Design the MOM Topology

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Evaluate the supported MOM deployment topologies and determine which topologies to implement. Map the MOM topology to your current network topology:

  • Map the supported topologies to the current network design. Account for requirements, such as database clustering and redundant Management Servers.

  • Map the data center scenarios to the design.

  • Map the reporting and data warehousing scenarios to the design.

  • Verify that link speeds, security features, and other network features are accounted for.

  • Account for future growth or changes, including network growth, organizational changes, growing monitoring requirements, etc.

Design Best Practices

By using multihomed agents, management groups with different monitoring scopes can monitor the same computers. When you design management groups:

  • Limit the number of management groups to reduce the complexity, and the administrative requirements, of deploying and operating MOM. A multihomed agent can belong to no more than four management groups.

  • Use multiple management groups with multihomed agents as a way to distribute monitoring responsibilities across groups within your IT department, or to create redundancy for disaster recovery.

  • Use a unique name for each management group.

  • In large environments, use separate management groups to monitor Microsoft Exchange 2000 and Active Directory directory services.

  • Use a separate management group to collect security data, if security auditing is required, and you are monitoring more than 200 managed computers.

Planning for Agent Deployment

Agent installation, or deployment, involves a few security requirements and some security implications. You can choose the security context that the Agent Action Account runs under. You can deploy agents remotely by using the Install/Uninstall Agents Wizard in the Administrator console, or manually by using the Agent Setup Wizard on the remote computer. For more information about the Agent Action Account security context, see the MOM 2005 Security Guide.

Design the User Experience

Prescribe a MOM console for each of the user roles and specify customizations that are required to support these users, based on user requirements. Specify security features to apply to user interfaces, such as allowing or limiting access to MOM functionality based on user roles. For more information, see the MOM 2005 Conceptual Guide.

Plan for Hardware

Based on your proposed MOM topology, create a list of required hardware.

Conduct a Design Review

Conduct a formal review of all design documents resulting from this design phase. Ensure that changes that are implemented as a result of design reviews are then reviewed again by everybody on your MOM project team.

Signing Off on the MOM Design

After review feedback has been incorporated into your design documents, conduct a formal signoff to complete this phase of the project.