Operations Manager 2007 R2 SDK Glossary

Applies To: Operations Manager 2007 R2, Operations Manager 2007 SP1, System Center Operations Manager 2007

• action account
  The Windows account that is used by the MonitoringHost.eemxe processes to gather data from providers and to run actions, such as scripts, command-line batch files, on monitored devices.

• agent
  An Operations Manager component that is installed on Windows-based computers you wish to monitor. The agent collects data, compares sampled data to predefined values creates alerts and runs responses.

• Agentless managed computer
  A computer without an agent that is monitored by a management server or a proxy agent.

• agent-managed computer
  A computer that has an agent installed on it and reports to a management group.

• alert
  In Operations Manager, an alert is an item that indicates that a predefined situation has occurred on a monitored object. Alerts are defined by rules.

• alert rule
  A rule that detects a specific condition and generates an alert.

• alert severity
  The property of an alert that indicates its seriousness; for example, Service Unavailable, Security Issue, Critical Error, Error, Warning, Information, and Success.

• Alert view
  A view in the Operations Manager Operations Console that displays the alerts that the console user has the rights to see about a specific object.

• Agentless Exception Monitoring (AEM)
  A feature in Operations Manager that allows the collection of client application crash data to a single location on a management server, resulting in data that can then be analyzed by your company for patterns. In addition, the Management Server can forward the AEM data to Microsoft for analysis rather than having each individual client forward the data.

• Audit Collection Services (ACS)
  A service, that collects and forwards all security events from monitored computers to a central database. ACS requires Operations Manager 2007.

• class
  An item that is targeted for all operations. For example, SQL Server databases or logical drives. Classes can exist in a parent-child relationship with each other with the child class inheriting properties from the parent class. In general a class is a template that defines a set of objects of a certain kind and the properties of those objects.

• company knowledge
  An editable field of a rule or monitor where you can capture any relevant information about the required steps to resolve an alert that was raised by the rule or monitor. See also: product knowledge

• containment relationship
  In a model, a containment relationship represents the idea that one object is included in a set of objects that all have something in common. Containment relationships are primarily used to indicate some type of administrative grouping like those created by the Operations Manager Group Wizard. Any individual object can be included in many different sets. In addition, the lifetime of the object is not dependent on the lifetime of the set. For example, a Windows Server 2003 Domain controller is a member of the 'All Windows Servers' set of objects as well as being a member of the 'All Windows Server 2003 Computers' and 'All Domain Controllers' sets. Also, the existence of the domain controller computer is not dependent upon the existence of any of the sets it belongs to, it can be discovered by Operations Manager without the 'All Windows Servers' group having been discovered.

• Data Warehouse database
  The database that stores operations data for long periods of time. This data is then used by the Operations Manager 2007 Reporting Server to build reports. By default this database is named OperationsManagerDW.

• Data Warehouse server
  The server that hosts the OperationsManagerDW database.

• Event view
  A view in the Operations Manager Operations Console that displays specified events in the management group that the console user has the rights to see.

• Favorite view
  A view available from the My Workspace area of the Operations Console where you can save views that you regularly use, similar to how you save a Web page to your Favorites list in Internet Explorer.

• gateway server
  A server role in Operations Manager 2007 that enables the monitoring of computers that lie outside of the Kerberos trust boundaries (Kerberos realm) of the management group.

• heartbeat
  A message, sent by an agent to its owning management server that tells the management server the agent is functioning. In addition, the heartbeat informs Operations Manager of the current rules evaluated by the agent and requests updates, if necessary.

• hosting relationship
  In a model, a hosting relationship represents the idea that one object exists only within the context of a parent object. In this relationship there can be a one to many ratio of parent objects to child objects, but only a 1:1 ration between a child object and its parent, For example, any given logical drive can only belong to one computer, though a single computer may have multiple logical drives. Also, the logical drive must have a computer on which it exists, if the computer that hosts the logical drive ceases to exist, so does the logical drive itself.

