Are you still using MOM 2005?  Has anyone approached you with this request? 

If you did, then I had this same question from our team who manages CA Message Manager.  They wanted to be able to get a real count of files in message queue folders, set thresholds on the number of files, age of the files, and create performance data for trending.

In the past I was using a old MOM 2000 script from a NetIQ consultant (Ugo Corti) to do this.  However, as we progressed more and more towards using MOM 2005 as our one stop shop for monitoring, the CA Message Manager group needed something a bit better.  This older script wasn’t going to work as they liked.

Knowing that there are great resources on the net for MOM 2005 (and SCOM) scripts I decided to check them out and found a great script by Pete Zerger.  The script I am talking about is called “ App Dir and Queue Monitoring (MOM 2005) ”.

I imported this script into my MOM 2005 labs and started testing.  It worked as expected except for the performance collection portion.  Performance objects were being created and collected, but the value was always “0”.  I asked Pete about this and he was very helpful in troubleshooting the issues I was having (despite the ribbing I was giving him about this old script). 

He wanted me to have someone else test the script in there lab to see if the results were the same, so as to rule out my environment.  So that brings us to Scott Moss.  Scott, like me, still has MOM 2005.  Scott, unlike me, happens to actually know Visual Basic along with many other things (like top 10 famous midget wrestling matches, how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop, etc).  So tonight he was kind enough to give me a hand with this issue and guess what?  He fixed it!  I could have said I fixed it, but I’d like to say I was his muse to get this script working.

Anyway, if you need this script and want the performance data to be processed and collected correctly by MOM 2005, then all you need to do is make a minor cut and paste:

Area of the Original Script that needs to be modified:



Area of the Original Script after modification:

Once you do this, then the number of old files in the folder that you are monitoring will be logged correctly in your performance view.

Thanks again to Pete and Scott (as well as a few others) for all the help with this issue!  If you haven’t added their blogs to your RSS readers, then I highly recommend you do so!  Also, you can visit both of them in Las Vegas next week as they will both be attending MMS.  Give them a hug for me!

This article applies to the MOM 2005 Server Base OS MP version: 05.0.3500.0010 (The latest version)

Tonight I was ensuring that specific counters were collected for CA Message Manager.  We monitor this application and the engineers for it wanted me to add any counters that MOM isn’t currently collecting.

After I installed agents I made some views for CA MM.  I looked at the performance data views and saw about nine counters.  I thought that was odd.  So I did some digging and found that in the MSFT Windows Servers Base OS>Windows 2003>Performance RG some of the counters I wanted to collect were there.  I scratched my head, because this was a W2K3 server.  So I checked the computer groups the RG was bound too.  It was bound to W2K3 Virtual Clusters!  Sweet!  Oh wait, not so sweet.  Why this computer group is even in there is beyond me.  I thought maybe I got drunk one night and decided to do some tweaking and broke it.  However, I checked all my environments and it was the same.  I downloaded the MP from the catalog, imported it with the option to OVER WRITE any changes to my MP and sure enough it was still there.

What does this mean?  That these performance measuring rules are not running against stand alone W2K3 servers.  It also means that someone didn’t QA the MP very well.  Now I have to go check all the other RG’s to see if there are MORE mistakes.

I know not a lot of people are still using MOM 2005, but just imagine if this happens in OM 2007?  Sealed MP targeting the wrong server class?  How fun would that be to fix.  My fix will be to remove the cluster computer group and add the Windows 2003 Server group.

Details:

Computer Group bound to the performance RG in W2K3 Servers RG:

MSFT needs to pull this MP, fix it, and repost it.  Otherwise, you need to do the right thing and change it on your own.  It’s up to you if you want to leave the cluster computer group in there.  I doubt you have to since your nodes are W2K3 servers.

The other day I logged onto my management server to run some reports but when I loaded the console and clicked on reporting I got an error:

Loading reporting hierarchy failed.
The request failed with HTTP status 407: Proxy Authentication Required.

I had never had problems before and I wondered what had changed.  I thought it might have something to do with my admin id that doesn’t have a proxy id for IE.  I talked to my co-worker who shares the environment with me and he said he didn’t have that issue.

I had him shadow my session to see just what was happening.  Then I decided to check the IE settings (connections>lan settings) for this admin account. I noticed that the box for ‘Automatically detect settings’ and ‘Use automatic configuration script’ were checked and the proxy address was filled out.

I unchecked ‘Use automatic configuration script’ and went back to the console.  I clicked on the reporting tab and the reports appeared.

Not sure why this would affect how the console operates.  I hope to get an explanation, but in the meanwhile I know how to get around it.

If you want to see MOM 2005 in a movie, then watch Firewall with Harrison Ford.  There is a scene where Harrison unintentionally spreads a computer virus via E-mail (at the command of his captor).  For some reason Harrison has another monitor on his desk, and as they zoom in on it you can see that it's a MOM 2005 ops console with a diagram view displayed.

Dell is all over this movie, but I guess MSFT paid to have their monitoring tool plugged as well.  Kudos MSFT for getting a MOM cameo!  I wonder if Harrison Ford is a MOM MVP!  Sometimes I wish I could use the force to deploy agents and solve MOM issues.  In the end I just go into a wookie rage and destroy my cube.