Business Need for Operations Management
Today, businesses are getting more demanding with regards to their IT infrastructure. They are requiring a more reliable network that meets the diverse connectivity issues of the business and provides a specific level of application and network services. To accomplish this, IT departments need to spend hours checking event logs on all of their key servers, using performance monitors to capture performance data from critical machines then process the data into information for trend analysis. Simply put, there just aren't enough hours in the day to accomplish these tasks, even for a small company.

The new concept for Service Level Agreements requires the ability to know how your network, applications, and services are performing along with making sure they are functioning. This type of monitoring, called "Operation Management," can be very labor intensive.

Just Let MOM Do It!
The new catch-phrase among savvy IT specialists is, "Just let MOM do it." The Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 server monitors and consolidates the important events, generates alerts, and stores performance data from your servers and the applications that you are running on them. MOM then processes this data and presents it as useful information in a unified view or report. This access to critical alerts, important events, and performance statistics can allow you to instantly see the status of a complex network of servers. With a few clicks of the mouse you can almost instantly retrieve the health of each server and the performance of your Active Directory, DNS and other network services like reporting on who has the 10 biggest mailboxes or gets the most email.

MOM is designed to complement other management systems, rather than compete. Through the use of management packs, MOM can be configured to monitor the current operating systems, DNS, DHCP and other services, most current Microsoft products, and interface with many third party products.

Whether you want to monitor and manage a dozen servers or 10,000 servers across the world, MOM 2005 is an enterprise solution that can help address the changing requirements for the Operation Management requirements of your network and application infrastructure. For more information on MOM 2005 and what it can do for you, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/mom.

Mike Simpson, Principal Systems Engineer and Instructor
QuickStart Intelligence

About Mike Simpson
Mike joined QuickStart in 1995 and has more than 20 years of experience in the computer industry, including an extensive background in the fields of Technical Communications, Software Engineering, Information Technology and Business Management. He has been teaching a variety of subjects for over 25 years and brings all of this experience into the classroom, providing students with a unique and productive learning experience.