Agreed. The more you plan, the more you get out of it. Been using it for some time and I think it adds a lot of value if you work it into your processes.
As an example, I have it now in a test lab (it's on production, but this is a different test we're undergoing) and it has saved all kinds of time figuring out what needed attention etc. Much faster than trying scan the event logs, use the numerous tools etc. In production, I've noticed that while it's nice to get the packs from Microsoft, our tolerance is not the same. Some adjustment is required, but nowhere near what it would take without that (we have an alternate system as well, but it requires tons of scripting to be useful). That's really the key to MOM: useful out of the box. And as they'll tell you, who better to tell you how and what to monitor in a Microsoft environment than Microsoft? :) I have seen people implement MOM without much development of process. In those cases, it resulted in redeployments. So read the paperwork and develop the solution as much as possible. Outside of that, one of the things that would be really helpful is not having that 15gb recommended limit size (grooming won't likely finish if you go over that) meaning you have to move the data to another db for long term storage if you want to keep it for trending. I think that should be included as part of the product as a wizard or something (rumor has it that it will be that way in the next version) since the real power of MOM is as a data collection point. It does alerts and repairs but it's main purpose is to be a collection point for lots of information. Reporting should get better shortly as well, as they move away from (hopefully they are but it makes sense) Access as the reporting engine. Bottom line, if you have more than just Active Directory to monitor or more than a couple of sites to monitor, MOM can be a great tool. For a small shop, it may be a little too much as far as I'm concerned. In a smaller shop I'd be more interested in tactical information about my system so I can concentrate on the other things I have to do. MOM gives a lot more information than just what a tactical approach needs. My thoughts anyway. Al -----Original Message----- From: Fuller, Stuart [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 4:45 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Microsoft Operations Manager Brent, We have MOM 2000 monitoring our empty root domain with plans to include our main user domain in the near future. From what I have seen the AD health checks are very robust and fairly useful. The real value that I have seen so far with MOM is in performance monitoring and reporting. If you remember the AD sizer tool, one of the questions it asks you is the "number of logons per second"... Well with MOM that number is easily available and shows up in a nice report that you don't have to dig for. I heard a talk last year at TechEd from the MOM program manager who discussed the use of MOM on Microsoft's internal network and the work and collaboration between the MOM team and the MS internal support team. The gist of the spiel was that with the AD management pack you are basically getting a set of rules, health checks, and alerts that were proofed, developed, and tweaked through use on MS's production network. The gotchas I found with MOM is the amount of planning, testing, and learning you need to do before deploying it. This is one of those products where the more you put into it the more you will get out it. MOM is really easy to install but the "okay what next" part is much harder. If you have a large distributed DC environment and/or plan to use MOM for other Windows systems, then you really have to plan out things like configuration groups, event forwarding, database archiving, and server sizing. We have a fairly simple AD environment and can accommodate it with a single MOM configuration group and two dedicated MOM servers (one DCAM/reporting - one SQL). If AD health is all you are really after and don't need the event alerting, performance monitoring, reporting that comes with MOM, then look at the health check scripts from the Microsoft Branch Office Deployment Guide (see http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/technologies/ac tivedirectory/deploy/adguide/default.mspx) HTH -Stuart -----Original Message----- From: Brent Westmoreland [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 19, 2004 1:35 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [ActiveDir] Microsoft Operations Manager I am busy researching the Microsoft Operations Manager software, specifically for AD health. Does anyone have any real world experience messing with this? I am specifically wondering how much value this could add to an organization, any gotchas, etc. Brent List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/mail_list.htm List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/list_faq.htm List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/
