Exchange Server 2007: Monitor Your Exchange Environment (part 4) - Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM 2005)

It is beyond the scope of this book to venture into the world of Microsoft Operations Manager 2005. It’s an event and performance management system that watches event logs and does proactive alerting and reporting. It looks at a baseline and can perform trend analysis.

In terms of Exchange 2007, it can identify peak workload hours, detect abnormal behavior, and provide detailed reports regarding your environment.

To get MOM up and running, you need to install the SQL Server first and then the MOM database. Finally, to extend the functionality of MOM to give you the Exchange features, you need to install the Exchange Management Pack.

You need to install Internal Agents on the internal Exchange servers, such as the Hub Transport, Client Access, Unified Messaging, and Mailbox servers. Or, you can install External Agents to work with the Edge Transport servers.

You can download the management pack from Microsoft; it’s a free download. It comes in as an MSI file and you have to open it and extract the files first. If you have MOM already up and running, you can install a management pack by performing the following:

1.	Open the MOM 2005 Administrator Console. Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, and then click Administrator Console.
2.	From the Navigation pane, you can see the Management Packs section. If you expand this and select Computer Groups, you see a variety of different MOM options, but none relate to Exchange 2007.
3.	Click Management Packs.
4.	Right-click Management Packs, and select Import/Export Management Pack to open the wizard. Click Next.
5.	You can choose to import or export management packs. Select the radio button to import, and then click Next.
6.	You can choose where the pack is located (which is where you extracted the files), and you can choose the type of report you want to perform. In this case, select Import Management Packs only. Click Next.
7.	You are asked to select the management pack, and then you have to select import options. Choose either Update Existing Management Pack. Custom Rules, Enabled/Disabled Settings, and Company Knowledge Will Be Retained or Replace Existing Management Pack.
8.	You can choose to back up the existing management pack and browse for a location. Then click Next.
9.	You are shown the Import Status as it imports the information. When you return to the console and look at the Computer Groups again, you can see in Figure 8 that you now have a lot of Exchange 2007 options. Figure 8. The MOM Administrator Console with the Exchange Management Pack installed.

Next, you install agents. You can do that from the wizards provided in the Administrator Console for internal agents (for the Hub, CAS, MB, and UM roles). However, for your Edge transport servers, you have to install the agents manually.