Tuesday, March 16, 2010

AEM and SCOM: where do all these computers with Unknown Status come from?

When one is using AEM, SCOM will show the clients that use AEM in the Monitoring Overview screen of SCOM as computers with an Unknown Status:
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Even though it might seem strange at first hand, there is a logical explanation for it.

The A of AEM comes into play here why SCOM notices these clients as computers with an Unknown Status. The A means Agentless. And that is exactly what any AEM client is from SCOMs perspective. Since no SCOM Agent is in place, SCOM only knows about the clients existence but has no clue what so ever about its status. Therefore the AEM client will be looked upon as a computer with an Unknown Status.

When AEM is in place there is nothing which can be done about it. It is as designed. Period. However, in larger environments with AEM in place this is not something nice to look at. First it seems alarming and later on it gets ignored. Since SCOM is a product that Microsoft takes very seriously, input based on field experiences is very welcome. This input will be used in future editions/releases of SCOM to come.

Therefore I have posted a suggestion on Microsoft Connect where I propose to approach AEM clients in future editions/releases of SCOM in a different kind of way. However, your help is needed here. Simply because only ONE person making this suggestion will not have a huge impact. But when many more people say ‘Yeah! That would be a good idea!’ Microsoft will pay more attention to it.

So when you want to make the difference go here and pump it up!
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In a future posting I will describe an approach when AEM is phased out and one wants to get rid of the computers with an unknown status which got there because of being AEM clients. I bumped into this solution by accident some time ago but still it is nice to know how to resolve this issue.

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