Daily Tasks for SMS 2003

Article
11/13/2008

It is recommended that you perform the following tasks on a daily basis:

Review all open alerts.
Review computer group membership.
Verify that all Operations Manager 2007 agents are communicating with the Operations Manager 2007 Server.
Review performance backlogs.
Review performance processing rates.
Review Operations Manager 2007 agent and server performance.
Review notification group membership or event processing rule notification groups.
Review SMS 2003 site backups.
Review events (optional).

Review All Open Alerts

Alerts in the SMS 2003 Management Pack are displayed in the following alert description format:

$Computer$ <Rule Name>

$Description$

Event details

Review all alerts in Operations Manager 2007 to ensure that they are addressed in a timely manner. You can use any of the following methods to review open alerts:

In the Operations Console, click the Monitoring button, expand Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 and click Alerts.
In the Operations Console, click the Monitoring button, expand Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 and click General. Select Alerts that are New in the last 72 hours.
Alerts can be viewed by computer or computer group by clicking Computer and Groups. To display a summary by alert severity, right-click the SMS 2003 computer group that you want to examine, select View and then click Alerts.
Alerts can be viewed through the State view. The State view displays a list of computers and the highest-severity alert. Double-click any computer to get a listing of its current alerts.
Alerts can be viewed through the Diagram view. The SMS 2003 Hierarchy Diagram view displays a graphical representation of the SMS 2003 hierarchy. Each computer has a status annotation indicating its highest severity alert. Double-click any computer to get a listing of its current alerts.

It is recommended that you review all new alerts in the following order:

SMS 2003 core service alerts
SMS 2003 dependent service alerts
SMS 2003 site system status summarizer-based alerts
SMS 2003 Management Point Health alerts
SMS 2003 status message-based alerts
SMS 2003 component alerts
SMS 2003 backlog alerts
SMS 2003 Inbox monitoring alerts
SMS 2003 SMS Site Backup failed alerts
SMS 2003 program failed alerts

Review Computer Group Membership

Computer group membership can be verified by using Operations Manager 2007.

In the Operations Console, click the Authoring button, click Groups and then right-click the appropriate SMS 2003 computer group. Verify that each of the displayed computer groups contains the correct computers.

Verify That Agents Are Communicating with the Operations Manager 2007 Server

Communication failure between the agent and the monitoring infrastructure prevents you from receiving alerts. Verify that the agent and the server running Operations Manager 2007 are communicating by running Availability reports. For more information, see the topic "How to Create an Availability Report in Operations Manager 2007" topic in the Operations Manager 2007 Help.

Review Performance Backlogs and Performance Processing Rates

The Performance Backlogs and Performance Processing Rates are extremely useful in detecting daily trends and understanding what is happening in the SMS hierarchy. Performance Backlogs and Performance Processing Rates can be viewed in Operations Manager 2007.

To review performance backlogs

To review performance backlogs, perform the following steps:

To review performance backlogs

In the Operations Console, click the Monitoring button and then expand Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003.
Expand Performance, and then expand Backlogs. Next, click the appropriate component subfolder. Use the counter option to reduce the displayed data, the number of computers, or to select only those computers of interest.

To Review performance processing rates

To review performance processing rates, perform the following steps:

To review performance processing rates

In the Operations Console, click the Monitoring button and then expand Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003.
Expand Performance, and then expand Backlogs. Next, click the appropriate component subfolder. Use the counter option to reduce the displayed data, the number of computers, or to select only those computers of interest.

SMS 2003 Site Backup Monitoring

You should enable the SMS Site Backup maintenance task and schedule backups as required in your enterprise environment. When the SMS Site Backup service is started, it first stops all SMS services, including SMS_EXECUTIVE, SMS_SQL_MONITOR, and SMS_SITE_COMPONENT_MANAGER. The SMS Site Backup process does not support runtime backups while:

Copying portions of the SMS installation folder to the backup export path.
Backing up the various SMS registry values.
Backing up the SMS site database in a server running Microsoft SQL Server™.

When backup is complete, the SMS Site Backup service restarts the SMS services. These service stops and starts are normal during the backup process and do not indicate any critical error. The alerts that are expected from these services stopping are suppressed during SMS Site Backup. You can correlate these service stops and starts, as well as SMS Site Backup stops and starts. To do so, you should enable the following rules. These rules raise informational alerts when the SMS Site Backup service starts or stops:

SMS 2003 service stopped running: SMS_SITE_BACKUP
SMS 2003 service started running: SMS_SITE_BACKUP

The following alerts are raised when the SMS Site Backup service fails to start or unexpectedly stops:

SMS 2003 service failure: SMS_SITE_BACKUP terminated unexpectedly
SMS 2003 service failure: SMS_SITE_BACKUP hung on starting
SMS 2003 service failure: SMS_SITE_BACKUP failed to start
SMS 2003 service failure: SMS_SITE_BACKUP was unable to log on
SMS 2003 service failure: SMS_SITE_BACKUP depends on another service which failed to start or is nonexistent

If you see an alert indicating that the service terminated unexpectedly, verify that all stopped services have been restarted. The SMS Site Backup service might have terminated before restarting those services.

The following status message alerts are generated to show the success or failure of the backup process:

SMS 2003 Status: Site Backup completed successfully
SMS 2003 Status: Site Backup failed

Backup might have failed because of access issues, low disk space, failure to start or stop certain services, or failures in SQL Server operations.

Review Events

You should review events on a regular basis because they indicate non-critical failures and provide insight into how the Operations Manager 2007 agent is functioning.

To Review Events

To review events, perform the following steps:

To review Events

In the Operations Console, click the Monitoring button.
Expand Microsoft SystemsManagement Server (SMS) 2003, and then click Events.

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