Talking about MOF (or ITIL for that matter) isn’t the most exciting topic in the world. But I thought it would be interesting to discuss how Microsoft eats their own dogfood, so to speak, in using MOF with its System Center family. Read on …
Microsoft touts their Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) as a collection of best practices, principles, and models. The MOF provides direction to achieve reliability, availability, supportability, and manageability of mission-critical production systems, focusing on solutions and services using Microsoft products and technologies.
MOF uses a process model that describes Microsoft’s approach to IT operations and the service management life cycle. This model organizes the core ITIL processes of service support and service delivery, and includes additional MOF processes in the four quadrants of the MOF process model. These quadrants are:
- Changing
- Operating
- Supporting
- Optimizing
You can see Microsoft’s illustration of this at https://www.microsoft.com/library/media/1033/technet/images/itsolutions/cits/mo/mof/mofpm596_big.gif.
When considering the quadrants, realize that the activities pictured in these quadrants are not necessarily sequential and they can occur simultaneously within an IT organization. Each quadrant has a specific focus and tasks, and within each quadrant are policies, procedures, standards, and best practices that support specific operations management-focused tasks. We’re not going to cover all of those here.
But does Microsoft practice what it preaches? Does its System Center offering support its Operations Framework? Let’s take a look at how both Operations Manager 2007 and Configuration Manager 2007, key pieces of Microsoft’s System Center family, include activities that support MOF:
- Changing – this quadrant represents instances where new service solutions, technologies, systems, applications, hardware, and processes are introduced.
- OpsMgr: As you add new components to your environment, you should investigate whetther a Microsoft or 3rd party management pack is available to monitor a particular application, system, or hardware solution (If no management pack is available, you can define your own by building a model to describe the “vital signs” and monitoring attributes of that application.)
- ConfigMgr: You can use the software and OS deployment features of ConfigMgr to automate many activities in the Changing quadrant.
- Operating – this quadrant concentrates on performing day-to-day tasks efficiently and effectively.
- OpsMgr: Operations Manager includes operational tasks that you can initiate from the Operations console. These tasks are made available with various management packs, and you can add your own as well.
- ConfigMgr: Configuration Manager includes numerous operational tasks you can initiate from the Configuration Manager console or completely automate. These tasks are available through various product components, such as the update management and software deployment features. In addition, you can utilize the Network Access Protection (NAP) capability to ensure clients connecting to the network meet certain corporate criteria, such as antivirus software signatures, before granting them full access to resources.
- Supporting – This quadrant represents the resolution of incidents, problems, and inquiries … preferably in a timely manner.
- OpsMgr: Operations Manager is all about monitoring daily operations. Management packs provide the capability for knowledgeable users to interpret and act on information gathered from each monitored component to resolve any difficulties.
- ConfigMgr: By using the Desired Configuration Management (DCM) feature in conjunction with software deployment, you can identify widespread shifts in system configurations and reverse them with minimal effort.
- Optimizing – This quadrant focuses on minimizing costs while optimizing performance, capacity, and availability in delivering IT services.
- OpsMgr: The reporting and monitoring capabilities of Operations Manager 2007 can help you increase efficiency and gain greater control over your IT environment. Integrating and extending problem reporting and operations monitoring to client systems help lower your client support costs, and availability reporting allows both IT operations and management to get the information needed to quickly identify and resolve issues that affect service levels.
- ConfigMgr: Configuration Manager reporting delivers in a number of functional areas of IT operations. As an example, it includes reports providing instant insight into hardware readiness for operating system deployment, minimizing the hands-on aspect of hardware assessment in upgrade planning. Together with its software metering component, these reports can provide insight into unused software licenses you can reclaim for use elsewhere.
So it looks like System Center is well represented among the quadrants of the Microsoft Operations Framework. Considering System Center is all about IT Operations, that’s good to know!
