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 Â Server Name | SCOM-Lit.Litware.com |
MP Â 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 Â Only (Data Warehouse) | TRUE Â (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.
Hi, I have not tested it with later version than 2012 that I used when I wrote the blog post and worked on that project, sorry. What error messages do you get?
Hi! Does this still work on ORchestrator R2?
I’m able to register the IP but getting a fatal error trying to deploy it.
Thanks!
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Thanks!
Great work (as usual).. I know a lot of my customer’s will love this.