Active Directory Management Pack Guide

  • Article

Microsoft Operations Manager 2007 provides two Management Packs for Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS): one that monitors the domain controllers, and one that monitors Active Directory clients. To monitor the domain controllers, the Active Directory Server Management Pack provides a predefined, ready-to-run set of processing rules, monitoring scripts, and reports that are designed specifically to monitor the performance and availability of the Active Directory domain controllers. This Management Pack monitors events that are placed in the Application, System, and Directory Service event logs by various Active Directory components and subsystems. It also monitors the overall health of Active Directory and alerts you to critical performance issues.

Member servers or desktop clients can sometimes experience issues even though the servers are healthy. The Active Directory Client Management Pack helps to identify these issues. This Management Pack is used with the Active Directory Management Pack and ensures that Active Directory is available for Microsoft Exchange and other directory-enabled applications. It also provides additional information about whether the domain controllers are available by running synthetic transactions against the directory service, such as LDAP binds and LDAP pings.

This Management Pack does not address Sysvol replication, even though some aspects of Active Directory, such as Group Policy settings for scripts for startup, shut down, logon, and logoff, rely directly on Sysvol replication. If monitoring the File Replication System (FRS) or Distributed File System Replication (DFSR) event log is not sufficient, import the FRS or DFSR Management Packs and, in the case of FRS, deploy the Ultrasound monitoring and troubleshooting tool.

Document Version

This guide was written based on the February 2008 version of the Active Directory Management Pack.

Getting the latest Management Pack and Management Pack Documentation

You can find the latest Active Directory Management Packs at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=82105. The latest version of this document is available at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=85414.

Changes in This Update

The February 2008 release of this management pack with Operations Manager 2007 SP1 includes the following changes:

  • Corrected characters in alert resolution when attempting to make a rule for a non-existent domain
  • Fixed overrides in AD_Database_and_Log_LOG.Monitortype
  • Fixed script problem with ADLocalDiscoveryDC.vbs non-discovery case script
  • Fixed incorrect overrides
  • Enabled discovery of domain controllers that belong to an organizational unit (OU) that is a child OU of the Domain Controller OU
  • Fixed problem in AD Ops Manager Response Script
  • Fixed default settings in some scripts
  • Fixed problem with LastDiscovery property update
  • Disabled duplicate alert for global catalog availability
  • Fixed problem with AD Replication script AD_Replication_Monitoring_Helper1.vbs
  • Fixed problem where alert severity did not match health for some monitors
  • Fixed problem viewing properties for the AD Validate Trust Event Monitor
  • Removed duplicate "Number of Samples" tab in monitor properties