Best Practices

The following are best practices from this chapter:

• Deploy System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 for monitoring Windows Server 2008 R2.

• Install the Windows Operating System, Active Directory, DNS, IIS, and Windows Server 2008 R2 management packs into OpsMgr to monitor network systems and applications that Windows Server 2008 R2 depends on.

• Deploy Operations Manager components on Windows 64-bit and SQL 64-bit for optimal performance.

• Create override management packs for each application management pack, such as the Windows Server 2008 R2 management pack. Don’t use the Default Management Pack.

• Take future expansion and relevance of hardware into account when sizing servers for OpsMgr deployment.

• Keep the installation of OpsMgr on a separate server or set of separate dedicated member servers that do not run any other separate applications.

• Use SQL Server Reporting Services to produce custom reports using OpsMgr’s reporting feature.

• Start with a single management group and add on additional management groups only if they are absolutely necessary.

• Use a dedicated service account for OpsMgr.

• Allocate adequate space for the databases depending on the length of time needed to store events and the number of managed systems.

• Monitor the size of the OpsMgr database to ensure that it does not increase beyond the bounds of acceptable size.

• Leverage the reporting database to store and report on data over a long period.

• Modify the grooming interval to aggressively address environmental requirements.

• When tuning, err on the side of fewer alerts. If nothing will be done about an alert, make sure it doesn’t send a notification email.

• When tuning, use the Most Common Alerts report to see which alerts are the most valuable targets for tuning.

• Configure OpsMgr to monitor itself.