In SCOM 2012 there was a difference between Certified devices and generic devices. When you added a network device to SCOM it would show up as on of both. The certified devices had additional monitoring applied to them such as Processor and Memory monitoring, while the generic devices were much more basic in their monitoring possibilities. To get around that and/or to create additional monitoring for a devices components and add monitors and rules to them was quite difficult to achieve. I know I spent a week creating a custom management pack for a customer with a few classes, discoveries, monitors and rules, also because the amount of information was very limited but also because it is such a hard process to get through. Plus I am not really much of a developer to be honest. 🙄 Lets say in that week a lot of >:XX words were used and thankfully I got great tips from my MVP friend Daniele Grandini.
Now however we are getting some help from SCOM 2016!
What is the process?
What you do is create a custom formatted XML file. This contains some basic information you are used to while creating management packs, such as a name and version number. Next you define Discoveries for devices and components. You define the SNMP OID’s to look for. And you create Rules which look at the defined OID’s and collect their data, and you create monitors which also look at predefined OID’s and have expressions connected to them which look easier than the ones you used to create in custom packs to determine state of the components.
The tool we are talking about converts this structured XML file into a management pack XML file which can be used by SCOM. It is a simple command line executable with very few options and it will check for mistakes in the input XML and notify you.
Prerequisites:
The first thing which needs to happen is that you discover the targetted device first as an SNMP network device in SCOM through the usual method. The management pack which will be created using this tool would only work on discovered and monitored network devices. We are just expanding the default monitoring set to include more specific monitoring.
Where is it found:
%Program Files%\Microsoft System Center 2016\Operations Manager\Server\NetMonMpGenerator.exe
The command line options:
-InputFile or -I is used to pass the filename of the XML file you created (can add a path to that within quotes).
-OuputDir or -O is the directory where the output of this tool will be written to (can use a full path between quotes). The tool will write the management pack file to this directory.
-Overwrite or -W will overwrite an existing MP with the same name if found in the output directory.
-Help or -H can be used to display short usage help for the executable.
Example of command line tool usage:
I opened up a command prompt and went to the following directory
C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center 2016\Operations Manager\Server
Next I ran this command (and the directories already existed)
NetMonMPGenerator.exe -InputFile “C:\SCOMosaur\dinos.xml” -OutputDir “C:\SCOMosaur”
And a few seconds later I got his message:
Management pack created: C:\SCOMosaur\System.NetworkManagement.SCOMosaursNetworkPack.xml
This file can be imported into your SCOM environmet to start monitoring.
Full example
Now I know you are going to ask me for a full example where I create the input XML as well.
Example of the SCOM 2016 Network Monitoring MP Generator where I will be attempting to monitor a Triceratops somehow.
❓ This of course relates to me being one of the SCOMosaurs and staying on the Theme. :p
Back to the SCOM 2016 Features – Overview post!
Enjoy!
Bob Cornelissen