With the System Center Integration Pack for System Center 2012 Operations Manager we can integrate with Operations Manager and automate maintenance mode, alert handling, monitor for alerts, and state changes. Unfortunately there are no activities for handling management packs or management pack objects.

Some time ago I posted a blog post around self-service for Operations Manager (http://contoso.se/blog/?p=2764). That idea was built around creating new objects, like a rule, in XML and then import the management pack. While this works fine in some scenarios, there are other scenarios where it would be nice to have a bit more flexibility and reliability.

Russ Slaten (a true Texans with a lot of guns), a PFE colleague and Operations Manager Jedi from the US and I have built a first version of what we call “Operations Manager Admin Integration Pack” for Orchestrator. The purpose of this integration pack is to enable more self-service and automation scenarios in Operations Manager.

Activities in version 1 are

• Create MP. Creates a new management pack
• Create Performance Collection Rule. Creates a rule that collects performance data
• Create Event Alert Rule. Creates a rule that generates an alert based on event viewer event
• Delete Management Pack. Delete a management pack
• Delete Rule. Deletes an rule based on rule ID
• Export Management Pack. Exports a management pack
• Get Management Pack. Lists management packs from the management group
• Get Rule. List rules. With default settings the activity will list all rules, use the Displayname property to filter the search result
• Import Management Pack. Imports a management pack to the management group

These activities doesn’t use global connections, instead you can specify management server in each activity. This integration pack requires Operations Manager PowerShell snap-in on all Runbook servers.

As I think you have already realized, this integration pack enables a lot more self-service scenarios where non-Operations Manager Engineers can order new objects and handle management packs. Please take it for a spin and let us know what you think!

Example configuration for the “Create Rule Collection Performance” activity

OM   Server Name	SCOM-Lit.Litware.com
MP   Name	Custom.Example.Sandbox
Rule   Name	Custom.Example.Sandbox.Rule.Test1
Rule   Displayname	Sandbox   Test Rule 1
Rule   Description	Sandbox   Rule for testing
Rule   Target	‘Microsoft.Windows.Computer’
Object   Name	Processor
Counter   Name	%   Processor Time
All   Instances	TRUE   (used for multi instance counters)
Instance   Name	If   AllInstances is false, then fill this in with either a target variable or   fixed value
Interval   Seconds	300
DW   Only (Data Warehouse)	TRUE   (If you only want to write to the data warehouse)
Is   Optimized	TRUE   (Use if you’re using the optimized data provider)
Tolerance	10   (Percentage or absolute. If value changes more than x then collect, otherwise   skip)
Tolerance   Type	Percentage   (Percentage or Absolute)
Maximum   Sample Separation	12   (How many samples can be skipped before forcing collection)

Example configuration for the “Create Alert Event Rule” activity

Management Pack ID	Custom.Example.Sandbox1
Management Server	SCOM-Lit.Litware.com
Rule ID	Custom.Example.Sandbox.Rule.AlertTest8
Rule Description	Sandbox Rule for testing
Rule Displayname	Sandbox Test Alert Rule 8
Rule Target	Microsoft.Windows.Computer
Computer Name	$Target/Property[Type=”Windows!Microsoft.Windows.Computer”]/PrincipalName$
Event Log Name	Operations Manager
Event ID	9999
Event Source	OpsMgr Scripting Event
Alert Name	Sandbox Test Alert Rule 8
Alert Priority	High = 2Medium = 1Low = 0
Alert Severity	Critical = 2Warning = 1Information = 0

Example configuration for the Create Management Pack activities

Example configuration for the Delete Management Pack activities

Example configuration for the Delete Rule activities

Example configuration for the Export Management Pack activities

Example configuration for the Get Management Pack activities

Example configuration for the Get Rule activities

Example configuration for the Import Management Pack activities

 

Big thanks to our colleague Stefan Stranger  for Powershell support a very early morning 🙂

Download the IP, OMAdminTasks_20130508-1

Note that this is provided “AS-IS” with no warranties at all. This is not a production ready management pack or solution, just a idea and an example.