Best Practices for Monitoring Web Services with SCOM

Question

How can SCOM be used to monitor web services in an IT environment?

Is the Web Application Availability Monitoring template suitable for monitoring the availability, performance, and health of web services, and for detecting potential issues or outages? And generate alerts or notifications based on predefined thresholds or conditions related to web service operations?

What are the configuration steps to set this up?

Answer 1

Hi,

It would very much depend on what actually the web services is about. If you are talking about URL availability and transaction monitoring, then "Yes" you can use the build in templates for that:

Web Application Availability Monitoring template

and

Web Application Transaction Monitoring template

There is one more solution (a management pack) to achieve this and it actually offers even more options and granularity compared to the out-of-the-box SCOM template. I mean this one:

URLGenie Management Pack for SCOM – An Easy, Powerful Solution for Bulk Website Monitoring

Regarding the "How To" questions: Both MS Learn links from Microsoft contain detailed description on how to set the whole thing up as well as additional information. The URLGenie MP on its turn comes with a Guide (in the .zip) which contains all the info you need in order to get it working.

I hope I could help you out!
Regards,

Stoyan

Answer 2

Hi,

Yes, The Web Application Availability Monitoring template is designed to monitor the availability, performance, and health of web applications.

To set up monitoring using the Web Application Availability Monitoring template, you would typically follow these configuration steps:

• Define the URLs: Specify the web application URLs that you want to monitor.
• Set Monitoring Parameters: Configure the monitoring parameters, such as test frequency, timeout settings, and the criteria for generating alerts.
• Deploy Watcher Nodes: Ensure that watcher nodes are deployed in locations that can access the web services being monitored.
• Configure Alerts: Set up alerting mechanisms to notify relevant personnel when issues are detected based on the defined thresholds.

By following these steps, you can ensure that your web services are continuously monitored for availability and performance, allowing for timely responses to any issues that may arise.

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References:

• Web Application Availability Monitoring template