Planning for Configuration

  • Article

When you plan for your configuration, you must take into account the environment in which you will be installing MOM. The main areas to consider, when determining how to deploy and configure MOM, are:

  • The network

  • Business groups

  • Monitoring groups

  • Locale/language

Network

Network planning is driven by three critical factors: distributed sites, firewalls, and available connection speeds. It is important to realize that these factors are not mutually exclusive.

Remote Sites

How you deploy MOM will depend on the number of servers that you are managing, in the various sites that you have. You can use the following guidelines for your planning:

  • If the number of managed computers is less than 25, use a central Management Server.

  • If the number of managed computers is between 25 and 1000, you should consider putting a Management Server in each remote location.

  • If the number of managed computers is greater than a 1000, deploy MOM across multiple tiers, and then transfer information from the remote site to a central site. Figure 4 illustrates this type of deployment, which uses product connectors to provide the links between the sites.

As shown in Figure 4, the remote site has its own management group, which is referred to as the source management group. Information collected for this management group is passed to the management group at the central site, which is the destination management group. The destination management group functions as a centralized source for enterprise monitoring.

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Figure 4 MOM deployed across two tiers

Network Speeds

When you are determining where to put the Management Server, you need to consider three factors:

  • The number of managed computers per site.

  • The average network speed between your sites.

  • The number of sites where you are managing computers.

If possible, you should use high-bandwidth communication links between the following MOM components:

  • Management Server and MOM database

  • MOM database and MOM Reporting Server

  • Administrator/Operator consoles and the Management Server

Because the traffic is lower, you can use slower communication links between the following MOM components:

  • Management Server and agent

  • Reporting Server and Reporting console

  • Management Server and Web console

Tip

It is a general best practice to put your MOM database and the System Center Reporting database on a high speed connection. Additionally, install your Administrator and Operator consoles on a fast connection to the Management Servers and Database Server.

Firewalls

Firewalls will impact your deployment strategy. MOM supports several types of communications through a firewall, but agents cannot be push-installed when the firewall is in service. MOM supports HTTP, MOM channel, and OLE DB communication through a firewall. DCOM communication is possible, though it is not recommended or supported. Remote procedure call (RPC) communication is not supported.

HTTP communication HTTP communication is supported between the following components:

  • Web server and Web console

  • Reporting server and Reporting console

  • File transfer server and agent

  • Microsoft Connection Framework

MOM channel communication MOM channel communication is supported between the agent and the Management Server only.

OLE DB communication OLE DB communication is supported between the following components:

  • Management Server and MOM database

  • MOM database and MOM Reporting database

  • MOM Reporting database and Reporting Server

  • SQL Reporting Services databases and Reporting Server

DCOM communication DCOM communication is possible between the Administrator and Operator consoles and the Management Server, but Microsoft does not recommend, or support, this implementation. If you decide to use DCOM, you must:

  • Use DCOM port binding.

  • Disable network address translation (NAT).

  • Open port 135 on the firewall.

RPC communication (NOT supported) RPC communication is not supported between the Management Server and an agentless managed computer.

Configuring around Business Groups, Monitoring Groups, or Language Groups

Consider organizing management groups around business, monitoring or language groups. You might have, for example, a security group, or you might have a Network Operations Center (NOC) team. Locale and language considerations are important if you're a multinational company. For example, you might have to:

  • Create a management group for each business unit, such as manufacturing and sales.

  • Create a separate management group for the Security team by using multihomed agents.

  • Create a management group for your international sites, such as English and German. See the sample scenario later in this section.

By using multitiered management groups, you can isolate monitoring activity, according to logical business units or physical locations, while also maintaining a centralized monitoring function. You can have up to 10 source management groups, communicating with a destination management group. You cannot have more than three tiers of management groups.

Scenario

A multinational company has a central Network Operations Center in the United States (Destination Management group), and a remote site in Germany (Source Management group). What is the best planning approach for this scenario?

Solution

When planning for this scenario, the following deployment scenarios are available:

  • Set up two management groups and have two sets of operators (one for each language). Each management group/operator group manages like-language servers. There is no sharing of information between the two groups; they operate independently.

  • Set up two management groups and two sets of operators (one for each language). The German Management Group manages only German servers. The English Management Group manages English servers. Using the MOM-to-MOM product connector, the German Management Group forwards data into English (all events are German, but knowledge is English). However, the German operators can continue to monitor German servers in German (events and knowledge) from the German Management Group.

  • Set up a single management group (with the language as English) to manage German and English servers. The events will be in the language of the operating system generating the event. All knowledge will be in English.