MPs and the related guides

All the people who started to use SCOM when it went RTM do remember how the related MP guides were. Not much real and good information was to be found in them. But Microsoft listened and learned. And the MP guides became real guides with a good format as well. Whether you read the guides for instance for DNS, IIS or the Server OS, all these guides (and the others as well!) do have the same format and index.

And now the guides have evolved to such a stage that an update to that guide is enough reason for Microsoft to update the related MP, even when not that much has changed to the MP itself!

Believe it or not, but this is really great! Because the real power of SCOM (R2) is found in the MPs. And in order to unleash and CONTROL the full power of those very same MPs the related guides are VERY VERY important.

That’s why I always emphasize on RTFM:

• RTFM BEFORE implementing ANY MP,
• RTFM DURING the implementation of ANY MP,
• RTFM AFTER the MP has been implemented.

Yesterday Microsoft released a new version of the Exchange 2007 MP for SCOM R2 (version 6.0.6702.0), found here. And when one reads the related guide, this is to be found in the section ‘Changes in This Update’, page 8:

The minor changes to the MP itself are:

As you can see, the guides are not only getting way much better are also getting more and more important. A great development it is.