An Operations Manager management pack is a collection of elements that allow you to use Operations Manager to perform tasks, gather, and display important information about computers, applications, services, and devices. Management packs are often specific to a particular product, device, application, role, or service, and contain elements that extend Operations Manager’s ability to integrate with that service. For example, the Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 management pack contains elements that allow Operations Manager to monitor important aspects of an Exchange Server 2013 deployment, just as the System Center Management Pack for SQL Server contains elements that allow Operations Manager to monitor important aspects of a SQL Server 2012 deployment. Individuals or organizations with detailed knowledge about how the managed object functions, write management packs. You can view the list of management packs imported into Operations Manager from the Management Packs node of the Administration workspace, as shown in Figure 1.
FIGURE 1 Management Packs
More Info: Management Packs
You can learn more about Operations Manager management packs at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh212794.aspx.
Management packs can include some or all of the following elements:
- Monitors Provides information to the Operations Manager agent about which aspects of the managed object it should track. For example, which logs to monitor.
- Rules Determines which performance and discovery data the agent collects. It also determines which situations trigger alerts. For example, which event in a specific log should generate an Operations Manager alert.
- Tasks Allows an activity to be performed either through the agent or the Operations Manager console. For example, a task might restart a particular service. Tasks are triggered either by alerts or manually through the Operations Manager console. Tasks are performed by the Operations Manager agent or by the console (for example, when you trigger a ping task).
- Views Provides a customized interface for viewing information and managing managed objects.
- Reports Display insightful and meaningful data about the managed object. Customized reports come from the management pack authors to display information about the managed objects.
- Object Discoveries Identify objects that Operations Manager can monitor.
- Run As profiles Allows rules, tasks, monitors, and discoveries to be run using an alternate set of credentials.
- Knowledge These are helpful articles that provide Operations Manager administrators with diagnostic and problem resolution advice.
Management packs come as either sealed or unsealed. A sealed management pack is read-only. Sealed management packs are digitally signed by the management pack authors and use the .mp extension. This digital signature gives you confidence that a third party hasn’t modified the contents of the management pack. You can make modifications to sealed management packs using overrides, described later in this chapter. Unsealed management packs usually use the .xml extension and can be created and modified by the Operations Manager Administrator.
Some management packs are designated libraries. Library management packs provide a set of classes on which other management packs build. Dependencies exist where one management pack makes references to content in another management pack. To view a management pack’s dependencies, right-click the management pack and select the Dependencies tab, as shown in Figure 2. The information displayed on this tab will also provide you with a list of management packs that depend on this management pack.
FIGURE 2 Management pack dependencies
Importing management packs
While Operations Manager ships with a collection of management packs, to get the most out of the product, you’ll need to import management packs that are specific to the type of objects that you want to monitor. You can use several methods to obtain Operations Manager management packs.
The simplest method is to download and import management packs from the Microsoft System Center Marketplace using the Operations Manager console. Figure 3 shows searching for and selecting a SQL Server 2012 related management pack from the online catalog. System Center Marketplace stores a very large number of management packs and should be the first place you look when you need an Operations Manager management pack.
FIGURE 3 Management pack catalog
You can use the Operations Manager console to download management packs from the online catalog to import at a later point in time. Figure 4 shows the Operations Manager console interface for downloading management packs. This allows you to store important management packs in a separate location for easy import into other Operations Manager management groups.
FIGURE 4 Management pack download
If you’ve obtained the management pack files already, you can import them from local storage using the Operations Manager console. When importing sealed management packs, you must ensure that the Operations Manager server trusts the CA that issued the signing certificate used to sign the sealed management pack. If the Operations Manager server doesn’t trust the CA that issued the signing certificate that was used to sign the sealed management pack, you won’t be able to import the sealed management pack. Prior to attempting to import management packs, ensure that you’ve imported any management pack dependencies. You won’t be able to import a management pack if dependency management packs are not present on the Operations Manager server. Figure 5 shows importing SQL Server 2012 and Exchange Server 2013 management packs.
FIGURE 5 Import management pack
Important to note is that once you have imported a management pack, Operations Manager will automatically begin monitoring relevant objects based on the default management pack configurations and thresholds. This can lead to an increase in alerts, depending on the configuration of the management pack that you have imported.
More Info: Importing Management Packs
You can learn more about importing management packs at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh212691.aspx.
Removing management packs
Removing a management pack eliminates all of the settings and thresholds associated with the management pack. For example, if you’ve upgraded all of the SQL Server instances in your organization to SQL Server 2014, you might choose to remove management packs that were used to monitor previous versions of SQL Server.
You can only remove a management pack if any dependent management packs have also been removed. For example,Figure 6 shows that the SQL Server Core Library management pack is required for three other management packs. Before you are able to remove the SQL Server Core Library management pack, you’ll have to remove the three management packs that list the SQL Server Core Library management pack as a dependency. You delete a management pack by right-clicking the management pack in the Operations Manager console, and clicking Delete.
FIGURE 6 Management pack dependencies
More Info: Removing Management Packs
You can learn more about removing management packs at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh230746.aspx.
