This section provides an overview of the monitoring elements which are part of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. This information, together with the product documentation, appropriate training, and supplemental information should provide a healthy start to a Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 deployment.

The SCOM utility is only a small part of a successful operations environment. Processes and organization outlined in the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) can provide a valuable set of suggestions for staffing, operating, and improving data center operations.

The monitoring elements which are part of Hosted Exchange include the following:

• Data Collection Applications
  
• Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack
  

These are the elements that are discussed in this document. The remaining monitoring and reporting elements and System Center Operations Manager 2007 itself, are discussed in Monitoring and Reporting. That section of the documentation includes additional information that will be important to anyone deploying monitoring and reporting elements.

System Center Operations Manager 2007 provides you with an open, highly scalable, enterprise operations management product offering event and performance data for your Hosted Exchange service.

At the start of this section, you should have reviewed the following:

• Solution Overview
  
• Monitoring and Reporting
  

By the end of this section, you will have an understanding of the monitoring and reporting elements which are a part of a MOM-based, Hosted Exchange monitoring solution.

As you approach your planning and deployment project for the Hosted Exchange solution, we recommend that you consider engaging a qualified Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) technology specialist, or certified Microsoft Partner to assist you with the project.

MCS and certified Microsoft Partners can provide the additional assistance you will need to plan and deploy your solution into production. MCS consultants and Microsoft Partners are highly skilled and experienced in deploying, from start to finish, the services required by a service provider offering a Hosted Exchange solution.

We recommend that you first install the Hosted Exchange solution in a lab environment for testing the solution before putting the solution into production. Your lab (and production) environment may vary from the Hosted Messaging and Collaboration test lab so you will probably have to modify some configuration settings if your test environment differs from the Hosted Messaging and Collaboration reference architecture.

Monitoring for Hosted Exchange includes:

• Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack - A bundle of Processing Rule Groups (PRG) designed to provide a structure for maintaining rules as you modify System Center Operations Manager 2007 for your environment.
  
• Exchange data collection tool - An executable program (ExchangeData.exe) that you install on EXMBX02. You need to install the tool, modify its ExchangeServerNames.xml config file, and then create a scheduled task to run the tool.
  

In order to provide monitoring and reporting functionality, your Hosted Exchange deployment includes the following steps. Steps to build monitoring are found in Build Reporting or Build Monitoring.

• Install the Exchange 2007 Management Pack.
  
• Create Test Mailboxes for OWA, ActiveSync, and Exchange Web Services Connectivity Monitoring.
  
• Add the SCOMService User Account as a Member of the MPSExchangeAccts Group.
  
• Install the Exchange Data Collection Application.