Administrator Console - MOM Administrator Features and Concepts

As noted earlier, the Administrator console is used to administer MOM infrastructure - the management group, the computers in the management group, and the custom console scopes for operations support team members. The following table lists the main categories and sub-categories in the Administration node of the navigation pane and summarizes the purpose of each.

Table 2 Administrator console - Administration

The basic MOM operations management unit is a management group, which contains a management server and managed computers.

MOM Management Server

The MOM Management Server fulfills several critical roles in the management environment. It:

• Deploys Management Pack configuration information to the Agent-managed computers; and in the case of Agentless Managed computers, applies specific rules when contacting these computers.

• Provides an environment for creating, modifying, and applying Management Packs

• Provides the tools for administering the MOM environment.

• Communicates with the Data Access Service (DAS) to interface with the MOM Database.

Managed Computers

MOM implements two approaches to managing computers, Agent-managed and Agentless Managed. MOM also enables you identify and track unmanaged computers.

Agent-managed

In the agent-managed scenario you use MOM to install software on the computer that you want to manage. This component, MOM Agent, runs a local service on the computer you where you installed it and monitors this computer using the Management Pack rules that are installed as part of the agent installation.

You can install agents automatically from the Administrator console or manually by logging on to the computer where you want to install an agent.

Agentless Managed

In the agentless scenario MOM does not install any software on the computer that you want to manage. Instead, the MOM Agent, which runs locally in the MOM Management Server runtime, collects data from the managed computer.

Unmanaged

This management state is used in cases where you want to identify computers that you will manage in the future, or that you have taken offline for maintenance purposes.

Note

As noted in Table 2, MOM supports Windows Server Cluster computer management as a special case for implementing Agent-managed, Agentless Managed, and Unmanaged computers.

Pending Actions

Not all actions occur automatically in MOM, some are stored in the Pending Actions folder and you have to explicitly approve the action.

Computer Discovery Rules

Computer discovery, not to be confused with Service discovery, is the processing of finding computers that you want to include in a management group. When you run the Install/Uninstall Agents wizard you are asked to specify a computer name(s) or search criteria where you can use wild cards for the computer name.

After the wizard completes its task, the discovery rule is listed in the Computer Discovery Rules folder. You can create custom discovery rules, change existing rules, and force computer discovery.

Console Scopes

Console scopes provide a tool that you can use for setting the scope of operational data viewing in the Operator console. MOM Administrators, for example, need to view different data than a Tier 1 operator in the MOM Users group.

Three scopes are defined for the Operator console: MOM Author, MOM Administrator, and MOM User. By default each scope has access to all the Computer Groups defined in the MOM Management Pack.

You can edit the existing scopes to remove access to specific groups or give specific users access to one of the existing scopes.

You can also create custom scopes that enable you to further compartmentalize your operations environment.

Global Settings

There are several aspects of the MOM environment where global settings are used by default. In some cases, its desirable to override or change a global setting. You can view and change the following settings:

• Custom Alert Fields

• Alert Resolution States

• Operational Data Reports

• Email Server

• Communications

• Security

• Web Addresses

• Database Grooming

• Notification Command Format

• Management Servers

• Agents

Product Connectors

Product connectors, which are implemented by the MOM Connector Framework (MCF), give you a tool for setting up multi-tier MOM environments. In a multi-tier environment, alerts and configuration information from one management group (Source Management Group) are forwarded to another management group (Destination Management Group). MOM provides a wizard that steps you through the process of creating a MOM-to-MOM Connector.

Typically, this type of intra-management group communications is two tier, but you can set up three tier configurations if you business requires it.