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

Module 1: Overview and Architecture

Before implementing Operations Manager, it is crucial to understand the key features and functionality it provides. This knowledge helps you leverage Operations Manager to resolve common problems in cloud or datacenter environments, such as maintaining service levels and ensuring critical line-of-business applications are available and performing optimally.

Operations Manager is a comprehensive monitoring solution that demands careful planning before deployment into any IT environment. You must understand the hardware and software requirements, as well as any security implications, such as monitoring computers within a trust boundary, perimeter network, or public cloud. When configuring storage for the Operations Manager databases, you should have a clear understanding of the number of monitored computers and devices to appropriately size the databases.

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

Lessons

• Overview of Operations Manager
• Overview of Key Features in Operations Manager
• Overview of Core Components and Topology
• Addressing Cloud and Datacenter Issues by Using 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, beyond hardware and sizing requirements, you should consider other factors. These include the security accounts required by Operations Manager and the design of the Management Group. For instance, you may need to install two separate Management Groups to scale Operations Manager to meet your monitoring needs.

After installing Operations Manager, you should be aware of common settings that need configuration, such as data retention (database grooming) settings and manual agent installation approval settings. You should also understand the available agent deployment methods, knowing when to use the console (push) method versus manual installation.

Lessons

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

Module 3: Upgrading Operations Manager

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

Upgrading core components to System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager is only possible in an Operations Manager 2007 R2 or later environment. Earlier versions, such as Operations Manager 2007 SP1, must first be upgraded to Operations Manager 2007 R2 before upgrading to System Center 2012 Operations Manager. Additionally, the Operations Manager 2007 R2 installation must have at least Cumulative Update 4 applied.

Several important tasks must be performed before upgrading to System Center 2012 Operations Manager. This module covers the upgrade order to follow when upgrading to System Center 2012 Operations Manager.

Before upgrading to System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager, the Management Group must be running System Center 2012 SP1 Operations Manager.

Lessons

• Overview of 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

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

You should also understand how to configure fabric and application monitoring in Operations Manager for both private and public cloud environments, including how Operations Manager integrates with Virtual Machine Manager and how to integrate Operations Manager with Windows Azure.

You should know how to configure Management Packs to monitor applications running on your fabric, such as Microsoft SQL Server, IIS Server, and SharePoint Server. Finally, understand how to configure integration between Operations Manager and 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

Most organizations use the Microsoft .NET Framework to build custom applications, such as intranet web sites. Since there is no available Management Pack for these custom applications, you should 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 monitoring .NET applications directly through Operations Manager, it is important to understand how APM works with the full functionality of Visual Studio IntelliTrace Collector for gathering full application profiling traces. With System Center 2012, you can also integrate Operations Manager with Team Foundation Server. Understanding this configuration is crucial 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, monitoring should be performed from both a data center perspective 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 relationships between various application components. This provides a single view for identifying the root cause and impact of any potential service outage.

Finally, you will learn how to build rich Visio dashboards to show real-time health 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 (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 business users with insights into the monitored environment's performance. For example, a Service Owner may require a high-level view showing whether end users can access a service, whereas an executive may need a view showing whether a service is within or outside the SLA.

Reporting is also vital for understanding the monitored environment's performance. Some personnel may not have access to the Operations Console or receive email alerts but still require access to important information about the health and performance of key applications and services. In such cases, reports provide an interface into the collected Operations Manager data.

Service and application owners must also know that services supplied to the business are meeting service level agreements for performance and availability. Therefore, you must know 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 do so via a locally installed console or through the Web Console. Typically, within an application support team, there are several roles requiring different permission levels in the Operations Console, ranging from read-only users to advanced operators. Furthermore, all roles must be limited to displaying data only about the computers and applications for which the operators 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 usually require customized views within the console for their key applications. You will also learn how to design and provision these views to relevant support teams.

While some team members may keep the console open, others may require 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 the workload on various 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 like 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 do this, you would author the Management Pack in Visual Studio, seal it, and then 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 covers these topics, including how to create a Management Pack in both the console and Visual Studio.

Lessons

• Management Packs Authoring Concepts
• Authoring Management Packs by using the Operations Console
• Authoring Management Packs by 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 complete management of the IT environment. This includes the server and desktop infrastructure, as well as the networking infrastructure that connects them. 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 offers easier and more flexible management of the cloud and datacenter environment and enables the automation of many manual processes.

In this module, you will learn several key features of other System Center 2012 R2 components and the benefits achieved by 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 your 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 deterioration of the monitoring solution's performance. In this module, you will learn how to optimize the data warehouse to ensure the correct volume of data is retained.

As with any critical system, it is important to know where to look when troubleshooting problems. This includes using reports to understand performance and knowing which logs to investigate on both management servers and agents.

To increase overall service availability, you may also 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 Operations Manager Core Components
• Tuning Management Packs
• Configuring SQL AlwaysOn for Operations Manager
• Configuring Data Retention in Operations Manager
• Disaster Recovery in Operations Manager