Each OpsMgr component has
specific design requirements, and a good knowledge of these factors is
required before beginning the design of OpsMgr. Hardware and software
requirements must be taken into account, as well as factors involving
specific OpsMgr components, such as the Root Management Server, gateway
servers, service accounts, mutual authentication, and backup
requirements.
Exploring Hardware
Requirements
Having the proper
hardware for OpsMgr to operate on is a critical component of OpsMgr
functionality, reliability, and overall performance. Nothing is worse
than overloading a brand-new server only a few short months after its
implementation. The industry standard generally holds that any
production servers deployed should remain relevant for three to four
years following deployment. Stretching beyond this time frame might be
possible, but the ugly truth is that hardware investments are typically
short term and need to be replaced often to ensure relevance. Buying a
less-expensive server might save money in the short term but could
potentially increase costs associated with downtime, troubleshooting,
and administration. That said, the following are the
Microsoft-recommended minimums for any server running an OpsMgr 2007
server component:
These recommendations apply
only to the smallest OpsMgr deployments and should be seen as minimum
levels for OpsMgr hardware. More realistic deployments would have the
following minimums:
Operations
Manager 2007 R2 is one of Microsoft’s most resource-intensive
applications, so generous processor, disk, and memory are important for
optimal performance. Future expansion and relevance of hardware should
be taken into account when sizing servers for OpsMgr deployment to
ensure that the system has room to grow as agents are added and the
databases grow.
Determining
Software Requirements
OpsMgr components can be
installed on either 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2008.
The database for OpsMgr must be run on a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 server. The database can be installed on the
same server as OpsMgr or on a separate server, a concept that is
discussed in more detail in following sections.
OpsMgr itself must be
installed on a member server in a Windows Active Directory domain. It
is commonly recommended to keep the installation of OpsMgr on a separate
server or set of dedicated member servers that do not run any other
applications that could interfere in the monitoring and alerting
process.
A few other factors
critical to the success of an OpsMgr implementation are as follows:
Microsoft
.NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0 must be installed on the management server
and the reporting server.
Windows PowerShell
Microsoft Core XML Services
(MSXML) 6.0
WS-MAN v1.1 (for UNIX/Linux
clients)
Client
certificates must be installed in environments to facilitate mutual
authentication between non-domain members and management servers.
SQL Reporting Services must
be installed for an organization to be able to view and produce custom
reports using OpsMgr’s reporting feature.
OpsMgr Backup
Considerations
The most critical piece
of OpsMgr, the SQL databases, should be regularly backed up using
standard backup software that can effectively perform online backups of
SQL databases. If integrating these specialized backup utilities into an
OpsMgr deployment is not possible, it becomes necessary to leverage
built-in backup functionality found in SQL Server.
