Validating a Drawing and Generating a Management Pack in Visio Management Pack Designer
Before you can generate the management pack be sure your Visio 2010 version in PREMIUM. Although you can install and design a management pack in Visio 2010 professional you will not be able to validate or generate the management pack!
Once your management pack drawing is complete, you should validate it. The Management Pack ribbon has a Check Diagram button that you can use for that purpose. There’s a drop-down menu under the button that will let you select the ruleset to validate against, but for the moment, the only available ruleset is Management Pack. If there are any errors in the diagram, the validation tool will open an Issues window to help you find them. You have the option of ignoring the issue if you want, but a drawing that doesn’t pass validation won’t be able to generate a valid management pack.
Once you’ve successfully finished with validation, click the Generate Management Pack button. You’ll be prompted for a location to save the management pack, and then the file will be created. Note that the management pack created is an XML file with an extension of .xml, and not a sealed management pack, which would have an extension of .mp. You can deploy the management pack to Operations Manager the same way you would any other management pack (see How to Import a Management Pack in Operations Manager 2007).
You can edit the XML file with the XML editor of your choice, if you need to. You can also open the file in one of the other management pack authoring tools, such as the Visual Studio Authoring Extensions, or the Operations Manager Authoring console. You can also make changes to the management pack using Operations Manager itself. What’s important is that once you’ve made generated the management pack, you can’t import the XML file back into Visio – generating a management pack is a one-way process.
If you want to make changes to a management pack, there is a workaround, however. You can create the management pack using the VMPD, and then seal the management pack. A sealed management pack can’t be modified; a full explanation is found in Management Pack Formats, and the procedure for sealing a management pack is described in Sealing a Management Pack. If you seal the original management pack, it will be permanently in the state that it was when you created it with the VMPD. If you need to make any changes, you would create a new management pack and add a reference to the sealed management pack; references are discussed in Management Pack References. You still can’t import an existing management pack back into the VMPD, but you can ensure that the sealed management pack and the Visio diagram stay in sync.
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