Tips & Tricks for the ‘Web Application Availability Monitoring’ template

Phew! Had some issues today. Had already built myself a test environment based on OM12. However, OM12 is just OM12 so I needed some serious monitoring. And not just some monitoring like monitoring SQL but monitoring which shows the difference between SCOM R2 and OM12.

APM and network monitoring were setup already during the weekend and showing enough data. Also some nice dashboards based on the widgets were made easily enough. Then I wanted to add the new dashboard based on a map and populated through PowerShell with some real locations based on longitude and latitude. And that one became a challenge, even though there are some good postings out there about just that:

• System Center: Operations Manager Engineering Blog, with this posting;
• And the blog of Marcin Jastrzębski, with this posting.

Issues I bumped into were:

1. By accident (I am a terrible Copy & Paste Engineer…) certain locations were defined more than one time and couldn’t remove them anymore (ouch!);
2. Where to find the correct latitude and longitude for the locations I wanted to show on my map;
3. Why couldn’t I make a relationship between a Management Server, acting as a Watcher Node, and a location?
4. Where on earth were those nice dashboards (map and list) to be found?
5. Why didn’t the new locations show up on the map, even after two hours?

Finally I got the answers and a result, a good demo environment! Awesome! In order to help you all to get it done much sooner, I’ll post the answers to these questions here. So let’s start.

1. By accident certain locations are defined more than one time and I can’t remove them anymore!
   Solution is simple (as always). Run these PowerShell cmdlets in the OM12 snap-in for PS, supposing Amsterdam is defined three times:
   
   $Location = Get-SCOMLocation -DisplayName "Amsterdam"
   Remove-SCOMLocation -Location $Location
   
   Now Amsterdam as a location will be removed. Just configure it again and you’re back in business.
   
   
2. Where do I find the correct latitude and longitude for the locations I wanted to show on my map?
   While using the other Bing, I bumped into this website:
   - http://universimmedia.pagesperso-orange.fr/geo/loc.htm. This website is awesome. All you have to enter is a location and hit enter:
   
   
   
3. Why can’t I make a relationship between a Management Server, acting as a Watcher Node, and a location?
   Probably because you’re using the wrong PS cmdlet. When it’s an OM12 Management Server acting as a Watcher Node you need these PS cmdlets:
   $MgmtServer = Get-SCOMManagementServer -Name "FQDN OM 12 Management Server"
   Set-SCOMLocation -Location $Location -ManagementServer $MgmtServer
   
   When the Watcher Node is an OM12 Agent, you’ll need these two PS cmdlets:
   $Agent = Get-SCOMAgent –Name "FQDN OM12 Agent"
   Set-SCOMLocation –Location $Location –Agent $Agent
   
   
4. Where on earth were those nice dashboards (map and list) to be found?
   Took me some time because you won’t find them using the regular way (adding a new View). Instead, in the Monitoring pane go to: Monitoring > Application Monitoring > Web Application Availability Monitoring > Web Application Status (Test State view will also do the trick here).
   
   Select the monitored web application and now in the Task pane these two items are shown:
   
   Click on one of them and be surprised!
   
   
5. Why don’t the new locations show up on the map, even after two hours?
   In my case, because I blundered too many times. But when all was correct it still took way too long. So I bounced the Health Service (System Center Management service) on all the Watcher Nodes which didn’t show up on the map. And presto! Within a few minutes every thing was just fine and everything started to work as a charm!

And now I have these two very nice dashboards to show for my OM12 demo:

Summary Dashboard – Map

Detailed Dashboard – List

Looking sharp isn’t it?