Friday, September 10, 2010

SCOM and Dashboards – Part II – The SCOM Console

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Postings in the same series:
Part   ISome Questions
Part IIIVisio 2010 Add-In for SCOM R2
Part IV – Savision LiveMaps
Part V  – SharePoint 2010 Integration
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In the second posting of this series I will describe how to create some Dashboards based on purely the SCOM R2 Console. These Dashboards are nothing fancy nor flashy. No bling bling here but even an empty Dashboard (when all systems are well) where the credo ‘Less is More’ is more at hand.

But before we continue we need to know what SCOM R2 defines as a Dashboard. For SCOM R2 a Dashboard is a collection of different available Views which are present in the SCOM R2 Console. So when you want to add a customized View to a Dashboard, that View needs to created first.

A Dashboard can contain 2,3,4,5,6 or 9 Views:
image

Per amount of Views presented in the Dashboard a different type of layout may be chosen:
imageimageimageimageimageimage

But how to use this in a good and understandable manner? A Dashboard showing tons of information is easily created. But a Dashboard which shows some good information to the right people/departments is a different story. I will show 3 different Dashboards which I use often on my projects.

Again, nothing fancy they are. But they show some good information.

First of all, we need a MP. For this i have created a MP with the name _Dashboards. The underscore assures us that the folder related to the MP will show up on top in the Monitoring Pane. This folder will be used through out this posting. By doing so all Views will be saved to that MP and NOT the Default MP.

01 – Windows Server Dashboard
This Dashboard is mainly targeted at the people who manage the systems engineers. It shows all relevant data related to the Windows Servers the System Engineers do have to manage. The Server OS MP is required for this Dashboard.

For this Dashboard I use the ‘Less-is-More’ approach. Only issues are shown, nothing else. So when the Dashboard is empty, all is well. When something is shown, the manager knows something is amiss. The Dashboard looks like this:
image

It is a 4 Views Dashboard, containing these four Views:

  1. Active Alerts
    This View is already present and comes from the Server OS MP (Monitoring > Microsoft Windows Server > Active Alerts).

  2. W2Kx Servers – Unhealthy/Unmonitored
    This View is a customized State View with these settings:
    image
    By showing only the servers which are in a Warning or Critical state, it will keep the Dashboard clean (as long as the System Engineers are doing their work that is :)).

  3. Disks W2K08 – Unhealthy/Unmonitored
    Many times when there are issues with servers these are related to the logical disks. Which are either to full or do suffer an error. With this Dashboard I try to show the most relevant information and this part is always welcome. This View is also a customized State View with these settings:
    image 

  4. Disks W2K03 – Unhealthy/Unmonitored
    This View is a customized State View with these settings:
    image

Exactly how this Dashboard is created? Good question. For this Dashboard I will explain it. The others do use almost the same approach so only the most important settings will be shown for those.

  • Start the SCOM Console with Admin permissions > go to Administration > click right on the tree structure > select Create Management Pack > name it _Dashboards > Save it;

  • Go to Monitoring > right click on the folder _Dashboards, select New > Folder. Name it Servers
    image

  • Right click on the folder Servers, select New > State View. Use the name and settings as shown in the screen dump at Step 2. Repeat this procedure for the screen dumps shown at Steps 3 and 4;

  • Right click on the folder Servers, select New > Dashboard View. Select 4 Views:
    image
    Give it a good name, select a good layout template and click OK;

  • The Dashboard is created now, but is still empty:
    image
    Click on the top link ‘Click to add a view’. Now this screen is opened:
    image
    Select the required View (as described in Step 1) and click OK. Repeat this procedure for all other Views within the Dashboard. When you select a wrong View you can easily delete it by right clicking on the right portion of the Dashboard and selecting the option Remove View.
    image

  • When the Dashboard is created, you can reopen it in a new screen by right clicking it and selecting the option Open in New Window
    image

02 – Active Directory Dashboard
This Dashboard is targeted at the IT department which is responsible for the AD infra. It shows information about the DCs and the DNS infra as well. Without DNS their is not much AD going on. So DNS is important as well here. For this Dashboard the AD and DNS MPs need to be imported AND configured.

A 6 View Dashboard is used here and mostly Views which are already present in the AD and DNS MPs are being used. Only one customized View is created. These six Views are being used here:

  1. DNS Server Alerts View
    The only customized View which is an Alert View. It is almost the same compared to the DNS Alerts. Only the name is different so it easy to differentiate from when used in the Dashboard.
    image 

  2. DC Active Alerts
    AD MP. Go to: Monitoring > Microsoft Windows Active Directory > DC Active Alerts.

  3. DC State View
    AD MP. Go to: Monitoring > Microsoft Windows Active Directory > DC State.

  4. Topology
    AD MP. Go to: Monitoring > Microsoft Windows Active Directory > Topology Views > Topology.

  5. Domain Health State View
    DNS MP. Go to: Monitoring > Microsoft Windows DNS Server > Domain Health State View.

  6. DNS Server Events
    DNS MP. Go to: Monitoring > Microsoft Windows DNS Server > DNS Server Events.

Create a 6 Views Dashboard and add the Views as required. Now you have something like this:
image

03 – Alerts Dashboard
This Dashboard is targeted at managers of IT departments and other departments as well. It enables them to see what Alerts do get in and what their status is. New Alerts which are unassigned are not OK. It means that no one in particular is taking care of it. A requirement for this Dashboard is that SCOM R2 is being used properly, that some one is in control and deciding what Alerts are assigned to whom.

It also requires that some good Alert Resolution States are present in SCOM R2:
image 

 

  1. Alert View: Unassigned Alerts / Critical and Warnings
    These settings are used:
    image

    Please reckon with the second tab ‘Display’ and make sure to copy the yellow highlighted settings which are important for ALL Alert Views:
    image

  2. Alert View: Assigned Alerts / Critical and Warnings
    These settings are used:
    image

  3. Alert View: All Closed Alerts / Critical and Warnings
    These settings are used:
    image

  4. Alert View: All Unclosed Alerts / Critical and Warnings sorted by count
    These settings are used:
    image
    and:
    image 

Create a 4 Views Dashboard and add the Views as required. Now you have something like this:
image

Wrap up:

With this posting one gets a better understanding with the available possibilities for creating Dashboards in SCOM R2. With using groups and User Roles one can scope who gets to see what.

Third posting in this series will be about the Visio Add-in and how to create some nice SCOM R2 Dashboards with it.

2 comments:

Dominique said...

Excellent Post again

Thanks
Dom

Dominique said...

Hello Marnix,

After one week all the names under Monitoring > Microsoft Windows DNS Server > Domain Health State View are graued out any patterns? any source of this issue?
Thanks,
Dom