of HealthService (Microsoft Monitoring Agent).

 

Like I said before you can also check your status by opening the SCOM logs from Event Viewer -> Applications and Service Logs -> Microsoft -> Operations Manager.

 

In the SCOM console you'll see two different alerts "Health Service Heartbeat Failure" and "Failed to Connect to Computer".

 

That should give you an idea why your agent it's not working correctly.

 

Seems that your SCOM environment it's not 100 % build for production so yea I guess re-install it seems like a good choice too :-)

 

Cheers.