In This post we will go through the very basic definitions and concepts SCOM , if you are new to scom this post is definitely for you, every thing in this post is from TechNet (Best reference ever) … 
lets start.
What is SCOM?
Operations Manager is a part of Microsoft System Center 2012 family, SCOM is software that helps you monitor services, devices, and operations for many computers from a single console.
What Operations Manager Does
We all agree that IT departments need to know when there is a problem, identify where the problem is, and figure out what is causing the problem, ideally before the users of the applications encounter the problems. The more computers and devices in the business, the more challenging this task becomes.
Using Operations Manager in the environment makes it easier to monitor multiple computers, devices, services, and applications. The Operations console, shown in the following image, enables you to check the health, performance, and availability for all monitored objects in the environment and helps you identify and resolve problems.
The Operations Manager Infrastructure
Installing Operations Manager creates a management group. The management group is the basic unit of functionality. At a minimum, a management group consists of a management server, the operational database, and the reporting data warehouse database.
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The management server is the focal point for administering the management group and communicate with agents and communicating with the database. When you open the Operations console and connect to a management group, you connect to a management server for that management group. Depending on the size of your computing environment, a management group can contain a single management server or multiple management servers.
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The operational database is a SQL Server database that contains all configuration data for the management group and stores all monitoring data that is collected and processed for the management group. The operational database retains short-term data, by default 7 days.
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The data warehouse database is a SQL Server database that stores monitoring and alerting data for historical purposes. Data that is written to the Operations Manager database is also written to the data warehouse database, so reports always contain current data. The data warehouse database retains long-term data.
An Operations Manager agent is a service that is installed on a computer. The agent collects data, compares sampled data to predefined values, creates alerts, and runs responses. A management server receives and distributes configurations to agents on monitored computers.
Every agent reports to a management server in the management group. This management server is referred to as the agent’s primary management server.
On a monitored computer, the Operations Manager agent is listed as the System Center Management Health service.
The System Center Management Health service collects performance data, executes tasks, and so on. Even when the service is unable to communicate with the management server it reports to, the service continues to run and queues the collected data and events on the disk of the monitored computer. When the connection is restored, the System Center Management Health service sends collected data and events to the management server.
The Operations Manager agent sends alert and discovery data to the primary management server, which writes the data to the operational database. The agent also sends events, performance, and state data to the primary management server for that agent, which writes the data to the operational and data warehouse databases simultaneously.
The agent sends data according to the schedule parameters for each rule and monitor. For optimized collection rules, data is only transmitted if a sample of a counter differs from the previous sample by a specified tolerance, such as 10%. This helps reduce network traffic and the volume of data stored in the operational database.
Additionally, all agents send a packet of data, called a heartbeat, to the management server on a regular schedule, by default every 60 seconds. The purpose of the heartbeat is to validate the availability of the agent and communication between the agent and the management server.
Heartbeats When an agent fails to send a heartbeat 4 times, a Health Service Heartbeat Failure alert is generated and the management server attempts to contact the computer by using ping. If the computer does not respond to the ping, a Failed to Connect to Computer alert is generated. The following illustration shows this process.
What are the Management Packs?? The workflows that the System Center Management service runs are defined by management packs. Management packs define the information that the agent collects and returns to the management server for a specific application or technology. For example, the BizTalk Server Management Pack contains rules and monitors that collect and evaluate events and operations that are important to ensuring the health and efficiency of the BizTalk Server application.
After Operations Manager installs an agent on a computer, it sends an initial configuration to the agent. The initial configuration includes object discoveries from management packs. The management pack defines the types of objects, such as applications and features that will be monitored on computers that have been discovered by Operations Manager. Agents send data to the management server that identifies the instances of objects discovered on the computer. The management server then sends the agents the elements of management packs that apply to the discovered objects for each computer, such as rules and monitors.
A rule defines the events and performance data to collect from computers and what to do with the information after it is collected. A simple way to think about rules is as an If/Then statement. For example, a management pack for an application might contain rules such
as the following:
- – If a message indicating that the application is shutting down appears in the event log, create an alert.
- – If upload of a source file fails, collect the
This raps up the basic definitions for SCOM Server other posts disscussing SCOM installation , configuration , tip&Tricks … stay tuned….
Walid Hegazy 