Quick Guide to get the native Exchange 2007 MP for OpsMgr R2 Up-and-Running for core monitoring

First of all:

This posting isn’t meant as a replacement for the guide included with this MP. So RTFM this guide since it contains lot’s of good and needed information about how to  configure this MP.

Secondly:

This posting describes how to get the core-monitoring running based on normal privileges. The optional monitoring isn’t described here, nor the usage of a low-privilege action account. For that: RTFM.

Okay, let’s start.

Before importing the MP do this:

• Install OpsMgr Agents on all Exchange 2007 servers
• Enable Agent Proxying on all Exchange 2007 servers
• Make sure all Exchange Servers are being monitored correctly
• RMS: install PowerShell and the OpsMgr Console
• When using Exchange Clusters, import the Cluster MP and configure it properly. To be downloaded here.

MPs are imported. Now what?

Start with an override on the discovery ‘Exchange 2007 Discovery Helper’. This discovery runs normally every 24 hours which is too long at the first time. When all is working properly the override can be removed. For now set the discovery to run every 15 minutes. Save the override in it’s own MP so you can later easily delete it, without effecting other overrides.

• All discoveries within this MP are disabled by default. Except for one, the ‘Exchange 2007 Discovery Helper’. It discovers Exchange 2007 servers without starting monitoring.
  
  
• Verify whether all Exchange 2007 servers are being discovered: Monitoring Pane > Discovered Inventory > right click, choose Select Target Type > type ‘Exchange 2007 Discovery Helper’ > OK. A list of unmonitored Exchange 2007 Servers will appear. Check this list to see whether it is complete or showing servers which aren’t Exchange Servers at all. (*)
  
  (*: The discovery is based upon the presence of the Exchange 2007 Management Tools. So when these are present on servers which aren’t Exchange Servers, these servers are listed as Exchange Servers. How to go about this? Check here and read the whole conversation.)
  
  
• Enable the discoveries which reflect the Exchange 2007 server structure of your organization. See page 14 of the MP guide. Save these overrides in a new MP.
  
  
• Configure disk monitoring. The Exchange MP is capable of monitoring disks containing mailbox database-/log files and disks containing Hub or Edge Queue files.
  
  When you don’t want duplicate disk space Alerts when using the Exchange Disk Monitors, you must disable disk monitoring on the Exchange Servers from the Server OS MP. (Read the notes on pages 14 and 15 for why not doing this…)
  
  Authoring > Monitors > Logical Disk > Windows Server 2003/2008 Logical Disk > Entity Health > Availability: Logical Disk Availability and Logical Disk Free Space. Override these (Enabled = false) for the group ‘Exchange 2007 Computer Group’.
  
  Same goes for the monitors under Performance: Average Disk Seconds Per Read, Average Disk Seconds Per Transfer and Average Disk Seconds Per Write.
  
  
• Configure Exchange 2007 Disk Monitoring. These monitors have certain thresholds which need to be set in order to reflect your environment.
  
  Check out Exchange 2007 Mailbox Database Disk, Exchange 2007 Mailbox Log Disk and Exchange 2007 Queue Disk. Under Authoring > Monitors > Disk > … > Availability the monitors are to be found. Override these for all objects of type ‘Exchange 2007 Mailbox Database Disk’ as needed.
  
  Something to be aware of: The ‘Exchange 2007 MDB Disk Free Space Monitor’ only raises an Alert when the megabytes AND percentage thresholds are exceeded.
  
  

Now the components for core monitoring have been configured and the Views (State, Alerts and so on) are getting filled. Some time later the topology view is working as well. From here you can go further with configuring the optional monitoring components. This way you get the most out of this great MP.