Authoring Management Packs in Operations Manager 2007

If you have looked at Operations Manager to any extent, you know management packs have changed significantly since MOM 2005. For one thing, they tend to be "sealed" - so you can't change them. They also no longer use the AKM format, they are now actually XML documents.

Since not everyone may want to code in XML, how does one create a management pack? Like many questions in IT, the answer is, It depends. It depends on what you what to accomplish, and the technique(s) you are most proficient with. Management packs range from doing something simple to extremely complex, so a tool you may use for a simple management pack may not always meet your needs.

The tools to write management packs include (in order of more complex functionality in management packs):

• The Authoring node in the Operations console
• The Authoring console (currently in Release Candidate status), will require OpsMgr 2007 Service Pack 1 when it is released
• A third party tool such as the MP Studio Wizard, which includes versioning capabilities.
• XML combined with Visual Studio to create reports

I previously blogged about the Authoring console, see http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20315. Even with the Authoring console, some things will still need to be done using XML, but the new console reduces those considerably. For an advance peek of its capabilities, you can download the RC version from Microsoft's connect website.

• Microsoft
• Network Management
• Software
• OpsMgr; management packs;