The Microsoft® Operations Manager 2000 Reporting application provides reports for data collected by Microsoft Operations Manager. More than 100 predefined reports cover general system monitoring, operations, capacity planning, performance analysis (including charts), and application-specific reports to monitor resources, traffic and availability. These reports offer easy access to the data you need to manage and monitor your enterprise.

Key Features

Some key features of Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting are:

·         A rich set of predefined reports, combined with the appropriate rules to collect data for the reports

·         Reports that are key to operations management

·         On-demand report viewing and printing

·         Scheduled report viewing and printing

·         Web publishing and archiving of reports

·         Parameterization support for reports

·         Authenticated access to the Microsoft Operations Manager database

Uses

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting monitors operations, and capacity and performance trends. It can also be used to detect problems.

Capacity-planning and performance-analysis reports show trends and behaviors of crucial Microsoft Windows® 2000 resource-performance counters. These reports help identify periods of heavy activity, trends over a period of time, and performance bottlenecks. This aids in capacity planning for these resources.

Operations reports provide information about the operations of various subsystems. For example, the Microsoft Operations Manager report titled “Windows Operations” provides information about the health of computers running Windows operating systems. Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting also provides information about the health of Microsoft Operations Manager itself. Such reports are helpful in detecting problems.

Reports specific to applications or services, such as the Microsoft Active Directory™ directory service and remote access, also are included in Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting. These reports cover data for application-specific resources, such as data for remote access connections and sessions and data for Active Directory replication and discovery.

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting includes the following predefined sets of reports:

·         Active Directory reports: These include Active Directory configuration, operations, availability, and replication. These reports also cover the domain controller and the Domain Name Server performance and capacity.

·         Internet Information Server (IIS) reports: These cover operation-related events and performance counters.

·         Microsoft Operations Manager reports: These summarize events, alerts, operations and licenses.

·         Remote Access reports:  These summarize Remote Access connection information.

·         Windows 2000 reports:  These include processor, memory and disk performance; network activities, such as connections and spooled jobs; and availability and capacity planning.

·         Windows Terminal Server reports:  These cover total sessions, memory and processor usage, and service availability.

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting also provides reports for Microsoft SQL Server™ and Microsoft Exchange Server, which are included with the Application Management Pack:

·         SQL Server reports: These include connections usage, operation-related event reports, and performance reports.

·         Exchange Server reports: These include server resource usage, mailbox and folder configuration information and sizes, common operation events, performance counters, and mail traffic patterns.

Report formats include a brief summary of the report. You can also read a description for each report in the online Help, which includes events and performance counters, and an explanation of the data in the report Architecture and Configuration

Reporting Architecture

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting uses Microsoft Access to produce reports from information stored in the Microsoft Operations Manager database. The database is accessed using an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) connection authenticated by Windows. All reports are generated by an application written in Access (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting architecture.

Multiple instances of Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting can connect to a single Microsoft Operations Manager database, and generate reports on the data collected. This is useful when different administrators monitor different aspects of Microsoft Operations Manager. One administrator can generate reports for performance and capacity, and another administrator can generate reports for operations. A single instance of Microsoft Operations Manager can also connect to multiple Microsoft Operations Manager databases and generate reports. This is useful for monitoring multiple configurations groups from one computer.

Typically, there are specific rules in each Management Pack module that collect the event and performance data used by reports. To collect reporting-related data, these rules must be enabled and applied to monitored computers.

Prerequisites

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting requires that you install Microsoft Access. You can install a run-time version of Access from the Microsoft Operations Manager 2000 product CD during installation, which allows you to view, print, and save reports. However, by installing the full version of Microsoft Access 2000 or later, you can also customize reports to meet your specific needs.

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting also requires you to have the Microsoft Office Graph component, Snapshot viewer, and Microsoft Data Access Component (MDAC) version 2.6 installed. You also must have a printer installed.

Recommended Installation

You should install Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting on a computer that has a minimum of 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM and a monitor resolution of 800 ´ 600 pixels or larger.

