Management Pack Differences (MP Diff) is a comparison application that identifies the changes that have occurred between two management packs. Both .xml and .mp format is supported. It can be run against Operations Manager 2007 management packs up to Operations Manager 2007 R2 management packs. Unlike a traditional XML diff tool, MPDiff does a true Operations Manager 2007 R2 SDK compare. This means that it will report on differences as the Operations Manager 2007 R2 SDK sees them, providing a clear picture of what has actually changed in your environment.

Running MP Diff

MP Diff must be run from the command line, using the following format:

USAGE:

MpDiff.exe <mp1> <mp2> [/OUT:< path>] [/F:UACR] [/NOUI] [/XML]
EXAMPLE:

MpDiff.exe srcMP.xml tgtMP.xml /OUT:out.xml /F:CAR /XML

Options Description

<mp1>

Path to the source management pack. Use <serverName>;<mpName> to load from the management server.

<mp2>

Path to the target management pack. Use <serverName>;<mpName> to load from the management server.

/?

Shows help

/OUT

Optional

Name of the file to write results to. If file already exists, the date & time will be appended.

/F

Optional

Filter output by result. Only shows specified results:

  • C - Changed

  • U - Unchanged

  • A - Added

  • R - Removed

/NOUI

Optional

Do not show results in default browser.

/XML

Optional

Show output as XML.

Troubleshooting

MP Verify Failure

If a management pack is not schema compliant, MP Diff will not be able to compare it, as the SDK must be able to load it into memory. The most common reason for this is if you have changed the filename of your management pack. For example, downloading newapplication.mp and renaming it newapplication_newversion.mp would fail. To ensure MP Diff will work, check your management pack with MP Verify. In the example above, the issue can be resolved by placing each copy of the mp into a different folder and comparing across these instead.
MPDiff reports changes that don’t correspond to the xml

Changes that are reported by MP Diff may not map to the xml of a management pack perfectly. This is because MP Diff compares the actual in-memory object that the xml represents, not the xml itself.For example, a new element that appears to have been added in the xml may be reported as a change by MP Diff. This is expected behavior, as the SDK may assign a default value to elements where nothing has been explicitly specified. As such, the management pack element has actually changed when loaded, and has not been added. This is the actual behavior that this management pack exhibits when loaded into the Operations Manager 2007 R2 infrastructure.