As the momentum builds around the official RTM of Ops Manager (announced today at MMS 2007 and now ). The case studys and info is starting to hit the streets.

Check out this Case study on how CMS used Ops Manager 2007 and the Secure Vantage MP for Sunnybrook hospital in Canada.

 http://www.cms.ca/resource/CMS_Sunnybrook_SCOM_Case_Study_07.pdf

If you are looking for great new ways to build Ops Manager 2007 management packs, check this out:

http://www.authormps.com

Steve Wilson from the product team has out this site together to help you with undestanding and building new MP's. It includes info on:

• Concepts
• MP Schema
• Module Types / Monitor Type library
• Tutorials
• Samples
• Authoring principles
• Application instrumentation guidance

I dont know about you but I think that the RESKIT for MOM is pretty fantastic.......and now look its been updated :-)

http://www.microsoft.com/mom/downloads/2005/reskit/default.mspx

Anyone that is working with MOM 2005 or is looking to deploy it in their own environment needs to be aware of all the great 3rd party additions that are now available.

Check out the Management Pack Catalogue for updates MP's and connectors etc HERE

A partner I know just installed some of the network management additions to MOM for his customer and now the customer can build views of his Application Servers, network infrastructure and get a full picture of what is going on. Even if you have a seperate networking team, bringing this kind of view to the owners of yor application services can be highly beneficial.

Enjoy :-)

SMS February 2005 Security Update Scan Tool – English – Released to the Web

This tool is a scan tool built for the sole purpose of helping customers determine SMS client computers that may need security updates provided with the February security bulletins that are not detectable using the existing SMS Security Update Inventory Tool built on MBSA. Like MBSA, this tool also has the instructions for SMS to locate each applicable update and download it from Microsoft. The SMS February 2005 Security Update Scan Tool is built on Enterprise Scan Tool (EST) detection technology.

For February, the bulletins are as follows:

·         MS05-004

·         MS05-006

·         MS05-009

For more information about the exact detection capabilities of EST and how it differs from MBSA, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 894192. For more information on the SMS February 2005 Security Update Scan Tool, please see the included user guide and release notes. 

The SMS February 2005 Security Update Scan Tool – English is available at the Microsoft Download Center at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2FCD82CF-9B6E-441F-BBC7-7DBAAF10279D&displaylang=en

It still amazes me how many people don't know about the resource kit for MOM 2005 and it is such a great bunch of tools which really add value to any MOM administrator's role. The ability to create management packs quickly with the Management Pack Wizard, Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) Wizard, Management Pack Version Checker and lots more. Not to mention cool tools like the Ops Console Notifier.

If you want to take a look at the Reskit, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/mom/downloads/2005/reskit/default.mspx

End-to-End Systems Management Briefing
Free one-day event: How to maximize the capabilities and benefits of SMS

The SMS Alliance and Microsoft will present best-of-breed solutions to help IT professionals maximize their System Management Server investment. By demonstrating how to extend SMS to better manage complex and diverse environments, attendees will learn how to reduce operational costs while maximizing efficiencies across the enterprise.

Hosted by Microsoft, this exclusive event will showcase demonstrations of all SMS Alliance partner solutions by SMS-Alliance members including, 1E, iAnywhere, Macrovision, PS'Soft, and Vintela. Register today for briefings in London, 10th February or Reading, 8th February.

London:

https://msevents-eu.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-GB&eventid=118753698

Reading:

https://msevents-eu.microsoft.com/cui/EventDetail.aspx?culture=en-GB&eventid=118753697

A great new Management Pack soon to be available.

The Web Sites and Services MP can be used to monitor availability and performance of Web Sites and Web Services by performing HTTP requests against the monitored entities.

On top of UI features that make it a snap to create Request Sequences for monitoring Web applications and Web Services and on top of core monitoring functionality, Microsoft have added a Web page content monitoring feature.  When monitoring a URL that represents a Web page, this feature can parse the Web page content, extract and monitor all content resources (images, scripts, style sheets, etc).

You will find this feature very useful when you care about monitoring resources used by a Web page that change frequently.  You could monitor the Web page content by explicitly adding the URLs that point to the resources, but that would require keeping the monitor in sync with the Web page as the resources it uses change.

You will also find this feature useful as a link checker because it can automatically extract and monitor all links on a Web page.

Watch this space for news on the RTW of this great MP