Exchange Server 2010 MP & SCOM 2012x

I know. Exchange Server 2010 isn’t the latest & greatest. And SOON the Mainstream Support End Date for it will be reached, on the 13th of January 2015:

So I guess it’s time for many organizations to make a move to either the latest and greatest Exchange on-premise version OR to move to Office 365 (or to make a combination of both).

None the less, many organizations are still running Exchange Server 2010 AND use SCOM 2012x in order to monitor it. Even though I’ve written many postings about the Exchange Server 2010 MP, there are some things to reckon with when running SCOM 2012x.

This posting is a small overview of the most important things:

1. Disable the Monitor ‘The required SCOM hotfixes for Exchange MP are not installed’
   This Monitor checks whether SCOM 2007 R2 hotfixes are installed. So this Monitor serves NO purpose in your SCOM 2012x environment. The script of this Monitor might even throw errors like Operations Manager failed to start a process. So disable this Monitor.
   
   
2. RMS is required
   Yes, the Root Management Server (RMS) is a hard requirement in order to make this MP work. In SCOM 2012x the RMS is no more. However the Root Management Server Emulator (RMSE) is there to emulate a RMS. With some simple PS cmdlets you can identify where the RMSE is hosted, remove it and put it on another SCOM 2012x Management Server. Pete Zerger has written a good posting about these cmdlets. Where ever the RMSE is hosted, it will become the home of the Correlation Engine, this beautiful piece of code, engineered especially for the Exchange Server 2010 MP.
   
   
3. Correlation Engine (CE)
   This wonderful piece of software engineering is limited only to the Exchange Server 2010 MP. The theory (aka paradise) behind it is beautiful. However, the real world (aka jungle) soon entered the paradise and made an end to this piece of software. HOWEVER, when monitoring Exchange Server 2010 with SCOM, the CE is still required. Install it on the SCOM 2012x Management Server hosting the RMSE role. And no, you can’t make the CE high available, at least not in an officially supported manner.
   
   
4. Along came a KB article all about the Exchange Server 2010 MP
   KB2592561 seems to tell it all. However, it was written for SCOM 2007. So all the parts about tuning the SCOM Management Servers, FORGET it! It’s old news!!! Changes are it will effect SCOM 2012x negatively. So is this KB useless for SCOM 2012x? No. The Common Errors part contains good information about tuning and trouble shooting this MP.
   
   It’s also good for a laugh. This part tells it all: ‘… This is by far the largest MP to date from Microsoft, and provides a massive amount of visibility to Exchange issues.  However, there are just some things in the Management Pack that just don’t work…’. HONESTLY!!! I don’t make it up!!! See it for yourself!
   
   
5. Don’t disable Rules WITHOUT disabling the corresponding Monitors
   The Exhange 2010 MP is a strange beast among the other Microsoft MPs. The CE makes it even more special. So when disabling a Rule from the Exchange Server 2010 also disable the Monitor with the same name. Otherwise the OpsMgr DB will grow to a huge extend. Also explained in the same KB mentioned previously.

There is more, but these are on top of my list. Otherwise read all my postings about the Exchange Server 2010 MP. The best thing to do is to migrate away from Exchange Server 2010 and to Exchange Server 2013 for instance. At least it has a decent MP now .