New in SP1, Microsoft will now allow two ACS collectors to point to the same ACS database, but with only one active at a time. One acts as the primary collector, the other acts as the failover/secondary collector, which can only be enabled when the primary one failed or is disabled.

Pete Zerger and I have written a step-by-step walkthrough of the configuration and testing process for redundant ACS collectors. You can download the guide here.

I have seen a number of questions regarding notification log on the root management server (RMS). Unfortunately this is not a standard function, instead you have to look in the logfile of the mailserver, if it is SMTP notification. But there is a lot of operations manager administrators who don´t have access to the mailserver or the SMTP logfiles. I have written a script to show you a solution to this, a script that will create a local notification logfile on the RMS.

 

 

Recipient – Configure your recipients with a notification device that use this channel. When you setup the notification channel, you input a name, use this as channel for the notification device. Input the recipient e-mail address as delivery address for the selected channel.

Notifiation Channel – Setup a new command notification channel. This is the settings I use in my lab

Notification command channel name: VBLogFile
Full path to file: c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe
Command line parameters: /c C:\send_mail.vbs “$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertName$” “$Data/Context/DataItem/ManagedEntityPath$\$Data/Context/DataItem
/ManagedEntityDisplayName$” “$Data/Context/DataItem/AlertDescription$” “$Data/Context/DataItem/LastModifiedBy$” “$Data/Context/DataItem/Severity$” “$Data/Context/DataItem/Priority$” “$Data/Context/DataItem/ResolutionStateName$” “$Data/Recipients/To/Address/Address$”
Intial directory: C:\

Note that all Ops Mgr parameters are between ” “, else the script will not work if the parameter includes a blank space. With my example settings the script has to be C:\send_mail.vbs and the logfile will be created in the same directory.

The script , send_mail.vbs, will get a number of parameters from the command notification channel. It will then translate severity and priority into words and send the mail. After that it output some data variables to the logfile, psmgr_notification_logfile.txt.

You should change strFROM and strSMTP. strFROM is the sender e-mail address and strSMTP is the FQDN of your mailserver.

You can download the script here.

If you want to add more parameters, there are a lot of them at Kevin Holman’s webpage, here.

Here are a some tools that is useful to know about when working with Ops Mgr 2007:

• Create URL Monitor, script to create url monitors, download
• Agent MM, a command line tool to place OpsMgr agents into Maintenance mode, download
• Creating overrides using the SDK, download
• DumpMpContents, dump the contents of a management pack, download
• GroupMM, takes a group and puts all the computers in the group, download
• MP2XMLDUMPER, export MP to XML, download
• MPTOXML, Converting a sealed management pack to readable XML, download
• MPViewer, show the contents of a management pack, for example rules, monitors, views, tasks, console tasks and reports, download
• OpsMgr 2007 Database and Data Warehouse Size Calculator, download
• Agent Proxy Configuration Tool, download
• ProxySettings, enabling proxying for agents, download
• Run As profile configuration helper, configure a RunAs profile for agents in bulk, download
• Counts and displays the number of security events generated every second, download
• How to specify which RunAs account to use for a particular RunAs profile on a particular agent, download

Thanks to Stuart B. Renes for the list.

I have seen a number of questions about different notifiation scenarios. I thought I could write down a comment to some of the most comment ones.

All alert for all machines within a group

In the “create new subscription wizard” unselect all groups and then select only the group including the current machines. Then select all classes and all alert criterias.

All alerts for a specified technology

In the “create new subscription wizard” unselect all classes and then select the current technology. For example if you want all alerts related to Active Directory, select all Active Directory classes.

All alerts for a specified technology on a specifyed machines

In the “create new subscription wizard” unselect all groups and then select only the group including the current machines. Then select all classes and all alert criterias. Unselect all classes and then select the current technology. For example if you want all alerts related to Exchange, select all Exchange classes.

All alerts an special alert

This in not as easy as in MOM 2005. But you can still solve it. Please take a look at this post and this post.

All alerts for all machines within a OU

Please take a look at this post.

All alerts for all machines within a AD Site

Start by create a new group within Ops Mgr. Configure dynamic members, select the Windows Computer class and choose Active Directory Site as property. The query formula should look something like this ( Object is Windows Computer AND ( Active Directory Site Equals Paris ) AND True ) . In this example the AD site is named Paris. In the “create new subscription wizard” unselect all groups and then select only the group including the current machines. Then select all classes and all alert criterias.

 

Pete and I wrote a guide about configure notification in Ops Mgr, you can read it here. If you need to configure notification on heartbeat failure, please take a look at this post. I have also written posts about alert aging and SMS notification.