More Exchange SLA Scorecard Woes

A few months ago, I wrote about some issues I was having getting the Exchange SLA Scorecard for MOM implemented with one of my federated customers. At the time, of course, the issue was compatibility with SQL Server 2005. I am being put in the unfortunate position today to report that the SLA Scorecard has failed yet another test of suitability for production environments.

When installing the scorecard, the installation wizard does not give the user the option to have a separate SQL Reporting and MOM Reporting servers. The only configuration requsted in the installation prerequisit check is for the name of the "MOM Reporting/Data Warehouse Server Name." 

What this means, of course, is that if your SQL 2000 Reporting Services are located on a different server from your MOM Reporting Services, you cannot install the Exchange SLA Scorecard. In version 1.0, this is by design.

The work-around is to ensure that these two pre-requisite components are installed on the same server (I haven't tested whether splitting these functions ex-post facto is an option). 

You will recognize this error during the setup by getting errors during the pre-requisite check for missing either the SQL Reporting Services (if you install the SLA Scorecard on the MOM Reporting Server) or for missing MOM 2005 (if installing on the SQL Server). 

These problems will be addressed in future versions of the product, but I must advise my customers that the SLA Scorecard, regardless of its utility in reporting company wide metrics for Exchange Server 2003, be planned and deployed with caution.

Comments

• Anonymous
  August 24, 2006
  So, when next version will be released? I need SLA reports for Exchenge, but there is no option to change my MOM configuration (MOM, RS, SQL - all on separate servers)? Anthony Says: I've heard November 2006, but frankly I am not sure.  My understanding is that future versions of the score card will only be available through Microsoft Consulting Services.