1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Hello there. Here we are at Microsoft TechEd IT Forum 2007 in Barcelona, Spain. 2 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:11,000 And we've got a nice guest here. We're going to talk about some exciting stuff. 3 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Would you like to introduce yourself? 4 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:18,000 Sure. I'm Barry Shilmover. I'm a Senior Program Manager in the System Center Operations Manager group. 5 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:21,000 First off, for people who don't know, what is that group? 6 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:24,000 What do you guys do if we start at the top and eat our way down? 7 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:26,000 It's the group that owns Operations Manager. 8 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:30,000 So it's the group that designs it, develops it, and checks the product tests it. 9 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:32,000 So you're sort of in the development wing of things. 10 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:34,000 I'm more on the program management side. 11 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:39,000 More on the specifications of what the product will do rather than the actual code behind it. 12 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:41,000 And then Operations Manager was formerly called MOM, right? 13 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:42,000 Correct. 14 00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:43,000 Microsoft Operations Manager. 15 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:45,000 Now it's System Center Operations Manager. 16 00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:49,000 The thing we were going to talk about was there's this component, and correct me if I'm wrong, 17 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:52,000 in the Operations Manager world called Manager Impact. 18 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:53,000 Correct. 19 00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:55,000 That are basically a way of extending the functionality of operating. 20 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:56,000 Right. 21 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:58,000 So you can think of Operations Manager as a platform. 22 00:00:58,000 --> 00:00:59,000 Right. 23 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:02,000 Without the Management Packs, the platform really does nothing. 24 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:03,000 It doesn't know how to discover SQL. 25 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:04,000 It doesn't know how to discover Windows. 26 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:09,000 Adding the Management Packs allows customers to start discovering other things. 27 00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:15,000 Because it's a platform, the technology and the tools that are used to build Management Packs by us, 28 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:17,000 are available to our partners and our customers. 29 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:18,000 Right. 30 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:27,000 So partners can build Management Packs for things that we do not ship, like other databases or other operating system or other web server technologies. 31 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:32,000 Also, customers that have custom applications can actually use those tools because they're writing the product. 32 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:35,000 And the ones that are external are readily available. 33 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:38,000 They can build Management Packs for their own custom built applications. 34 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:39,000 Right. 35 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:43,000 So if I build one that is a customer and an ingrown application, I can just simply go and write a Management Packs. 36 00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,000 How many Management Packs do you say are written outside of Microsoft? 37 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:53,000 I know that for MOM 2005, I'm not sure what the numbers are, for 2007, we had well over 200 Management Packs. 38 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:54,000 Right. 39 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:56,000 Probably about 50 of those were Microsoft Management Packs. 40 00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:00,000 So there's quite a large number of third-party Management Packs up there. 41 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:01,000 Right. 42 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:04,000 They cover pretty much everything that the customer would have in their self. 43 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:07,000 What we do is we build Management Packs for our applications. 44 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:08,000 Yes. 45 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:09,000 So SQL, Exchange, IAM. 46 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:12,000 And those are readily available and they're shipped with the product. 47 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:17,000 Plus we have a catalog online for customers to actually go and search for the specific management 48 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:18,000 that they care about. 49 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:22,000 And they'll link them either to the Microsoft ones if they're available or to the third-party 50 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:23,000 websites. 51 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:24,000 So let's say I had to build a Management Pack. 52 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:25,000 Okay. 53 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:26,000 What are the different components of it? 54 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:29,000 So really a Management Pack is built up of two major components. 55 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:32,000 There's a discovery component and then there's the monitoring. 56 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:36,000 They're built, it's an XML document. 57 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:41,000 You can build it using the Operations Manager Operations Console. 58 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:47,000 You can also use, right now we've released, I believe it's an RC build which is the Offering 59 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:48,000 Console. 60 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:50,000 Or you can just use a plain XML editor. 61 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:51,000 Like Notepad. 62 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:52,000 Notepad. 63 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:53,000 The favorite thing of the keynote. 64 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:54,000 Right. 