Cloud & Datacenter Monitoring with System Center Operations Manager (10964-C) Training Course

Module 1: Overview and Architecture

Before implementing Operations Manager, it is essential to understand its key features and functionalities. This understanding will help you recognize how Operations Manager can address common challenges in cloud or datacenter environments, such as maintaining service levels and ensuring the availability and optimal performance of critical line-of-business applications.

Operations Manager is a robust monitoring solution that requires thorough planning before deployment into any IT environment. It is crucial to comprehend the hardware and software requirements of the solution and any security implications, such as monitoring computers within trust boundaries, perimeter networks, or public clouds. When configuring storage for the Operations Manager databases, it is important to have a clear understanding of the number of monitored computers and devices to appropriately size the databases.

This module introduces participants to the components within an Operations Manager Management Group and describes the dependencies and relationships between these components. Participants will learn how to plan for and design an Operations Manager Management Group.

Lessons

• Overview of Operations Manager
• Key Features in Operations Manager
• Core Components and Topology
• Addressing Cloud and Datacenter Issues with Operations Manager
• Planning and Sizing System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager

Module 2: Deploying a New System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager Management Group

When planning a new deployment of Operations Manager, it is important to consider both hardware and sizing requirements, as well as other factors. These include the security accounts required by Operations Manager and the design of the Management Group. For example, you may need to install two separate Management Groups to scale Operations Manager to meet your monitoring needs.

After installing Operations Manager, it is crucial to configure common settings such as data retention (database grooming) and manual agent installation approval. You should also be familiar with available agent deployment methods, including the console (or push) method and manual installation for deploying agents in Operations Manager.

Lessons

• Security Considerations
• Designing the Management Group
• Installing System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager
• Configuring Default Settings in Operations Manager
• Deploying the Operations Manager Agent
• Configuring Agentless Exception Monitoring (AEM)
• Configuring Audit Collection Services

Module 3: Upgrading Operations Manager

If you have already invested in Operations Manager 2007 R2, it is important to understand the upgrade path from Operations Manager 2007 R2 to System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager.

The core components can only be upgraded from Operations Manager 2007 R2 or later environments. Earlier versions of Operations Manager must first be upgraded to Operations Manager 2007 R2 before proceeding to System Center 2012 Operations Manager. Additionally, the Operations Manager 2007 R2 installation must be running at least Cumulative Update 4.

Before upgrading to System Center 2012 Operations Manager, several important tasks must be completed. This module will cover the upgrade order and necessary steps for transitioning to System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager.

Lessons

• Migration and Upgrade Planning
• Upgrading to System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager
• Migrating to System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager

Module 4: Configuring Fabric and Application Monitoring

Once Operations Manager is deployed and agents are installed on the computers hosting the applications and services you need to monitor, you must install Management Packs to begin monitoring. Before installing Management Packs, it is important to understand Management Pack concepts, including all elements of a Management Pack.

You should also know how to configure fabric and application monitoring in Operations Manager for both private and public cloud environments. This includes understanding the integration between Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager, as well as how to integrate Operations Manager with Windows Azure.

Additionally, you should understand how to configure Management Packs to monitor applications running on your fabric, such as Microsoft SQL Server, IIS Server, and SharePoint Server. Finally, you should know how to integrate Operations Manager with System Center Advisor to view Advisor alerts related to your fabric components and applications.

Lessons

• Introduction to Management Packs
• Configuring Network Device Monitoring
• Configuring Fabric Monitoring
• Configuring Application Monitoring

Module 5: Application Performance Monitoring

Many organizations use the Microsoft .NET Framework to build custom applications, such as intranet web sites. Since there may not be available Management Packs for these custom applications, it is important to understand how Application Performance Monitoring (APM) is configured in Operations Manager. APM provides extensive monitoring for .NET and Java-based applications, including both server and client-side monitoring.

In addition to directly monitoring .NET applications through Operations Manager, you should understand how APM can be used with the full functionality of Visual Studio IntelliTrace Collector for gathering detailed application profiling traces. With System Center 2012, you can also integrate Operations Manager with Team Foundation Server. It is important to know how this integration is configured so that Operations Manager can synchronize alerts with work items in Team Foundation Server.

Lessons

• Application Performance Monitoring
• Using IntelliTrace
• Team Foundation Server Integration

Module 6: End-to-End Service Monitoring

When monitoring key line-of-business applications, it is essential to perform monitoring from both a data center and an end-user perspective. In this module, you will learn how to create synthetic transactions to measure end-user performance.

You will also learn how to combine component monitoring with synthetic transactions in distributed application models that describe the relationship between various components of an application. This provides a single view for identifying root cause and impact of potential service outages.

Finally, you will learn how to build rich Visio dashboards to display real-time health information to external users.

