Use the Discovery Wizard to Deploy Agents

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Applies To: Operations Manager 2007 R2, Operations Manager 2007 SP1

You can use the Operations console to search your environment for manageable objects and then deploy an agent to any object that you want to monitor. The process of searching your environment is called “discovery.” One of the advantages of using discovery is that it lists all manageable objects, including any that you might not be aware of.

The Discovery Wizard does not show systems that the management group is already monitoring. If you are doing a phased rollout of your management group, you can run the wizard to add new systems to the group. Also, after your initial deployment, you can use the Discovery Wizard to add newly installed computers to be managed.

When agents are pushed out to computers, Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 sends credentials that have local administrator rights for that computer; this is required to install the agent. Sending credentials could raise security concerns. Consult the Operations Manager 2007 Security Guide (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=64017) for information to help you address any security issues before you use the Discovery Wizard.

If the Discovery Wizard is not right for your needs (for example, if you have a set list of computers to which you want to deploy agents), you have the option of manually installing agents on systems to be managed. Agents can also be embedded in the host image of the monitored computer.

Use the following procedure to discover Windows-based computers and to deploy the Operations Manager 2007 agent to them from the Operations console.

To deploy the Operations Manager 2007 agent to Windows-based computers from the Operations console

  1. Log in to the Operations console with an account that is a member of the Operations Manager Administrators role for the Operations Manager 2007 management group.

  2. Click the Administration button.

  3. At the bottom of the navigation pane, click Discovery Wizard.

  4. On the Introduction page, click Next. The Introduction page does not appear if the Computer and Device Management Wizard has been run before and Do not show this page again was selected.

  5. On the Auto or Advanced? page, do the following:

    1. Select either Automatic computer discovery or Advanced discovery. If you select Automatic computer discovery, click Next, and then go to step 7. If you select Advanced discovery, continue with the following steps.

      Note

      Automatic computer discovery scans for Windows-based computers in the domain that the root management server is in. Advanced discovery allows you to specify criteria for the computers that the wizard will return, such as computer names starting with NY.

    2. In the Computer & Device Types list, select Servers & Clients, Server Only, or Clients Only.

    3. In the Management Server list, click the management server or gateway server to discover the computers. When multiple management servers are in a management group, the agents are automatically configured to use secondary management servers if their root management server is unavailable.

    4. If you selected Servers & Clients, you can select the Verify discovered computers can be contacted check box. This is likely to increase the success rate of agent deployment, but discovery can take longer.

      Note

      If the Active Directory catalog does not contain the NetBIOS names for computers in a domain, select Verify discovered computers can be contacted. Otherwise, the Browse, or Type In option will fail to find computers. This affects computers in the same domain as the root management server, in another domain with a full trust relationship, and in untrusted domains using a gateway server.

    5. Click Next.

    Note

    The wizard can return approximately 4000 computers if Verify discovered computers can be contacted is selected, and it can return 10,000 computers if this option is not selected. Automatic computer discovery verifies that discovered computers can be contacted. A computer that is already managed by the management group is not returned.

  6. On the Discovery Method page, you can locate the computers that you want to manage by either scanning or browsing Active Directory Domain Services or typing the computer names.

    If you want to scan, do the following:

    1. If it is not already selected, select Scan Active Directory and then click Configure.

    2. In the Find Computers dialog box, type the criteria that you want to use for discovering computers and then click OK.

    3. In the Domain list, click the domain of the computers that you want to discover.

    If you want to browse Active Directory or type the computer names, do the following:

    • Select Browse for, or type-in computer names, click Browse, specify the names of the computers that you want to manage, and then click OK.

    • In the Browse for, or type-in computer names box, type the computer names, separated by a semi-colon, comma, or a new line [ENTER]. You can use NetBIOS computer names or fully qualified domain names (FQDN).

  7. Click Next, and on the Administrator Account page, do one of the following:

    • Select Use selected Management Server Action Account if it is not already selected.

    • Select Other user account, type the User name and Password, and then select the Domain from the list. If the user name is not a domain account, select This is a local computer account, not a domain account.

      Important

      The account must have administrative privileges on the targeted computers. If This is a local computer account, not a domain account is selected, the Management Server Action Account will be used to perform discovery. For more information about Operations Manager 2007 accounts, see the Operations Manager 2007 Security Guide (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=64017).

  8. Click Discover to display the Discovery Progress page. The time it takes discovery to finish depends on many factors, such as the criteria specified and the configuration of the IT environment.

    Note

    Computers that are already managed by the management group will not be returned by the wizard.

  9. On the Select Objects to Manage page, do the following:

    1. Select the computers that you want to be agent-managed computers.

    2. In the Management Mode list, click Agent and then click Next.

    Note

    Computer Discovery shows virtual nodes of clusters. Do not select any virtual nodes to be managed.

  10. On the Summary page, do the following:

    1. Leave the Agent installation directory set to the default of %ProgramFiles%\System Center Operations Manager 2007 or type an installation path.

      Important

      If a different Agent installation directory is specified, the root of the path must exist on the targeted computer or the agent installation fails. Subdirectories, such as OM2007\Agent, are created if they do not exist.

    2. Leave Agent Action Account set to the default, Local System, or select Other and type the User name, Password, and Domain. The Agent Action Account is the default account that the agent will use to perform actions. For more information about Operations Manager 2007 accounts, see the Operations Manager 2007 Security Guide (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=64017).

    3. Click Finish.

  11. In the Agent Management Task Status dialog box, the Status for each selected computer changes from Queued to Success; the computers are ready to be managed.

    Note

    If the task fails for a computer, click the targeted computer. The reason for the failure is displayed in the Task Output text box.

  12. Click Close.