For an active enterprise deployment, you should install Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting on a computer that is separate from the Microsoft Operations Manager database server. This prevents reporting-related memory and CPU usage from negatively affecting Microsoft Operations Manager database performance. In this case, report generation times might increase due to network latency, but the performance effect on the Microsoft Operations Manager database is reduced.

You can install Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting on a separate computer by selecting the Custom Install option during Microsoft Operations Manager installation, and then choosing to install Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting on a separate computer.

User Interface

Using the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting interface, you can perform all reporting tasks, such as viewing reports, printing reports, or publishing reports to the Web. There is also a Web-based interface that you can use to view published reports.

Reports published on the Web are available at http://<Web Console_Server>/reporting/, where Web Console Server is the Microsoft Operations Manager Web console computer. Only those reports that have been published to the Web are displayed here.

Figures 2 and 3 below demonstrate the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting interface and the Microsoft Operations Manager Web Report interface, respectively.

Figure 2: Viewing the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting user interface.

Figure 3: Viewing the Microsoft Operations Manager Web reports interface.

Security

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting provides security by limiting report generation to authorized users, because report generation accesses the Microsoft Operations Manager database. Long-running reports, or multiple reports generated simultaneously, can have an adverse effect on Microsoft Operations Manager database performance. To prevent malicious access to Microsoft Operations Manager data, and to avoid an adverse effect on the Microsoft Operations Manager database, only selected users can generate reports.

To use the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting interface, a user must be part of the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting Users group (OnePointOp Reporting group). This group is created during Microsoft Operations Manager installation. All users who need to generate reports should be included in this group.

Anyone with access to the relevant Web site can view reports that are published on the Web.

Reports from the Microsoft Operations Manager Administrator Console

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting is a different application from Microsoft Operations Manager, and reports are displayed separately. However, you can access reports from the Microsoft Operations Manager Administrator console, which allows you to compare live data with historical data. You can also launch Web reports from the Microsoft Operations Manager Administrator console to view previously generated reports.

You can access the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting interface and Web-based reports by selecting View Reports in the Microsoft Operations Manager Administrator console, or by clicking the Reports icon on the toolbar of the Administrator console (Figure 4). You can also access these reports by using the Reports section in the Today window.

Figure 4. Viewing reports on the Web console.

Web Console Reports

You can view reports published to the Web from the Microsoft Operations Manager Web console, which provides a single view of the monitored data (Figure 5). Web reports are available from the Reports menu in the Web console.

Figure 5. Viewing reports on the Microsoft Operations Manager Web console.

View and Print Reports

To view or print a report, select the report, enter the required parameters in the criteria form, and then generate the report. When you generate a report, Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting retrieves the corresponding data from the Microsoft Operations Manager database stored in SQL Server and formats it correctly for display. This can take some time, depending upon the size of the database and the data requested in the report.

You can use the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting application to view or print multiple reports at a time, but you must specify parameters for each report separately.

Use Parameters

You can generate reports for specific data by using parameters. For example, you can limit the report to select data for specific servers, services, computer groups, or for a specific date range. This helps you to generate reports only for the data that you are interested in. Parameterized reports can reduce the load on the Microsoft Operations Manager database.

When you first use Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting, default parameters are set in the criteria forms. If you change the parameters for a report, those parameters become the default for future generations of that report.

The parameters used most often in reports are date range and server list. The default date range is the previous seven days, and the default server selection is All servers. The server selection list displays servers specific to that report. For example, IIS reports display only IIS servers in the server selection list, while the Windows 2000 reports display all Windows 2000–based servers in the server selection list.

Publish Reports to the Web

Only users who are members of the Reporting users group can generate the reports. However, you can publish reports on the Web, where anyone who has access to the Web site can view them without having to generate the reports again. By setting the permissions of the Reporting Web, you can control which users can view Web reports. Users can view Web reports on the Reporting Web or in the Reports View on the Microsoft Operations Manager Web console.

