With Operations Manager 2007 you can manage Windows-based computers as well as SNMP-enabled devices, such as routers, print servers, and computers running operating systems other than Windows. In Operations Manager 2007, these managed items are collectively referred to as objects.

Note
In Operations Manager 2007, objects are also distributed services, such as e-mail, and sub-components of an object, such as a hard disk. For the purposes of the Deploy Operations Manager 2007 documentation, unless stated otherwise, object is used to refer to Windows-based computers, computers running operating systems other than Windows, and network devices.

Operations Manager objects are agent-managed computers, agentless managed computers, and network devices.

Agent-Managed Computers

An agent-managed computer is a Windows-based computer that has the Operations Manager 2007 agent installed. Agent-managed computers and their root management server and secondary management server must be in the same or two-way trusted domains or a gateway server must be used. For more information about gateway servers, see Gateway Server.

There are two methods for installing the Operations Manager 2007 agent on Windows-based computers:

Note
The Operations Manager 2007 agent requires the Microsoft XML 6.0 Parser. You can download the MSXML 6.0 Parser, also referred to as Microsoft Core XML Services (MSXML) 6.0, from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=76343. The MSXML 6.0 Parser is installed automatically with the agent if the agent is deployed from the Operations Manager 2007 Operations console. For more information see about deploying the agent form the console, see How to Deploy the Operations Manager 2007 Agent to Windows-Based Computers from the Operations Console.

The Operations Manager 2007 agent can be configured for either failover or multihoming or both.

  • With failover, the Operations Manager 2007 agent automatically reports to another management server in the same management group if its root management server becomes unavailable. Agents are automatically configured for failover for a management group if it contains multiple management servers, unless Active Directory is used to assign agents to the management group. For details on using Active Directory to assign agents to management groups and configure them for failover, see How to Use Active Directory Domain Services to Assign Computers to Operations Manager 2007 Management Servers.

  • When an Operations Manager 2007 agent is assigned to more than one management group, it is multihomed. With multihoming, the agent can be configured to report specific data to one management group and different data to a second management group. For example, the agent can be configured to report Active Directory data to the Networking Management Group and Exchange data to the Messaging Management Group. A management server for a management group can even be an agent-managed computer for another management group.

Agent-Managed Domain Controllers

If an agent is manually deployed to a domain controller, and an Active Directory Management Pack is later deployed, errors might occur during deployment of the management pack. To prevent errors from occurring before deploying the Active Directory Management Pack, or to recover from errors that might have already occurred, you will need to deploy the Active Directory Management Pack helper object by deploying the file oomads.msi on the affected domain controller. The file oomads.msi can be found on the computer hosting the agent in C:\Program Files\System Center Operations Manager 2007\HelperObjects.

After an agent has been manually deployed to a domain controller, locate oomads.msi, and then double-click the file to install the Active Directory Management Pack helper object.

You need to manually deploy oomads.msi to only domain controllers that will host an agent and the Active Directory Management Pack. The Active Directory Management Pack helper object is automatically installed when the agent is deployed by using the Discovery Wizard.

Note
Administrators might want to deploy the Active Directory Management Pack helper object using Microsoft System Management Server or Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007. The file oomads.msi is available in the HelperObjects folder on the System Center Operations Manager 2007 installation media.

Agentless Managed Computers

An agentless managed computer is a Windows-based computer that is discovered by using the Operations Manager 2007 Operations console. You then assign an Operations Manager 2007 management server or agent-managed computer to provide remote (proxy) agent functionality for the computers.

Note
A management server will not collect descriptions for events or publishers present on an agentless managed computer, but not present on the proxy-agent.

Agentless management of computers is used when installing the Operations Manager 2007 agent on the computers is not wanted or possible. Agentless managed computers are managed as if there is an agent installed on them. Not all management packs work in agentless mode. For more information, see the documentation for the management pack.

Important
Agentless management of a computer will not work if the agentless managed computer and its proxy communicate through a firewall.

For information about configuring Operations Manager 2007 for agentless management of a computer, see How to Configure Operations Manager 2007 for Agentless Management of Computers. For information about configuring and agent-managed computer as a proxy for agentless managed computers, see How to Configure an Operations Manager 2007 Agent-Managed Computer as a Proxy for Agentless Managed Computers.

Important
An agentless managed computer places greater resource requirements on a management server than an agent-managed computer.

To change an agentless managed computer to an agent-managed computer, do the following:

1.Delete the agentless managed computer from the management group.

2.Deploy the agent to the computer.

For information about deleting an agent managed computer from a management group, see How to Delete an Operations Manager 2007 Managed Object from a Management Group. For information about deploying the agent, see How to Deploy the Operations Manager 2007 Agent for Agent-Management of Computers.

Network Devices

Network devices are SNMP version 1 or 2 enabled network devices and computers running operating systems other than Windows that are discovered by using the Operations Manager 2007 Operations console. You then assign an Operations Manager 2007 management server or agent-managed computer to provide remote (proxy) agent functionality for the objects. For more information, see How to Configure Operations Manager 2007 to Manage SNMP-Enabled Devices and Computers Not Running Windows.

Device manufacturers can create management packs that contains rules and tasks for their specific device. If the vendor of your devices has not yet created a management pack, you can still configure Operations Manager 2007 to discover hardware devices on your network within a specified range of IP addresses and at the same time determine which protocol version it is using. In addition, you can configure rules and monitors that use SNMP GET to collect data and SNMP SET to run tasks such as reset or power off.

See Also

Did you find this information useful? Please send your suggestions and comments about the documentation.