Lessons

• Management Pack Templates
• Distributed Application Models
• Global Service Monitor
• Real-Time Visio Dashboards

Module 7: Scorecards, Dashboards, and Reporting

Visualizing service and application health in Operations Manager is a key feature that enables quick and easy creation of at-a-glance views. These views (or dashboards) can instantly display performance and availability for one or more applications in a single pane.

It is important to understand how to create scorecards and dashboards to provide different types of users within the business with insights into how the monitored environment is performing. For example, a Service Owner may require a high-level view showing whether end-users can access a service, while an executive may need a view indicating whether a service is in or out of SLA.

Reporting is also crucial for understanding how the monitored environment is performing. Personnel who do not have access to the Operations Console or receive alerts by email may still require important information about the health and performance of key applications and services. In such cases, reports can provide an interface into collected Operations Manager data.

Service and application owners must also be aware that services provided to the business are meeting service level agreements for performance and availability. Therefore, it is essential to understand how Service Level Tracking is configured and displayed in Operations Manager.

Lessons

• Configuring and Managing Reporting in Operations Manager
• Configuring Service Level Tracking
• Configuring the Operations Manager SharePoint WebPart
• Configuring Dashboards and Widgets
• Creating Custom Dashboards

Module 8: Configuring and Customizing the Console

Application support teams that use Operations Manager can access it via a locally installed console or through the Web Console. Within an application support team, there are typically various roles requiring different levels of permissions when using the Operations Console. These range from read-only users to advanced operators. Additionally, all these roles must be limited to only display data about the computers and applications for which they are responsible. In this module, you will learn how to use the built-in role-based security in Operations Manager to provide granular access to data, views, and tasks.

Application support teams often require customized views within the console for their key applications. You will also learn how to design and provision these views for relevant support teams.

While some team members may always have the console open, other teams may need notifications when an issue is detected. Operations Manager uses Notifications and Notification Channels to achieve this functionality. This module describes how to configure these and send email alerts to key teams.

Finally, to reduce workload on application support teams, you will learn how to configure Diagnostic and Recovery tasks in Operations Manager. This provides a method for diagnosing and automating the remediation of detected issues.

Lessons

• Security, Scoping, and User Roles
• Creating Custom Views and Alert Resolution States
• Configuring Notification Subscriptions
• Creating Diagnostic and Recovery Tasks

Module 9: Management Pack Authoring

For common applications such as Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Exchange Server, fully developed Management Packs are already available. You can extend the default monitoring in Operations Manager by creating rules, monitors, and groups within the Operators console.

However, it may be necessary to author a completely new management pack to monitor custom applications. To achieve this, you would author the management pack in Visual Studio, seal the management pack, and deploy it. The management pack should then automatically discover and monitor the components of the application.

Management Pack authoring is a detailed topic that requires a foundational understanding of core concepts before proceeding. This module will cover these topics, including how to create a Management Pack in both the console and Visual Studio.

Lessons

• Management Pack Authoring Concepts
• Authoring Management Packs Using the Operations Console
• Authoring Management Packs Using the Visual Studio Authoring Extensions

Module 10: Integrating Operations Manager with Other System Center Components

System Center 2012 R2 consists of several components that provide comprehensive management of the IT environment, including server and desktop infrastructure and networking infrastructure. You can also manage client devices using System Center 2012 R2.

You should integrate the System Center 2012 R2 components to provide seamless management of the IT environment from both a cloud and datacenter perspective. This integration enables easier and more flexible management of the cloud and datacenter environment and facilitates automation of many manual processes, enhancing efficiency for government operations.

In this module, you will learn about key features of other System Center 2012 R2 components and the benefits achieved when integrating Operations Manager with them.

Lessons

• Service Manager Integration
• Data Protection Manager Integration
• Orchestrator Integration

Module 11: Troubleshooting, Tuning, and Disaster Recovery

Your monitoring solution must be highly available to ensure that key line-of-business applications are available and performing at optimal levels at all times. Additionally, ensuring your system is fully optimized helps prevent outages and performance degradation of the monitoring solution. In this module, you will learn how to optimize the data warehouse to maintain the correct volume of data.

It is important to know where to look when troubleshooting problems. This includes using reports to understand performance and identifying which logs to investigate on both management servers and agents.

To increase overall service availability, you may consider configuring SQL AlwaysOn for Operations Manager. This will enhance the availability of the database layer.

If a component within the Operations Manager environment fails, it is equally important to understand how to recover the failed component. In this final module, you will learn how to optimize, troubleshoot, and perform disaster recovery in Operations Manager.

Lessons

• Troubleshooting Core Components of Operations Manager
• Tuning Management Packs
• Configuring SQL AlwaysOn for Operations Manager
• Configuring Data Retention in Operations Manager
• Disaster Recovery in Operations Manager