Common Mistakes and Confusion with the IIS MP Version

Suppose you run IIS 6 (Windows 2003 Server) and SCOM. So SCOM monitors IIS. You think all is well and the IIS MP is up to date. In the SCOM Console the version of the IIS 2003 MP is 6.0.6658.0.

But when you visit the website with the latest version of the IIS MP this is what you find:

So one tends to think: What happened to IIS 6 and 5.5 ? When one looks further on the same website, the confusion becomes even bigger, take a close look at the versions of this MP, in yellow:

Exactly! No where version 6.0.6658.0 is to be found, the one which is loaded in your environment. So now you’re sure: This is NOT the MP for monitoring IIS 6.0 or older!

But let’s open the guide related to the MP in order to be sure for a full 100%. The guide is also listed on the same webpage so no further searching is needed.

The header Supported Configurations (page 5) tells it all, doesn’t it?

Still looks like we’re right.  But since the document is open, let’s take a deeper look and under the header Files in This Management Pack (page 7) :

Now I am lost! So the IIS 7.0 MP, version 6.0.7600.0 contains other MPs as well, targeted at monitoring IIS 2003. But what version are they?

When you open the Catalog for the MPs in the SCOM R2 Console and search for IIS MPs this is what you’ll find:

When you import the msi-file from the earlier mentioned website, run it and try to import the MPs with the Console, you’ll see the same versions for IIS 6.0 and 5.5 (version 6.0.6658.0), the version which isn’t listed on the same website…

Even though it’s  April Fools’ Day, this is serious, no joking here.

Basically this is happening:

• The MPs for IIS 6.0 and 5.5 aren’t updated to version 6.0.7600.0;
• The latest version of those MPs is 6.0.6658.0;
• Only the MP for IIS 7.0 is on 6.0.7600.0 level;
• The IIS 7.0 MP contains all the MPs for covering IIS from 5.5 to 7.0;
• The website isn’t clear about that at all;
• The document isn’t very clear about that either.

Hopefully I have made a potential confusion topic a bit clearer…