Glossary for System Center 2012 - Operations Manager

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager, System Center 2012 - Operations Manager, System Center 2012 SP1 - Operations Manager

Term

Definition

action account

The Windows account that is used by the MonitoringHost.exe processes to gather data from providers and to run actions, such as scripts and command-line batch files, on monitored devices.

agent

The feature that is installed on a Windows-based computer that performs management. The agent collects data, compares sampled data to predefined values, creates alerts, and runs responses.

Agentless Exception Monitoring

A feature in Operations Manager that allows the collection of client application crash data to a single location on a management server, resulting in data that can then be analyzed by your company for patterns.

agentless managed computer

A computer without an agent that is monitored by a management server or a proxy agent.

agent-managed computer

A computer that has an agent installed on it and that reports to a management group.

alert

An indication of a significant event requiring attention. Alerts are created by rules and monitors.

alert severity

The property of an alert indicating the seriousness of the condition it communicates, such as, Service Unavailable, Security Issue, Critical Error, Error, Warning, Information, and Success.

Alert view

A view in the Operations console that displays the alerts that the console user has the rights to see about a specific object.

Audit Collection Services

A service, required by Operations Manager, that collects and forwards all security events from monitored computers to a central database.

class

A definition of an item that can be discovered and managed. A class can be targeted by monitors, rules, discoveries, and tasks.

company knowledge

An editable field of a rule or monitor in which you can capture any relevant information about the required steps to resolve an alert that was raised by the rule or monitor.

data warehouse server

The server that hosts the OperationsManagerDW database.

discovery

An element in a management pack that defines logic for locating monitored objects and their properties and relationships between different objects.

Event view

A view in the Operations console that displays specified events in the management group that the console user has the rights to see.

Favorite view

A view available from the My Workspace area of the Operations console where you can save views that you regularly use, similar to how you save a webpage to your Favorites list in Internet Explorer.

gateway server

A server role in Operations Manager that enables the monitoring of computers that lie outside of the Kerberos trust boundaries (Kerberos realm) of the management group.

heartbeat

A message generated by an agent that tells its management server that the agent is functioning. It also informs Operations Manager about the current rules that are evaluated by the agent, and if it is necessary, it requests updates.

management group

The basic functional unit of an Operations Manager implementation that can perform monitoring. It must contain a SQL Server 2008 database server, one or more management servers, one or more Operations consoles, and one or more agents. In addition, it can also contain a reporting server, a gateway server, and an Audit Collection Services server.

management pack

A set of files that you install for use with Operations Manager and that allow you to monitor applications and add functionality to Operations Manager.

management server

The component of an Operations Manager management group that is responsible for communication with agents, databases, and the root management server.

model

In Operations Manager, a software representation of hardware, software, services and other logical components that are in your environment. The model captures the nature of those components and the relationships between them.

monitor

In Operations Manager, an element in a management pack that defines logic for determining the health state of an object. A monitor can set health state.

Operations console

The Operations Manager interface that you use to perform monitoring, administration, authoring, and reporting functions.

Operations Manager Connector Framework

An interface to the System Center Data Access Service that allows applications to synchronously communicate with a management server.

Operations Manager Health Explorer

A feature of Operations Manager that allows you to view and then take action on alerts, state changes, and other significant issues generated by monitoring objects on your network.

Operations Manager reporting server

The server role that is responsible for building and presenting reports.

Operations Manager Shell

A customized instance of Windows PowerShell that provides a collection of Operations Manager-specific cmdlets.

override

A mechanism by which the default behavior of a rule, monitor, or discovery can be changed for a specific target, group, or object.

Performance view

The Operations console pane that displays specified performance information.

product connector

A software component that is used to synchronize data between Operations Manager and other management systems.

product knowledge

Content, embedded in rules and monitors, that contains information from the management pack author about the causes of an alert and suggestions on how to fix the issue that caused an alert to be raised.

reporting data warehouse

An Operations Manager feature that manages the OperationsManagerDW database and that can be independently installed.

resolution state

The state of an alert in relation to its status in the resolution cycle. The default resolution states include New, Acknowledged, and Resolved.

resource pool

A collection of management servers that automatically distributes Operations Manager workflows between the management servers in that collection. If one or more management servers become unavailable, the workflows are automatically redistributed.

rule

In Operations Manager, an element in a management pack that defines the events and performance data to collect from computers, and what to do with the information after it is collected. A rule cannot set a health state.

Run As account

A Windows account that can be associated with a Run As profile, and that can use the Windows Authentication, NTLM, Basic, or Digest methods of authentication.

synthetic transaction

A method that can be used to test the availability or performance of a specific service or application from the perspective of an end user. In Operations Manager, these are initiated by rules and monitors.

System Center Data Access service

A Windows service that runs on the management servers in each management group, and that allows client applications to access Operations Manager data and functionality.

task

In Operations Manager, an element in a management pack that is manually initiated by an operator to run a predefined command or script against a monitored object.

user role

A combination of a profile and a scope. A profile defines actions that a user is allowed to perform. A scope defines the objects on which the actions can be performed.

view

In the Operations console, a display of a filtered set of data from the OperationsManagerDB database.

web console

The browser-based interface that allows you to access the monitoring and reporting workspaces according to your user role.