Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 – Users’ Experiences

The latest version of Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM 2005) is clearly an evolution, marked by subtle ease-of-use and flexibility improvements rather than major, sweeping changes. Its predecessor, MOM 2000, was an award winning software for general network monitoring. Now MOM 2005 has made its way to the workplace. As I am very new to MOM 2005, I checked it out with MOM 2005 users to get some real-world impressions.

In general, my friends who have used MOM are pleased with its usability, monitoring capabilities and report-generating tools. However, MOM does seem to be lacking in some areas, including wireless notification capabilities. 

Smooth Running

Users give MOM 2005 high marks for overall performance and operation. An improved interface is one of the new version's highly touted changes and one that users applaud. Management of MOM itself is now handled from the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), but server operators primarily use the new Operator Console. Based on the Outlook 2003 interface, this console offers easy access to server groups.

Shahid Ahmad, senior system administrator at INOMY, Software Development Company in New Delhi, says the new console was a "pleasant surprise." INOMY has experience with MOM 2000 (although MOM 2005 was a clean install) and Shahid opines that the roll-up displays in the Operator Console enable at-a-glance status checks — a yellow X icon indicates an impaired server, while a red icon denotes a serious problem.

MOM 2005's performance also draws significant praise. "Speed and response have been outstanding," Shahid says. "We use MOM to monitor our development (as well as production) platforms and our engineers say it tells them within a few seconds if a site is down or a service not functioning." Piyush Pratik, an administrator with Chiffre Technologies, New Delhi, agrees, calling MOM 2005's performance "impressive".

My friends report that MOM 2005 performs its core functions solidly. "It does a decent job of monitoring our environment; and notifying the appropriate people when services stop on mission-critical servers," says Vikash Anil, a software engineer working with SMCS IT Solution, Ohio, USA. At SMCS, the environment includes Server 2003, SQL 2000, LCS 2003, Exchange 2003 and SharePoint. "We have been extremely impressed by its monitoring scope and power," he explains. SMCS specializes in Web hosting, design and network services. "We have not had time to continue configuring as much as we would have liked; Even so, it has already helped us so much. I've been particularly impressed with the way you have a centralized location to search through log files when solving a service failure or warning. This has enabled us to resolve emergencies after being e-mailed details of the critical warning or failure."

The monitoring capabilities exceed expectations, according to Vikash. "MOM 2005 monitoring picks out stuff you would never really check, or possibly find," he says. "This does lend itself to a proactive approach to problem solving, helping to pre-empt problems and avoid failures." However, he notes, "It also leads to a great deal of staring at a screen reading logs."

According to Vikash, MOM's meat-and-potatoes alerts and warnings are "solid and extensive." That's a key factor, he adds, because "this is where MOM administrators will spend most of their time." 

Vikash notes that with the default installation, thousands of events are enabled, which means administrators could spend a lot of time analyzing alerts and determining the steps to be taken. "I disable the rule groups that aren't applicable to my environment," he says. "Additionally, I disable a lot of the scripts that MOM can kick off if certain events are recorded. I would prefer to have a system admin review the situation and make a determination of what corrective actions should be taken, instead of MOM taking the actions for me." 

Agents or No Agents?

MOM supports both agent-based and agent-free architectures. The former is recommended, in part because any management tool that runs without agents uses more bandwidth as it pulls data from each managed device. For organizational reasons, some users must go agent-less, and they appreciate MOM 2005's flexibility in doing so. "We have both agent-managed and agent-less machines," says Vikash. "The reason why I have both has to do with paperwork requirements for opening a port on the firewall, or several layers of firewalls."

Early reviews praised MOM 2005's agents as easy to deploy, with users able to either specify servers manually or target them directly from the Active Directory. Not all users agree though. Chiffre's Piyush Pratik describes automatic agent installation as "a bit problematic initially. You need to open ports on firewalls and make sure the client machine can communicate directly with the server." He wishes the agent-installation procedure were simpler, but concedes he's not sure how this could be done.

Another area that draws mixed reviews from users is reporting. MOM 2005 uses SQL Server Reporting Services (not offered with the Workgroup Edition), which means users enjoy a wide variety of report delivery mechanisms. Report customization features (also not available with Workgroup Edition), carried over from MOM 2000, are highly regarded by some users. "There are a plethora of options for fine-tuning," INOMY’s Shahid explains. "We go around to each business unit and get their unique reporting needs — and that's the way it should be."

SMCS' Vikash agrees, to a point. "When I have had MOM and SQL Reporting Services working properly, the reporting functionality is very good," he says. However, he adds that it can be "a bit troublesome" to keep SQL Reporting Services running. "The most common trouble areas in my experience," he says, "have been related to mail delivery and data collection."

Installation Notes
Among users, installation received mixed reviews. Some called the process "straightforward." The sheer volume of essential reading however, put others, including Chiffre’s Piyush, off. "I was keen to get up and running fast. This didn't really turn out to be the case," Piyush says.

"MOM is a complex monitoring system, so a reasonable amount of reading is really necessary before installation," he adds. "On the plus side, there's a mass of documentation from Microsoft. The initial installation happened over a weekend after reading about five manuals."

Figure MOM’s admin console gives you a complete view and description 
of the groups under your control

Wish List for the Next MOM

So what changes would users like to see? Vikash looks forward to easier-to-access technical assistance when he runs into trouble with MOM. "Finding resources to use for troubleshooting leaves a lot to be desired," he says. "Posting issues to the newsgroups isn't the most effective or efficient method for resolving issues, and some of the tools in the Resource Kit fail to install or work as described. Also, the documentation on changing passwords for the various MOM-related accounts is lacking."

In all fairness, Vikash adds that he hasn't received any formal MOM 2005 training. A larger resource pool is sure to develop as the number of MOM 2005 users grows. "We originally wanted to use MOM to capture e-mail metrics, but soon realized it couldn't deliver what we were looking for," Vikash says. 

Some users wish MOM had more robust wireless capabilities. "I was disappointed to see you can't monitor MOM from a Pocket PC," Shahid says. INOMY administrators receive notifications from the Exchange on their wireless devices, he says, but can't navigate the links in those notifications directly from the devices. They appear simply as "unclickable" strings of HTML, rendering the notifications "essentially useless."

A Valuable Proposition
In the end, each friend I spoke with recommends MOM 2005. Generally, those recommendations are enthusiastic, albeit not without caveats. "This really is a piece of software that all Microsoft networks need to subscribe to," Piyush says. "I am continuing to test and develop on MOM, and hope we can encourage a few more features — simpler installation, immediate detailed status reports and text message alerts."

Piyush adds he would "absolutely recommend MOM." SMCS’ Vikash offers a more circumspect testimonial, along with some advice. "I need to give the product another couple of months to determine whether or not it will provide value in notifying sys admins before minor issues become major ones," he explains. 

"Some of the sys admins have been asking for metrics on the systems they have responsibility for, and MOM can furnish that information for them — provided I can sustain the SQL Reporting component. At this point, I would recommend MOM to others, but with a word of caution," Vikash advises. "My advice is to spend a good deal of time planning on deploying MOM and tuning it to their environment before passing judgment on its pros and cons."

Mr. Vishal Anil is working with XEROX Global Services, Xerox India Ltd., New Delhi, as a Senior Software Engineer. He can be contacted at: vishal.anil@ind.xerox.com.