Sometimes it’s just too much notification!
A critical part of ANY monitoring or management system is notification and alerting. Ideally that system will be intelligent enough to 'take action' on the alert without me. Say if this error occurs, then do this… or try this, if that does not work, then alert me…
So I have been messing around with Systems Center Essentials, and I discovered that it will do IM alerting…kool. That could come in handy, especially with our OCS in place, no there's a business reason to run OCS, beyond simple collaboration and time suck.
Now, I do run the infrastructure at or beyond its limits pretty much all the time. What I put on some of this outdated Hardware is beyond reason and I should not be as aggressive with it. I do run it hot, and know the risks, but it's our network, and we set our risk tolerance. So I setup a test alert notification for me via IM (OCS) last night about 8:30…What did you do New Year's Eve? 12 hours later I had gotten over 30 alerts, I setup the test alerts to notify me about everything, error, info and warnings, so I should have expected that to occur. It was a good learning situation. What I like about SCE is the configuration levels. It's very powerful and easily configured. Another 'feature' is it has the ability to adapt alerts and notifications to new management packs as they are loaded. Pretty kool.
We are all about gaining insight into business, and spend I am always looking for tools, especially tech tools that will help me know more about our IT investments. I have used simple pinging tools to BMC Patrol to What's Up to HP OpenView. They all have merits, but the successful ones are able to adapt and do things for me. Run a script or perform not just one action but several actions, and report on that. Automate the IT management and add let the people add value in other ways.
I think SCE is a good tool for that. Considering it's a part of Essentials and is supposed to be part of SBS 08, I think it's a great add-on product for anyone looking to gain insight into their IT operations, in a cost effective manner! With vendors jumping into this space, I am looking for vendors that plug into each other, not just offer single solutions. Lock out the competition, lock out me from adding value through an API, and I am not likely to get into that. Keep it extensible and it may go somewhere.
Happy New Year! If you need more insight into your business and operations, let's talk!