My personal experiences with the native Exchange 2007 MP for OpsMgr R2

For a customer I have imported and configured this MP, or better I am in the process of configuring it. And I must say that Microsoft has really done a good job.

Okay, it has taken a long long time before a native MP for Exchange 2007 came out. Having said that, this MP is not JASMP (Just Another Shitty MP) but of such a level that I hope it will become a standard for the way Microsoft builds it’s future MPs.

Why? Most rules/monitors are disabled by default. So when having imported this MP there is no need to disable/adjust all kinds of monitors and rules.

On top of that, the documentation makes a good distinction between core monitoring and optional monitoring. So one can choose – based on the organizational needs – what kind of monitoring is a must-have or a nice-to-have.

Those monitors are simply switched on – or built based on some new monitoring templates delivered with this MP – the others (the not wished/needed for) are simply left as they came: disabled by default.

With only the core monitoring options enabled (which are easy to configure) one obtains a very good monitoring view of the Exchange 2007 environment.

In another posting I’ll talk about the needed steps to get the core monitoring functional. Of course, RTFM (Read The Friendly Manual) is still needed.