Hi,

I was one of the lucky one's that was able to test a couple of month ago the yesterday announced VISIO Management Pack Generator. It was difficult for me to NOT talk about this before because it was strictly given under NDA. So now the public word is out (thanks to Baelson).. Here it is….

What is it ? :

With the SCOM Visio MP creator you can drag and drop your MP together. So visualize this one. Just open an Visio template and drag your monitoring targets in to it. Then drag your monitors or rules in to the sheet and connect them. Generate the MP and import it into SCOM. Simply that all , really I don’t lye.

What do you need in the basics:

1. Visio 2010 Professional if you want only to drag and Drop the MP.
   or
   Visio 2010 Premium if you want also to generate the MP for SCOM import . This due to the schema validation features in premium.
2. Installed SCOM console
3. SCOM (2007/2012) Environment

.. the other requirements you can read in the documentation.

Hands on:

Open Visio and Create the new document

You will now see an empty MP document

Now we can start designing. In this example I will create an MP that will monitor an 2 tier application. So a webserver as frontend and an database as backend. The backend will be monitored with a DB watcher and the front end will be having a website watcher and a performance monitor with an threshold.

Go to the SCOM MP Shapes region. And select the Quick Shapes tab.

Now we select the 2-tier Application Model and drag & drop it into the document.

He see what happens , waauww . We have almost completed our Management Pack…

Now we have to customize the MP. Be sure to pin the properties windows on the right corner of the screenshot. This will be used to specify the parameter values used in the monitors/rules created.

First we select the MP shape on the left corner. Here we specify the MP name and version number.

Now awake readers will see that this template isn’t correct. The Front end role contains the DB watcher. This should be connected to the Backend role.

So we Simple delete the connector line

and move the shape and create an new connector line.

Next step is to add a new WEB site monitor to the front end role. This can be done by select the My front end Role shape and press on the blue arrow. Then select the web monitor icon.

The web monitor will be added and connected to the front end role target.
Next step is to specify what website to monitor. We select the just created Web site monitor shape and again we change the values in the parameter window.

We do the same for the Database Monitor

The result so far will be an MP that will monitor an Website and Database availability. Now of course we have to specify the targets for this monitors. This is done with a discovery. Just select the My front en role and the My Backend role and change the parameters. In this case the this will be an discovery based on Registry key  availability. Of course you will to create this reg keys on the servers to let the discovery do his work.

The almost end situation will be …..

But I am not ready jet. I want also to monitor an performance counter on the front end role. We simply drag and drop an performance Monitor in to the sheet … And yes again the word simply… normally I hate this word because I like the deep guru stuff….

We select the counter shape and change the property's

Last step is to connect the shape to the correct front end role target.

This is done with the MP roll-up Monitor Connector shape. Drag and drop it on the sheet and connect the correct ends to the front en role and counter shape.

 Tatadaaaa . The end result will be:

 Last , yes really last , step is simply (again) press “Generate Management Pack”.

The Check Diagram will be executed first and will report any compilation errors. Fix the errors and press the “Check diagram” to check it again.

 If all errors are gone you can press “Generate Management Pack” again. And you will be asked for the save location of the MP.

Supply it and press OK.

Quickly go to this directory and you will see 2 files.

And you are done. Import it into your (LAB) SCOM environment.

Wait a moment , not so fast. We want prove !!!

Okay, Okay .. lets open the MP in to the MP authoring console. We will see all the generated Target classes , Views , Discovery's and Monitors. Really really simple!:

Now Open your SCOM console and import the MP.

Go to the Monitoring Pane and look at the generated views.

If you have now configured the correct Discovery Registry Keys and the Correct performance counter. You will see monitoring data coming in and Alerts coming out….

The End:

That was it for now …

Please let me know if you liked this blog and if you want more….

Happy scomming.

Michel Kamp