Windows Service MP Template Wizard Vs. Basic Service Unit Monitor

Greetings,

New to SCOM. Trying to understand the difference between creating Monitoring for Windows Service via the Windows Service MP Template Wizard and creating a Unit Monitor of type Basic Service Monitor.

It seems that (along with additional ability to monitor Performance) the former creates [an instance of?] Basic Service Monitor within its own newly created class (or object? still shaky on terminology) making it a Monitor Target of this Basic Service Monitor; and the latter creates only Basic Service Monitor targeting existing class\object. Please confirm or correct if that's accurate.

The main benefit of the Template for me is that I am able to drill down to the Service Monitor in a Diagram View and (for example) place only it in Maintenance Mode, while still monitoring the rest of the Windows Server/Computer object; as opposed to in the case of having only Basic Service Monitor manually created under say Windows Server target I am unable to operate on it separately and am forced to place the whole Windows Server object into Maintenance Mode. Also, a product like SAVISION Live Maps is unable to "see" Basic Service Monitor as an element to be dragged onto a map; whereas it is able to "see" the class\object created by the Template as a separate element.

Now if the above is more or less true, than does it mean that if I want to monitor say 5 Windows Services in a way where I am able to operate on them independently of the Windows Server object - they each must be defined as an object of its own class?

Observation: After creating Windows Service Monitor via the Template Wizard I ended up with 2 "Service Running State" monitors. One - Inherited From "Windows Service" of Management Pack "Windows Service Library"; and the second - Not inherted and is of the Management Pack which I defined as destination MP during one of the configuration steps. I also targeted a specific Group to narrow down the scope of the monitor. The first monitor which is inherited from the Windows Service has a number of "Enable" parameter Overrides applied to it targets of which include the object itself and the DNS name of a server contained within the targeted Group - that is to say this monitor is "not monitoring"; why does it get inherited or instantiated at all?

And lastly does running Windows Service Monitors created via the Template Wizard have a greater performance impact on the SCOM system, as opposed to Basic Service Monitors created manually, considering that I am not using the Performance counters of the former?



  • Edited by RKDTOO Friday, March 27, 2015 9:02 PM
March 27th, 2015 5:22pm

Hi,

In my opionon, there are four differences:

1. The template can also the processor and memory usage of this service (process).

2. Using template is a very easy way to create a service monitor, Could be that we used less steps than in part 2 of this series. And it created a number of monitors in the background for its functions (service running state, cpu usage, memory usage) and alerts.

3. When we select target, with the template, only available groups can be choose. With the basic service monitor, multi classes can be choose.

4. With template, we can choose to only monitor automatic services.

By right click the created service template, we can choose to View management pack objects, we can see for monitors under Monitors.

And we are not able to override template, but we can override unit monitor.

In addition, here is a similar thread for your reference:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/systemcenter/en-US/67d4f83f-f037-44e9-a4e2-91dd4d768ac5/template-vs-basic-service-monitors?forum=operationsmanagergeneral

Regards,

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
March 30th, 2015 1:59am

... So - taking a deeper look into using the Windows Service Template I See that it creates the following: - A new object (instance of Windows Service class) to be used as target for its own monitors

- 2 Running State Monitors (one of which is inhered from the Windows Service Class and is Disabled by Override for everything)

- 2 Performance Monitors

- 6 Rules

- 6 Tasks - 5 Attributes

- All the applicable Override for Monitors, Discovery and Rules.

Now every time I use the Template to monitor one service all of the above are being created and instantiated. So If I want to monitor say 5 - 10 services on dozens or hundreds of servers it makes sense; but if my situation is reverse, that is - I want to monitor about a dozen related services on only one computer, it may be kind of an overkill to create 12 or so classes with all these duplicate elements. So I was wondering if I can use this newly created Class as target for my manually created Unit Basic Service Monitors; the Class already has all the properties of a Windows Service and its discovery is already scoped to the required server. And for my case it would suffice to have a number of related services being monitored by one self-contained object of a Windows Service class, which can be placed into Maintenance Mode without affecting other Windows Server monitors.

Would this be a recommended way of doing things? Does anyone see any pitfalls in this approach?  Thanks.

  • Edited by RKDTOO Monday, March 30, 2015 10:46 PM
March 30th, 2015 10:33pm

Hi,

You can create custom class and then create monitor target to that custom class. You may use authoring tool to create classes.

The SCOM 2007 R2 Authoring console can be used to create management packs for both SCOM 2007 R2 and SCOM 2012. A specific characteristic of the Authoring console includes the creation all management pack elements including custom classes, relationships, and discoveries that cannot be created in the Operations console.

Use of the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Authoring Console is documented in the System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Authoring Guide.

Regards,

Yan Li

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
April 1st, 2015 2:40am

This topic is archived. No further replies will be accepted.

Other recent topics Other recent topics