65 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:55,000 Or even Visual Studio. 66 00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:56,000 Right, right. 67 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:01,000 So you simply, the discovery part will just tell Operations Manager and the agents how 68 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:04,000 to discover whatever you're trying to monitor. 69 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:08,000 So if you're trying to monitor an application, how do I find the application, whether the application 70 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:10,000 is installed, and what version is installed. 71 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:16,000 If I'm looking at a device, you know, like I'm trying to discover a specific piece of hardware, 72 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:20,000 how does I find out whether or not that piece of hardware is in the system. 73 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:21,000 And it can be done in multiple ways. 74 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:22,000 Right. 75 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:23,000 I can look at specific files in the file system. 76 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:25,000 I can look in the registry. 77 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:29,000 I can write pretty much any script, whether it's a VV script or whatever, to actually go 78 00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:32,000 out there and try to discover that component. 79 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:36,000 And once I discover it, I'll create an instance of that component. 80 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:39,000 And I can associate properties and populate those properties during discovery. 81 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:40,000 Right. 82 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:44,000 Once I've done discovery, it goes to the second part, which is made up of smaller parts. 83 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:47,000 It includes things like monitors. 84 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:52,000 So actually, it's trying to get the health of the specific object I'm looking for. 85 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:56,000 And within the monitor, it'll let me know what the different health states are, whether 86 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:59,000 it's healthy or unhealthy, whether it's unmonitored. 87 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:03,000 And then on top of that, one of the things that I can do is I can then generate alerts. 88 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:08,000 The alerts will be tied back to the monitors and an alert will be thrown should the monitor 89 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:10,000 switch its state. 90 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:13,000 And I can also add knowledge to it, which is really the strength of operations managers, 91 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:15,000 the embedded knowledge. 92 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:18,000 Within that knowledge, I can say, here's what I found. 93 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:19,000 Here's the problem. 94 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:21,000 Here's what might have caused the problem. 95 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:23,000 And here's some potential resolutions. 96 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:26,000 And link to web pages on Microsoft.com or third parties. 97 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:32,000 And so for SQL MPs, for example, they'll tell you to go to www.microsoft.com/sql. 98 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:35,000 The other things that I can do with it, I can do things like tasks. 99 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:38,000 So actually perform tasks on those objects. 100 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:43,000 Looking at the SQL example, if the SQL database is taken offline, within the knowledge there'll 101 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:47,000 be a link that I just simply click on, which will bring that database back online. 102 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:49,000 I'd have to know what object it is. 103 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:53,000 I don't have to have the permissions because the permissions are embedded within operations. 104 00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:57,000 Beyond that, I've got things like diagnostic and recovery tasks. 105 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:04,000 So diagnostics will actually go out and get information for me after it detects the problem. 106 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:05,000 Recovery will actually try to fix it. 107 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:06,000 Right. 108 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:07,000 So there's lots of things like that. 109 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:10,000 There's different types of tasks. 110 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:12,000 But in a nutshell, that's really what imagined that thing. 111 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:13,000 Right. 112 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:18,000 It sounds like there's discovery which finds instances and then you model, I always call 113 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:20,000 them parameters, but you model the different metrics, right? 114 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:21,000 Correct. 115 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:24,000 And then the metrics have thresholds or alarms that if they go out of that state, something 116 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:25,000 happens. 117 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:26,000 Correct. 118 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:27,000 So you can attach diagnostics to it. 119 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:32,000 And if an alarm goes wrong and hopefully you can run a recovery or manually you can run 120 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:33,000 a task or something. 121 00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:34,000 That's right. 122 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:36,000 What's kind of the model that runs through all of that? 123 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:41,000 And for example, I mean, in other worlds, in other worlds, in other management models, 124 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:43,000 you know, there's the idea of the generic thing you're monitoring. 125 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:45,000 And then kind of like you're saying there's an instance of that thing. 126 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:46,000 Yes. 127 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:48,000 And then, you know, just so forth and so on down, a hierarchy of things. 