To publish reports to the Web, save the reports as HTML. Saving reports as HTML is similar to a view or print procedure. Save the reports to the directory of the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting virtual root. You can set the HTML output directory by using the reporting application. Only reports that have been published are available on the Web.

Generate Reports from the Command Line

You can generate a report using a command-line interface. To generate multiple reports, you can create a batch file with commands to generate each report. Sample batch files for report generation are available during Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting Setup.

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting includes a Command Line Interface (CLI) Wizard to help you generate the batch files that are used to generate reports. You can use the CLI Wizard to select which reports to generate, to specify the date range for data, and to either print reports or to save them as HTML.

You can use the CLI Wizard to set many parameters, similar to those in the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting interface. After generating a batch file using the CLI Wizard, you can edit the file to specify parameters you need.

You can use the command line to generate reports only if you are a member of the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting users group. If a report generation from the command line fails, an event error 1024 is logged in the Application event log. The event contains the name of the report that failed and the reason for failure. Successful report generation from the command-line interface will log an event 1025. Use these events to determine the outcome of the command line report generation.

Schedule Report Generation

With Windows Task Scheduler, you can use batch files to generate reports, and automate periodic regeneration of reports.

You must ensure that the user whose credentials are used for Task Scheduler is also a member of the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting user group.

Archived Web Reports

Archived Web reports can be used to refer to historical data, or to compare current trends with past trends. Archiving is supported in both the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting interface and the command-line interface.

After you enable archiving, each time a new report is published to the Web, its existing copy is archived. Archived reports are organized by date. To view archived reports, use the Web interface and provide the date when the report was archived.

Archived reports that are not being used should be removed periodically to reduce disk space usage.

Generate Reports for Multiple Configuration Groups

You can use the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting interface to generate reports from multiple Microsoft Operations Manager databases. This allows you to generate and view reports for different configuration groups from a central location.

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting uses an ODBC data source to connect to the Microsoft Operations Manager database. To connect to different Microsoft Operations Manager databases, you must configure the data source for each applicable Microsoft Operations Manager database. The ODBC data sources should be configured to use Windows 2000 integrated security. You can select the data source to use and then generate reports for that data from the selected Microsoft Operations Manager database.

This section describes recommended practices for using Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting. These practices improve reporting performance for a large Microsoft Operations Manager database, and help reduce adverse performance effects on the Microsoft Operations Manager database.

·         Install Reporting separate from the Microsoft Operations Manager database server. Microsoft Operations Manager has a very active database, with continuous insertions of event and performance data, and maintenance of old data. Reporting can involve retrieval of large data sets and can be memory-intensive, depending on the report and report parameters. Report generation, especially for graph reports, can be CPU-intensive. Installing Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting on a computer that is separate from the Microsoft Operations Manager database server avoids any adverse effects on the performance of the Microsoft Operations Manager database due to report generation. However, this configuration might increase the report generation time due to network latency.

·         Use tight report parameters. To reduce report generation times, use tight parameters for each report. This reduces the size of the data set that the Microsoft Operations Manager database server returns. For example, most graph reports present one page for each server included in the report parameters. Selecting specific servers as a parameter reduces the report size.

·         Give specific dates or a date range for the data of interest.

·         Select specific servers, services or computer groups to report on.

·         Avoid selection of All date range, servers, services, or computer groups in report criteria, unless you specifically require them.

·         Select only the reports you want to monitor. Many reports are available in Microsoft Operations Manager. Select and generate only those reports that best meet your monitoring requirements. Also, the same data is sometimes available in multiple reports with different presentations. For example, the Top 100 Mailboxes report is available by Message Count and by Size. Select the presentation that best suits your needs.

·         Use scheduled report generation. Instead of using the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting interface for viewing reports, schedule periodic report generation and view the reports published on the Web. This prevents repeated generation of the same report for viewing. When scheduling report generation, observe the following:

·         Run scheduled reports during off‑peak hours.

·         Avoid generating multiple reports simultaneously. Create one batch file for all scheduled reports, and schedule that batch file rather than creating multiple batch files and scheduling them separately. This prevents your inadvertently scheduling different batch files simultaneously.

