Automatic Services Management Pack

Here is the Automatic Services MP. It was originally released in April 2010 on OpsManJam, and I thought I would also bring it over here.

This is the same version that was on OpsManJam.

Description for the MP:

By default, System Center Operations Manager (OpsMgr) 2007 only monitors services declared in installed management packs and/or declared through the Windows Service monitoring template. This is also tied to the fact that OpsMgr is a specialized monitoring tool, trying to alert not on every service in the system, but only on those deemed critical and/or noteworthy enough to alert in the console.

However, there are some customers who might want to receive alerts when any automatic service is actually not started. There are a few examples going into direction, when you look at the OpsMgr community: 

 - This example explains how to use a management pack generated by the Windows Service monitoring template, and apply a wildcard to them: https://blogs.technet.com/brianwren/archive/2008/03/07/using-wildcards-with-the-windows-service-template.aspx
 - This other example shows how to have a single rule to cycle through all services and set a moitor state to critical when at least one automatic service is not started: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/operationsmanagergeneral/thread/5ef23055-0b61-440f-a7c5-bd7db74fd0f4

This MP is based on the previous script, which works as is but has a limitation: when you install it on a default Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 machine, it will almost surely fire an alert about well-known services : “Performance Logs and Alerts” in Windows Server 2003 ; “Software Protection” and “Shell Hardware Detection” in Windows Server 2008.

So the "Automatic Services MP" implements some overrides mechanisms, to make sure you can discard specific services from the search. Using those overrides, you can:
- Make sure alerts are not generated for well-known services discussed earlier
- Discard alerts for services already monitored by other management packs and/or Windows Service monitoring templates

Automatic Services MP.zip

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 01, 2003
  Sorry, this is a previous blog and I do not come here often, and I just realized notifications on comments were not enabled...
  
  While the MP may have a dependency on Windows 2000 MPs (I don't remember), I also requires MPs for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008/R2 and should work with these operating systems. Discoveries might need to be updated to work Windows Server 2012 and higher, which were released after. The MP was also released prior to System Center 2012, but I guess it should work with that version based on how it works (to be tested too).
  
  I have limited time to update the MP now, and it was a community/sample release. The good thing is that the MP is unsealed, so it is possible to open the XML file and try to investigate/enhance it.
  
  Thanks, and apologies again for the late reply.
• Anonymous
  October 10, 2013
  Has this been updated recently?  I have a need to alert on any services set for automatic that are not running, however, this MP requires Windows Server 2000 discovery to import.  I'm not a coding guru, so I don't know what to take out to make it work, or if it's even viable in the current SCOM environment. rebecca.berg.ctr@stratcom.mil