When System Management Server 2003 distributes software to computers, it is often necessary to temporarily disable Operations Manager rule-based alerts generated by the target computer. For example, deploying hotfixes and security patches to servers may require shutting down threads and services. If threads or services on these servers are monitored by a management pack, numerous Operations Manager alerts may be generated, overloading the Operations Manager server.

The Disable MOM alerts while this program runs check box suspends Operations Manager alerts until the distributed software has finished. The SMS administrator can set this check box in the SMS package program properties. Setting this option suppresses Operations Manager alerts for all management packs that target the client computer while the client computer is executing that program.

If this option is selected, when the advertisement runs on the targeted machine the Operations Manager agent is placed in maintenance mode. The SMS agent also provides a timeout setting for the Operations Manager agent. After the advertisement runs on the targeted computer, the SMS client agent will resume the Operations Manager agent monitoring on the computer. Any events triggering alerts after this time will be reported normally.

If the software distribution fails to run on the target computer, the following actions take place:

• If the distribution returns a failure code then the SMS agent will remove the Operations Manager agent from maintenance mode as if the distribution had been successful.
  
  
• If the distribution fails unexpectedly and the SMS agent does not receive a failure code within a predefined timeout, the Operations Manager agent will exit maintenance mode.
  
  

Enable Maintenance Mode for an SMS 2003 Program

Use the following procedure for enabling maintenance mode on client computers while SMS 2003 programs are running.

To enable maintenance mode for an SMS 2003 program

1. In the Systems Management Server console, navigate to Systems Management Server / Site Database - <site server name> / Packages.

2. In the details pane, right-click the Program, and then click Properties.

3. In the Program Properties dialog box, click the MOM tab.

4. Select Disable MOM alerts while this program runs, and then click OK.

After enabling maintenance mode for the SMS 2003 program, the client computer will enter maintenance mode when the SMS 2003 package is distributed and run.

Note
The timeout for maintenance mode is set in the Program Properties dialog box on the Requirements tab with the Maximum allowed runtime property selected.

The hierarchy diagrams of SMS 2003 in Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 have been replaced with an SMS 2003 site hierarchy. The hierarchy view now displays server roles in the topology view.

Because SMS 2003 SP2 or later is the recommended version of SMS, configuration scripts have been removed.

SMS 2003 contains new reports that focus on performance counters by site system role and performance counters by object processing counter, such as counters related to DDR's. For more information about the new reports, see Reports for SMS 2003.

Concepts

Other Resources