·         Disable report generation schedules when reports are not needed.

·         Be aware of reports that require extensive data collection. Some Microsoft Operations Manager reports require extensive data collection and storage. These reports should be generated when you need to track specific problems or monitor usage. Avoid scheduling these reports on a regular basis:

·         Reports that require extensive auditing to be enabled on the monitored computer.

·         Reports that require event parameters to be stored in Microsoft Operations Manager database. Disable the event parameter collection when these reports are not needed.

·         Use an alternative user interface for one-time monitoring. For tracking specific performance counters for a short time, use the performance graphs that are available on the Microsoft Operations Manager Administrator console or on the Web console.

To monitor events that match specific criteria, use custom event views in the Microsoft Operations Manager Administrator console or the Web console. Avoid using views for queries that return large data sets, because these views run the query against the Microsoft Operations Manager database when you view them.

·         Disable unused reporting rules. Management Pack modules contain rules to collect data used in reports. If you are not interested in certain reports or report categories, disable the corresponding rules in the Management Pack modules. This reduces unwanted data collection.

·         Compact the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting database periodically. Reporting uses a Microsoft Access database for report generation. This database grows in size over time and must be compacted to reclaim disk space. This also helps improve reporting performance. There are two methods to compact the database:

·         You can compact the Reporting database using the eeaRept.exe /compact command.

·         If you use the full version of Microsoft Access, you can also compact the database from the Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting interface. On the File menu, click Compact Database and Enter Design Mode.

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting is an effective method for generating and viewing reports about Microsoft Operations Manager data. Predefined reports present operations, enterprise monitoring, and trending data, and assist with capacity planning and tracking performance issues.

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting makes report generation easy by providing support for scheduling Web reports. Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting also provides easy access to view reports without having to regenerate them each time they are viewed. Parameterization provides flexibility for focusing on data of interest. Report archiving helps you compare trends across different time periods. Authenticated access to Microsoft Operations Manager data prevents malicious access to enterprise configuration and data monitoring.

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting meets the operations management and enterprise monitoring needs of most organizations, and keeps the process simple.

·         Microsoft Operations Manager product Web site at www.microsoft.com/mom

·         Microsoft Operations Manager 2000 User’s Guide: For Microsoft Operations Manager concepts and architecture (see www.microsoft.com/mom/techinfo/productdoc/userg.asp).

·         Microsoft Operations Manager 2000 Installation Guide: For Microsoft Operations Manager installation options and recommendations (see www.microsoft.com/mom/techinfo/productdoc/installg.asp).

·         Management Pack Module Configuration Guide: For information on Management Packs included in Microsoft Operations Manager. Available on the Microsoft Operations Manager 2000 product CD and the Microsoft Operations Manager Web site (see http://www.microsoft.com/mom/techinfo/productdoc/mgmtpmcg.asp).

·         Microsoft Operations Manager Online Help: For procedures and troubleshooting tips (see http://www.microsoft.com/mom/techinfo/productdoc/en/default.asp).

Reporting on Replicated Microsoft Operations Manager Database

Some enterprises prefer to store long-term reporting data in a database that is separate from the operations database. This might be done for a number of reasons, including:

·         Aggregation and consolidation of long term reporting data

·         Building a store of data for analysis

·         Reducing the load on the operations database

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting can be used on a replicated Microsoft Operations Manager database. For detailed information about using Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting on a replicated Microsoft Operations Manager database, see the Microsoft Product Support Services Web site at http://support.microsoft.com.

Customizing and Authoring Reports

Microsoft Operations Manager Reporting is based on Microsoft Access. With the full version of Microsoft Access 2000 (or later) installed, you can customize existing reports in Microsoft Operations Manager and create new reports. Creating new reports and customizing reports is recommended only for advanced users with sufficient knowledge of the Microsoft Operations Manager database schema and Microsoft Access reporting. For information about creating new reports in Microsoft Operations Manager, see the Microsoft Product Support Services Web site at http://support.microsoft.com.