A management pack contains logic for monitoring a device, application, or service. A management pack file is an .xml file that is sealed, which means it cannot be written to, or is unsealed.
In a number of wizards and dialog boxes, you select a destination management pack in which to store the results. You can select any unsealed management pack file in your management group or create a new one.
The following illustration shows the unsealed management packs that are installed with Operations Manager.
Never use the management packs that are installed with Operations Manager to save any settings that you change or elements that you create. When you have to select a destination management pack, always select a management pack that you created.
When You Select a Destination
Management Pack
You select a destination management pack when you create an override or disable a rule, monitor, or object discovery. You also select a destination management pack when you create or configure the following elements:
- A folder in the Monitoring
workspace
- A unit, aggregate, or dependency monitor
- An attribute
- A group
- A rule
- A task
- A Run As profile
- Monitoring by using a management pack
template
- Monitoring of a distributed application
- Tracking of service level objectives
Selecting a Destination Management
Pack
Management packs can be sealed or unsealed. A sealed management pack cannot be modified directly. Any changes to the workflows in the sealed management pack, such as an override for a monitor, must be saved to an unsealed management pack. The unsealed management pack references the sealed management pack that it modifies.
When you want to remove a sealed management pack, you must first remove any other management packs that reference it. If the unsealed management packs that reference the sealed management pack also contain overrides or elements that apply to a different sealed management pack, you lose those overrides and elements when you remove the unsealed management pack.
Overrides
In the following illustration, overrides for management packs 1, 2, and 3 are all saved to a single unsealed management pack. If you want to remove management pack 1, you first must remove the unsealed management pack. As you can see, you would also remove all overrides for management packs 2 and 3.
The recommended method is to create an unsealed management pack for each sealed management pack that you want to override, as shown in the following illustration. Removing management pack 1 and its unsealed management pack does not affect the other management packs.
As a best practice, when you set overrides for a management pack, save them to a management pack that is named ManagementPack_Overrides, where ManagementPack is the name of the sealed management pack to which the overrides apply. For example, overrides to the management pack Microsoft.InformationWorker.Office.XP.mp would be saved to Microsoft.InformationWorker.Office.XP_Overrides.xml.
Groups
When you create a group, you save it to an unsealed management pack. However, an element in an unsealed management pack, such as a group, cannot reference an element in a different unsealed management pack, such as an override or a view. If you are going to use a group to limit the application of an override or to scope a view, you must either save the group to the same unsealed management pack as the override or view, or you must seal the management pack that contains the group.
If you save the group to the same unsealed management pack as the override or view, you can only use that group for overrides and views that are also contained in that unsealed management pack.
If you seal the management pack that contains the group, you can reference that group from other unsealed management packs. However, you cannot easily change any group settings in the sealed management pack or add new groups to the sealed management pack.
Before you create any groups in Operations Manager, you should plan what groups you require, the purpose each group will serve, and how to save the group in a manner that allows it to be used for its intended purpose.
For information about sealing a management pack, see Sealing a Management Pack in the Authoring Guide.
Other Elements
Elements that you create, such as a rule, monitor, task, or attribute, can reference or target elements that are in sealed management packs. For guidance about selecting a destination management pack for elements that you create, see Selecting a Management Pack in the Authoring Guide.