Installing the DFS Replication Management Pack

Iron Contributor

Apr 10, 2019

First published on TECHNET on Oct 22, 2009

In this blog post, let us explore how to install the DFS Replication Management Pack. System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 is the latest release of the Operations Manager product. Check out this product comparison page for a quick overview of the new features in the SCOM 2007 R2 release. The DFS Replication management pack is also supported on the System Center Operations Manager 2007 SP1 release. The steps required to install and configure the management pack on SCOM 2007 SP1 are largely the same as those on R2 with the exception of a few usability improvements in the R2 release. For the purpose of this discussion, we will consider the SCOM 2007 R2 release.

For an overview of Operations Manager 2007, read this TechNet article .

A few Operations Manager concepts

The basic unit of functionality of all Operations Manager 2007 implementations is the management group. It consists of an installation of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or Microsoft SQL Server 2008, which hosts the Operations Manager database, the root management server, the Operations console, and one or more agents that are deployed to monitored computers or devices.

Operations Manager Database: The Operations Manager database holds all the configuration data for the management group and stores all the monitoring data that has been collected and processed by the agents.

Root Management Server: The root management server (RMS) is a specialized type of management server in a management group, and it is the first management server installed in a management group. In brief, the RMS is the focal point for administering the management group configuration, administering and communicating with agents, and communicating with the Operations Manager database and other databases in the management group.

Agent: An Operations Manager 2007 agent is a service that is deployed to a computer that you want to monitor. Agents watch data sources (eventlog, performance counters etc.) on the monitored computer and collect information according to the configuration that is sent from the management server. The agent also calculates the health state of the monitored object and reports back to the management server.

Agentless monitoring: It is possible to monitor devices in an agent-less fashion. In this case, a management server performs the monitoring remotely.

Operations Console: The Operations console provides a single, unified user interface for interacting with Operations Manager 2007. The Operations console provides access to monitoring data, basic management pack authoring tools, Operations Manager 2007 reports, all the controls and tools necessary for administering Operations Manager 2007, and a customizable workspace.

Management Packs: Operations management packs (such as the DFS Replication management pack) contain best practice knowledge to discover, monitor, troubleshoot, report on, and resolve problems for a specific technology component. When imported into Operations Manager, they enable the agent to monitor the health of an application, generate alerts when something of significance goes wrong in the application, and take actions in the application and its supporting infrastructure to further diagnose the application or restore it to a healthy state.

For the latest Management Packs and Connectors from Microsoft and Microsoft Partners for Operations Manager 2007, visit the System Center Catalog at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/opsmgr/cc539535.aspx .

How Operations Manager works

The above (greatly simplified) diagram illustrates how the Operations Manager product works at a high level. System Center Operations Manager is installed on a Windows Server machine called the management server. The administrator can then select which computers are to be monitored. Operations Manager automatically deploys agents to these monitored computers if the administrator selects agent-based monitoring. For monitored computers that have been configured for agent-less monitoring, the management server performs monitoring remotely.

Administrators can import management packs such as the DFS Replication management pack using the System Center Operations Manager 2007 console. The console then deploys this management pack to the agents on the monitored computers. The knowledge contained in the management pack enables the agent to discover whether the DFS Replication service is installed, discover configuration settings and replication groups/folders etc. on the monitored computer. Further, it enables the agent to monitor the health of the DFS Replication service on these monitored computers, generate alerts if something significant goes wrong and help the administrator diagnose and restore replication to a healthy state.

Installing the management pack

Before installing the management pack, you need to set up the management server. Setting up the Operations Manager infrastructure is outside the scope of this blog post. The following pointers will help you plan and deploy your operations manager infrastructure:

Planning your Operations Manager deployment:

Deploying and Configuring Operations Manager 2007:
- Refer to the Operations Manager 2007 Deployment Guide . Pay close attention to the deployment scenarios outlined in this guide.

The rest of this blog post and following posts explain how to install, setup and configure the DFS Replication Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007.

To begin, download the DFS Replication Management pack for Operations Manager 2007 from the Download Center. The single file installer installs both the management pack and the management pack guide.

Install the management pack on the management server (i.e. the server on which you have installed and setup SCOM 2007 R2). The installation process is easy – simply select the destination path to which to install the management pack. By default all management packs are installed to the ‘System Center Management Packs’ folder under Program Files.

After the installation process completes, the following files are installed on the management server:
1. EULA: Contains the license terms for the management pack.
2. Microsoft.Windows.DfsReplication.mp: The DFS Replication management pack.
3. Microsoft.Windows.DfsrReplication.OM2007Guide.doc: The management pack guide.
4. README.