128 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:49,000 Yeah. 129 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:50,000 So we can build relationships within that. 130 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:51,000 Right. 131 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:54,000 So if you look at SQL, SQL is not just a database. 132 00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:57,000 It's got services and components that make up that database. 133 00:05:57,000 --> 00:05:58,000 Right. 134 00:05:58,000 --> 00:05:59,000 So there's a database engine. 135 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:01,000 That database engine then hosts multiple databases. 136 00:06:01,000 --> 00:06:02,000 Sure. 137 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:05,000 So all the discovery and the relationship is all in the discovery model. 138 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:09,000 So when I discover all the instances, I also discover the relationships to other instances 139 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:12,000 and other objects. 140 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:17,000 And all of that is modeled on something we call the service definition model or SDM. 141 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:22,000 And we've taken SDM and we're working with a working group called the service monitoring 142 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:26,000 language, the service monitoring language for SML or SML. 143 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:27,000 Right. 144 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:32,000 So we've actually donated the SDM version 3 to that working group as a basis for SML. 145 00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:33,000 Right. 146 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:36,000 So all of our management patterns are built on that model. 147 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:41,000 And the idea is that moving forward, as more and more people build models based on that, 148 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:43,000 we'll just be able to consume that. 149 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:44,000 Right. 150 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:45,000 So let's say we're using the database example. 151 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:46,000 Right. 152 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:48,000 Let's say we've discovered some things in our database. 153 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:51,000 But there's some other way of discovering code or a task that we need to run. 154 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:52,000 Then we have to write some custom code. 155 00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:53,000 Right. 156 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:56,000 Something that just isn't out of the box that we can't express in SML. 157 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:57,000 So, I mean, how would we go about doing that? 158 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:01,000 So you can pretty much, if you can write scripts. 159 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:02,000 Right. 160 00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:03,000 Right. 161 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:07,000 We have API interfaces back into operations management. 162 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:13,000 So you can simply run a script on the management server or on the agent monitoring server. 163 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:14,000 Right. 164 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:18,000 And then the output that you get, you simply convert to XML. 165 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:23,000 And then once you convert it to XML, you can just have operations managers consume it, 166 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:25,000 because it understands the model that we're giving you. 167 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:26,000 Right. 168 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:30,000 So, I mean, the simplest one, if you look at some of the samples that we've built, 169 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:35,000 we were able to just take a file system, a directory with multiple files in it, 170 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,000 and by discovering the names of the files and the objects within the files, 171 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:40,000 the lines within the files, we could create objects. 172 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:41,000 Right. 173 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:43,000 And you could create a hierarchy of discovered things. 174 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:46,000 You could create different levels and, you know, going across and up and down. 175 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:49,000 So, pretty much if you can write a script to discover it, you can discover it. 176 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:52,000 It sounds like you can shell out, if you will, or go to some script, 177 00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:56,000 and you just build up the model that you pass back, the SDML model or whatever. 178 00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:57,000 SDML. 179 00:07:57,000 --> 00:07:58,000 The SDM model. 180 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:00,000 I'm throwing an extra L in there, right? 181 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:01,000 That's okay. 182 00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:04,000 You build up the SDM model and you just pass it back to the discovery component of the management 183 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:05,000 attack. 184 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:06,000 Right. 185 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:07,000 And then it takes off from there. 186 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:08,000 Yep. 187 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:09,000 And it just creates the object in the database. 188 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:10,000 Right. 189 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:11,000 It creates a relationship. 190 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:14,000 So, your script will actually build all of those relationships. 191 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:15,000 You're building these packs. 192 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:17,000 I mean, one of the challenges of management is always scaling it up, right? 193 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:18,000 Right. 