You can use Operations Manager to monitor how well your organization is meeting service level agreements (SLA) and/or operating level agreements (OLA). This is done by configuring Operations Manager to track service availability and performance against agreed upon benchmarks between the organizations participating in the SLA or OLA.
To perform service level tracking in Operations Manager, you define a specific service level objective (SLO) in terms of a set of monitors, such as performance and availability. You then schedule and access regular reports to verify that the SLOs are being met, or, if they aren’t, change processes so that the SLOs will be met.
More Info: Monitoring Service Level Objectives Using Operations Manager
You can learn more about monitoring service level objectives using Operations Manager at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh212753.aspx.
Application SLOs
Monitoring an application SLO with Operations Manager involves ensuring that availability and performance goals are being met. To define a SLO against an application, in this case the SQL Server 2012 database engine, which requires a SQL Server management pack, using Operations Manager, perform the following steps:
1. In the Authoring workspace of the Operations Manager console, click Service Level Tracking under Management Pack Objects.
2. On the ribbon, click Create.
3. On the General page of the Service Level Tracking Wizard, type the name SQL Server 2012 OpsMgr SLO.
4. On the Object To Track page, ensure that an unsealed management pack is selected, and then click Select.
5. On the Select A Target Class dialog box, click Distributed Application, and then click All. In the list of results, click SQL DB Engine, as shown in Figure 1, and then click OK.
FIGURE 1
6. On the Object To Track page, click a group or object that contains objects of the targeted class, and then click Select. On the Select An Object dialog box, select the SQL Server instance on the operations manager server that is of the class SQL 2012 DB Engine, as shown in Figure 2 This will ensure that the SLA only applies to this specific instance of the database engine.
FIGURE 2 Object selection
7. On the Service Level Objectives page, click Add, and then click Monitor State SLO. Monitor state SLOs allow you to track the availability of the application.
8. On the Service Level Objective (Monitor State) dialog box, provide a name for the objective, and list the states that qualify as downtime for the objective. The states that you select will be dependent on the agreement made between the stakeholders. Figure 3 shows a 99.99 percent service level objective goal where Unplanned Maintenance, Unmonitored, Monitoring Unavailable, and Monitoring Disabled count as downtime. Click OK.
FIGURE 3 SLO Monitor configuration
9. On the Service Level Objectives page, click Add, and then click Collection Rule SLO. Collection rule SLOs allow you to track the performance of the application.
10. On the Service Level Objective (Collection Rule) dialog box, provide a name. Next to Performance Collection Rule, click Select. You can only select an existing performance collection rule. You can create rules from the Authoring workspace of the Operations Manager console. For example, if the SLO were about ensuring that the SQL Server DB engine never exceeded 90 percent processor utilization, you’d use a performance collection rule related to processor utilization.
11. On the Service Level Objective Goal drop down menu, select Less Than, and specify 90. This means that the engine should not exceed 90 percent processor utilization.
12. Complete the wizard.
More Info: Application SLOs
You can learn more about monitoring application related service level objectives using Operations Manager athttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh212753.aspx.
Group SLOs
You can configure a SLO against a group of computers by monitoring the computer objects collectively. To create an SLO against a group of computers, perform the following tasks:
1. First create a group that contains the computers that you will monitor by clicking Create A New Group when the Groups node is selected in the Authoring workspace of the Operations Manager console.
2. On the General Properties page, enter a name for the group and specify an unsealed management pack in which to store the group settings.
3. On the Explicit Members page of the Create Group Wizard, click Add/Remove Objects. This will open the Object Selection dialog box.
4. On the Object Selection dialog box, enter the domain suffix, and click search. This will list all of the computers in a particular domain. You can use other search parameters as necessary. Add the Computer objects to the group. Figure 4 shows the computer objects for OpsMgr.tailspintoys.internal, Orchestrator.tailspintoys.internal, and SYD-DC.tailspintoys.internal.
FIGURE 4 Create group
5. Verify that the members that you want to monitor are members of the group, and complete the wizard.
6. In the Authoring workspace of the Operations Manager console, select Service Level Tracking under Management Pack Objects and on the ribbon, click Create.
7. Provide a name for the group SLO you are creating.
8. On the Objects To Track page, click Select.
9. On the Select A Target Class page, click Distributed Application, and click All. Type the name of the group that you created, and select that group, shown in Figure 5, and click OK.
FIGURE 5 Select a target class
10. On the Service Level Objectives page, click Add, and then click Monitor State SLO.
11. On the Service Level Objective (Monitor State) dialog box, provide the following information as shown in Figure 6.
- Service Level Objective Name A name for the SLO.
- Monitor In this scenario, this will be set to Availability.
- Service Level Objective Goal The availability goal.
- What counts as downtime Allows you to specify which states count as downtime towards measuring the SLO.
FIGURE 6 SLO Monitor State
12. Click OK and complete the wizard.
More Info: Group SLOs
You can learn more about monitoring group related service level objectives using Operations Manager at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh212877.aspx.
Service level tracking reports
Running a service level tracking report allows you to view how an application or group is performing in terms of the defined SLO. To create a service level tracking report, perform the following general steps:
1. In the Reporting workspace of the Operations Manager console, click the Microsoft Service Level Report Library under the Reporting node.
2. Click Service Level Tracking Summary Report, and click Open on the taskbar.
3. On the Service Level Tracking Summary Report dialog box, click Add, and click Search. The list of configured SLOs stored in the Operations Manager database will be listed as shown in Figure 7. Select the SLOs that you want to run the report on, and click Add.
FIGURE 7 Add Service Levels
4. On the Service Level Tracking Summary Report dialog box, specify the range that you want the report to encompass and the frequency that you want to use for data aggregation. Figure 8 shows a report that will be configured to be run over the last 24 hours using an hourly aggregation.
FIGURE 8 Report properties
5. Click Run, to run the Service Level Tracking Summary Report.
More Info: Service Level Tracking Reports
You can learn more about monitoring service level objectives using Operations Manager at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh212726.aspx.
