Old SCOM MP vs new MP

Question

Hi all,

Have a SCOM 2012R2 environment and have just built a new SCOM 2019 Lab environment to start
Just wondering if i should be installing all old 2012R2 and new MP's together or just stick to all 2016/2019 MPs thinking that these would also cover all 2012R2 Servers?

My server fleet is mixture of 2012R2/ 2016 and 2019 Win Servers.

Also, can i multi-Home 2019 SCOM agent and SCOM 2012r2 Agent on the same Servers?

Regards
Saiyad R

Answer 1

One challenge in using dual-homing in an upgrade scenario is agent support. The agent versions may not be officially supported, though it can be somewhat unavoidable. You should test to verify that updating the agent to 2019 first works with 2012. Problem agents may need to be reinstalled rather than upgraded. You might even try using the 2016 agent to bridge the gap.

Answer 2

Assuming you still have access to the old MP files. If the MPs are too outdated you might find it difficult to find the original MP versions. I would move over anything you can and then upgrade the MPs to the latest version. The goal being to preserve your prior tuning investment and overrides. Unless you have some reason to consider a clean slate. For example, if you are inheriting the environment and you disagree with the prior admins methods. This could also be a good opportunity to shed low-value MPs and poor design decisions.

SCOM 2019 can make MP upgrade recommendations for you as well. If you are using older SQL and AD packs then you may need to recreate your overrides. These are new MP designs rather than upgrades. Also, make sure to look at the SCOM SQL design best practices. There are DB optimization choices that are difficult to implement post-deployment.