194 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:22,000 And are there, I mean, are there sort of guidance or tools in there to help you scaling things 195 00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:26,000 up so that you don't, you know, discover 10,000 elements at once and try to pass them all 196 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:27,000 back to, or things at once? 197 00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:28,000 I don't know if there's anything like that. 198 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:29,000 Okay. 199 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:30,000 Okay. 200 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:31,000 Built into the product right now. 201 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:33,000 The author and console, I don't believe, has that. 202 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:38,000 I believe that there are some documents out there to tell you about sizing for ops managers. 203 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:39,000 Right. 204 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:40,000 But I'm not sure about the management pack. 205 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:46,000 So, once we have the management pack built, how do you package it up and deploy it? 206 00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:47,000 Yeah. 207 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:50,000 So, when you build the management pack, really, management packs come in one of two ways. 208 00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:53,000 Either just signed or unsigned. 209 00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:54,000 Right. 210 00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:55,000 So, it's sealed or unsealed. 211 00:08:55,000 --> 00:09:00,000 And the difference is, sealed is a binary form of ops. 212 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:01,000 Okay. 213 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:05,000 And it really, what it does is it tells operations managers, this is a management pack that you 214 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:06,000 shouldn't change. 215 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:07,000 Right. 216 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:11,000 So, if I build a management pack and then I give it to my administrators to use, I don't 217 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:14,000 necessarily want them to go and edit the management. 218 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:15,000 So, I seal it. 219 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:20,000 But to get my management, once I build it in operations manager, if I do it in the admin 220 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:24,000 console, I simply export it out and it exports an XML file. 221 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:25,000 Right. 222 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:27,000 I can then edit it with an XML editor. 223 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:28,000 Okay. 224 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:33,000 Or I can use the author and console to bring it in and add more information to it, more 225 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:34,000 null. 226 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:35,000 Right. 227 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:37,000 And then once I've done that, I've got that XML file. 228 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:41,000 There is a little program that ships with the product called MpSeal. 229 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:44,000 And it just seals that management pack. 230 00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:50,000 It creates an XML file, it's a .mp file, which can then be imported by operations. 231 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:53,000 And does that suck in the custom DLLs and things like that? 232 00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:54,000 No. 233 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:57,000 So, if you've got custom DLLs, you'd have to build an installer around it that will install 234 00:09:57,000 --> 00:09:58,000 the DLL. 235 00:09:58,000 --> 00:09:59,000 Right. 236 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:02,000 But you could have a headless installer that you can install whatever to install this. 237 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:03,000 That's a lot of hassle. 238 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:04,000 Yeah. 239 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:05,000 Right. 240 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:06,000 So once you upload it into operations manager, right? 241 00:10:06,000 --> 00:10:08,000 Operations manager takes care of sending it out to all the agents. 242 00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:11,000 What it will do is it will take the discovery and it will push the discovery out to all the 243 00:10:11,000 --> 00:10:12,000 agents. 244 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:13,000 Right. 245 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:14,000 The agents on the network will then run the discovery. 246 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:16,000 And if they find instances, they'll start monitoring those instances. 247 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:17,000 If they don't find instances, they won't. 248 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:18,000 Right. 249 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:19,000 Nothing to monitor, right? 250 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:20,000 Right. 251 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:24,000 But they will continue to run the discovery on a regular basis in case you install that 252 00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:25,000 application on a later date. 253 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:26,000 Right. 254 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:27,000 It just automatically discovers it. 255 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:31,000 So if you install SQL on a brand new server that's never had SQL before, SQL just appears. 256 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:32,000 Right. 257 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:33,000 So we've got our management pack. 258 00:10:33,000 --> 00:10:35,000 And does that work all up and down? 259 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:38,000 The systems manager, like in Essentials and Operations manager? 260 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:43,000 It will work with Essentials and Operations manager because they do use the same core infrastructure. 261 00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:44,000 Right. 262 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:45,000 For the monitoring center. 263 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:48,000 But it's just those two products that handle the manager. 264 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:49,000 Thanks a lot. 265 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:51,000 That sounds like an exciting tour of management packs by me. 266 00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:52,000 It is. 267 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:53,000 It is. 268 00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:54,000 Thanks. 269 00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:54,000 You bet.