• management group
  The basic functional unit of an Operations Manager 2007 implementation that can perform monitoring. It must contain a SQL Server 2005 database server, a Root Management Server, one or more Operations Consoles and one or more agents. In addition it can also contain a Reporting Server, gateway server, Audit Collection Services server, and additional collector management servers.

• management pack
  A grouping of classes, Monitors, Object Discoveries, Rules, Tasks, Views, and Knowledge that provide Operations Manager management servers and agents with the information necessary to monitor an application.

• management server
  An Operations Manager server that provides a communication channel between the database server and the managed objects within the management group.

• model
  In Operations Manager, a software representation of hardware, software, services and other logical components that are in your environment. The model captures the nature of those components and the relationships between them.

• monitor
  In Operations Manager, a state machine that uses events, performance data, and other information to define the state of an object, such as an application. The rollup of the monitors for an object determines the overall state of the object—for example, healthy, warning, or error.

• Operations Console
  The Operations Manager interface that you use to perform monitoring, administration, authoring, and reporting functions.

• Operations Manager Connector Framework
  An interface to the SDK Service that allows applications to synchronously communicate with the Root Management Server.

• Operations Manager database
  A SQL Server 2005 database, named OperationsManager by default, which stores configuration data, operations data, and security data.

• Operations Manager Health Explorer
  A feature of Operations Manager where you can view and then take action on alerts, state changes, and other significant issues generated by monitoring objects on your network.

• Operations Manager Reporting server
  The server role that is responsible for building and presenting reports.

• Performance view
  The Operations Console pane that displays specified performance information.

• product connector
  A software component that is used to synchronize data between Operations Manager and other management systems.

• product knowledge
  Content, embedded in rules and monitors, that contains information from the management pack author about the causes of an alert and suggestions on how to fix the issue that caused an alert to be raised.

• reference relationship
  In a model, a reference relationship indicates that participating objects work with one another with none of the dependencies or restrictions that exist in the hosting or containment relationships. For example, a network router and an Exchange Mailbox server may work together in providing e-mail services. In addition to working with the Exchange Server, the network router works with any other server or device that it routes network traffic for. Also, the Exchange Mailbox server works with all the other Exchange Servers and certain global catalog servers in the organization to provide e-mail services.

• Reporting Data Warehouse
  An Operations Manager 2007 component that managers the OperationsManagerDW database and that can be independently installed.

• resolution state
  The state of an alert in relation to its status in the resolution cycle, and includes default resolution states such as New, Acknowledged, and Resolved.

• Root Management Server
  The first management server installed for a management group that performs unique functions in the management group. Specifically, it hosts the SDK and Config services and is the target server that all consoles attach to.

• rule
  In Operations Manager 2007, the definition of what events and performance data to collect from computers, and what to do with the information after it is collected.

• Run As account
  A Windows account that can be associated with a Run As Profile, and can use Windows Authentication, NTLM, Basic, or Digest methods of authentication.

• Run As profile
  A profile that associates an identity with a module so that it can run as that identity.

• SDK client
  An application that uses the Operations Manager class libraries to connect to the SDK Service, and includes Operations Console, the Web Console, the Operations Manager Command Shell, and other customized applications.

• SDK service
  A Windows service that runs on the Root Management Server in each management group, and allows client applications to access Operations Manager data and functionality.

• synthetic transaction
  A feature in Operations Manager that can be used to test the availability or performance of a given service or application from the perspective of an end user or to confirm the functionality of a low level service.

• task
  In Operations Manager, a predefined command, script or pierce of code that can be run on a monitored computer.

• user role
  A combination of a profile that defines actions users can take, such as OpsMgr Administrator or OpsMgr Operator, and a scope, which is the objects the users can take those actions on, such as all Exchange servers. A user role is a security boundary in Operations Manager 2007. The Operations Manager administrator can use user roles to control access to views and tasks for Operations Manager users assigned to that role.

• view
  In the Operations Console, the organization of the data from the OperationsManager database that meet filtering criteria. Operations Manager has predefined views and allows the creation of custom views.

• Web Console
  An Operations Manager Web-based interface that you use to perform monitoring functions.