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Microsoft Operations Management Suite: Connect Datasources

 

This blog post is part of the “Microsoft Operations Management Suite: Quickstart guide” which can be found here: http://scug.be/dieter/2015/05/08/microsoft-operations-management-suite-quickstart-guide/

 

After we have successfully created our workspace and have installed our Solutions it’s now time to bring in our data to start the magic and witness the insight in our data that OMS can bring

Here you have 3 options:

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  • Attach Servers directly (limited to 64 bit): This is used if you want to attach a server which is not monitored by SCOM. A certificate will be generated and inserted into a package that downloads and installs the Microsoft monitoring agent service onto the desired server and connects the server to your OMS.
  • Attach System Center operations manager: You can attach various management groups in OMS. If you click connect you will be guided to the on boarding process for connecting a SCOM environment to OMS. More on this later
  • Attach Azure Storage account: you can add a Azure storage account to facilitate the availability options regarding backup restore etc. More on this later in this blog series.

Note: If you receive errors when connecting these servers to your environment review this troubleshoot article to set the firewall correctly: http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2014/05/29/advisor-error-3000-unable-to-register-to-the-advisor-service-amp-onboarding-troubleshooting-steps.aspx

Connecting a standalone server to OMS:

If you want to attach several servers which are not monitored by SCOM you can easily download the agent and installed. No need to fiddle with the certificates yourself any more!

Download the agent and install it on a server:

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The agent package is around 25mb and will be downloaded to your local machine. Transfer the package to a machine which is not monitored by SCOM and install the package.

Note: The same restrictions as installing an agent from the console apply. It’s not possible to onboard a server which has a SCOM component installed such as a gateway server , management server,… Which makes sense because if you have these servers in place you have a SCOM environment and it’s far more easy to onboard the management group entirely instead of doing this per server.

Copy the MMASetup-AMD64 package to your server and run as administrator

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The standard manual install dialog for a Microsoft Monitoring Agent Starts

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click through the first screens

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The next screen is interesting. Here we need to decide whether we are going to actually install the microsoft monitoring agent exclusively for OMS or also for the on prem SCOM. In this scenario we are choosing to exclusively use the agent for OMS

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Now we need to fill in the GUID keys which are shown on the OMS page right under “connect a server”.

The workplace ID is straight forward: The workplace ID noted in the OMS console

The Workspace key is in fact noted as the “private key” in the OMS console.

Note: Again this probably will be aligned after the SCOM console is aligned with the new OMS system.

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Click next and install

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Finish. Wait 5 min and refresh your console:

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Note: if you have more than one workspace make sure you select the correct workspace where you want to connect the server to as the id will be unique per workspace.

Connecting a System Center operations manager management group:

Open your SCOM environment and navigate to Administration > Operational Insights > Operational Insights Connection

Note: These names will probably change in the next UR or management pack release.

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Click configure or Re-configure Operational Insights

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Select whether you are using a work or Microsoft account. I’m using a Microsoft Account:

The associated workspaces with your account are loaded and selectable

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Select your workspace and click update or create

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Next choose which groups or servers you would like to send data to your OMS workspace. Click add a computer / group in the tasks bar on the right.

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Select the servers / groups you want an click add

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So now all the servers are coming into your Operational Insights Managed view.

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This management group will show up in your OMS workspace as 1 connected management group:

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The name / number of servers and the last data received is shown to give you a clear view on the status of your management groups.

Configure log collection

A lot of solutions are dependent on the logs received. As this was one of the first valuable additions that opinsights brought this is almost mandatory to have in OMS as well.

Go to the last step of the “wizard” and select what logs that need to be gathered on the connected servers:

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When configured we’ll get a nice 100% mark and we are ready to go!

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Summary

Connecting is a breeze if your servers are able to reach the OMS service on port 443. You can connect individual servers or entire management groups where you decide which servers are actually sending data to the OMS service.

For now the agents for linux are not available yet but they will become available very soon.

So now you are all set to start playing with the Solutions you have installed while data is pooring in!

Microsoft Operations Management Suite: Quickstart guide

 

So Microsoft Operations Management Suite (OMS) was launched during Ignite 2015 and is awaiting your data to show its power to give you the insights in your environment and actually manage your environment not limited to the boundaries of your own environment or your azure environment. But before we can play with the goodies we need to configure everything correctly.

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This guide will grow in time to be your one stop to get you going, configuring and using Microsoft Operations Management Suite (OMS) . Bookmark this post to get regular updates on my journey through OMS to help you save some time while exploring the possibilities of OMS.

Below is a list of topics that can be used to already start your journey:

Enough talk, let’s build
Something together.