This question is about the proper use of the terms monitoring, alerting and notification. It's not about Operations Manager per se. The problem I seem to be encountering in our company is that people are using these terms interchangably. Without clear definitions it gets to be confusing about what someone is really trying to say. My sense is that monitoring would be the collection of the raw data (CPU utilization, log events, service status) whereas alerting would be applying some criteria against the monitoring data (e.g. threshold of 99% CPU utilization, source = myapp & event id =123, service MyService is stopped), and notification would be the action as a result of the monitoring (create a trouble ticket, page out). I would be interested in knowing if there is some consensus in the community and/or how other people view/use these terms. Does Microsoft have any formal definition? Thanks.

Monitoring refers to checking the state of something: Is it up/down, off/on, full/empty? That's all it refers to (in SCOM). It could also be used to refer to a rule ("Are we monitoring for event id 99 in the application log?") Alerting: This means that an alert is generated in the SCOM console when something happens (a monitor goes "red/yellow" or a Rule generates an alert). This does not necessarily mean that someone knows about the alert, unless you have a NOC tech staring at the Active Alerts node in the SCOM console. Notification: This means that someone gets told when an alert is generated (email, page, SMS, IM, SIP, ticket opened, etc). Note that something can be monitored without generating an alert, and that an alert can be generated without notifications going out."Fear disturbs your concentration"

Good feedback. That kinda lines up with what I was thinking. Thanks.

In addition, I would like to share the following with you for your reference: Creating Monitors http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd440895.aspx Investigating and Resolving Alerts http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc540405.aspx Configuring Notification http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd440890.aspx Thanks. Nicholas Li - MSFT Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.