Overview of Monitoring

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Essential Business Server

This document explains how to use the following technologies to monitor your Windows® Essential Business Server environment:

  • The Windows EBS Administration Console

  • Microsoft® System Center Essentials 2007

Both the Windows EBS Administration Console and System Center Essentials are installed on the Windows EBS Management Server.

Using the Administration Console

You can monitor critical aspects of your network directly in the Windows EBS Administration Console. The Administration Console periodically collects status information and statistics from the server technologies that are included in Windows EBS (such as System Center Essentials, System Center Essentials agents that are installed on managed devices, Microsoft Active Directory® Domain Services, and services for Windows EBS) to help you perform the following:

  • System Health Monitoring.   On the System Health tab, click Health Monitor to monitor whether your network can carry out the following critical business functions for your users: allow users to log on to the network, access network resources and the Internet, and send and receive e-mail.

  • Security Component Monitoring.   On the Security tab, click Components to monitor the health and activity of the e-mail anti-malware, e-mail anti-spam, network firewall, and Update Management security components.

  • Computer and Device Monitoring.   On the Computers and Devices tab, click Managed Computers and Devices to monitor the health and update status of the managed computers and devices that are in your Active Directory domain.

  • Client Access License Monitoring.   On the Licenses tab, click License Management to monitor the allocation of Windows EBS client access licenses (CALs) to user accounts and to devices.

Using System Center Essentials

System Center Essentials monitors, troubleshoots, and tracks your assets in order to provide a comprehensive view of the health and performance of your Windows EBS environment. System Center Essentials uses the rules and monitors that are in management packs to monitor your managed computers as well as other network devices in your environment that are discovered by System Center Essentials. On computers in your domain that are running a Windows operating system, System Center Essentials deploys a management agent to perform monitoring and management tasks. System Center Essentials monitors other network devices without deploying agents.

System Center Essentials is the source of the alerts that appear in the Windows EBS Administration Console. To obtain more information about these alerts, use the links in the tasks pane that open specific alert views in the System Center Essentials console. In the System Center Essentials console, click an alert in the results pane to see additional information and recommended resolution steps in the details pane. For more information, see Investigate and Resolve Alerts in System Center Essentials.

System Center Essentials imports a default set of management packs when you install Windows EBS, in order to support the monitoring of the server technologies and client computers in Windows EBS. You can import additional management packs to monitor other components of your network. For more information about the management packs that are imported in System Center Essentials, see Appendix: Management Packs Installed with Windows Essential Business Server, later in this document. For a procedure to import a management pack, see Import a Management Pack in System Center Essentials, also later in the document.

You can use the System Center Essentials console to find a broad range of monitoring and performance data for your environment, as well as to configure monitoring settings. For example, you can use the views in the Monitoring pane to find and resolve alerts in the network components that are not monitored in the Windows EBS Administration Console. And you can use the System Center Essentials console to configure alert notifications, disable or enable monitoring rules, and perform other monitoring tasks.

For information about procedures that can help you use and configure the monitoring functionality in System Center Essentials in Windows EBS, see Monitoring Operations with System Center Essentials, later in this document.

For more information about using System Center Essentials, see the following:

Additional references

Monitoring in Windows EBS is integrated closely with the architecture, administration, and security features of Windows EBS. You can find additional information on the Microsoft Web site, as follows:

If you have additional monitoring requirements, you can use the native monitoring tools and features that are included in the Windows Server® 2008 Standard operating system or the other server technologies that are part of Windows EBS (such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2008 and Microsoft Forefront™ Threat Management Gateway). Guidance for using these additional monitoring tools and features is beyond the scope of this document. For links to more information, see Additional Monitoring Resources, later in this document.