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How to Create Subscriptions Using Classes and Groups

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager, System Center 2012 - Operations Manager, System Center 2012 SP1 - Operations Manager

In System Center 2012 – Operations Manager, when an alert is generated, Operations Manager can notify designated individuals. These notifications have three parts:

  • A channel, which can be email, instant message (IM), or text message (SMS). Notifications can also run commands automatically when an alert is raised on a monitored system.

  • A subscriber, which defines the recipients and the schedule for sending notifications to the subscriber.

  • A subscription, which defines the criteria for sending a notification, the channel to be used, and the subscribers to receive the notification.

You can use classes and groups to configure the subscription. Two of the conditions for alerts that you can select for a subscription are:

  • Raised by any instance in a specific group.

  • Raised by any instance in a specific class.

You can select multiple groups or classes when you set the value for either condition.

Note

Operations Manager does not support using “not equal to” or “not a member of” for notification subscriptions.

Groups

Groups are logical collections of objects, such as Windows-based computers, hard disks, or instances of Microsoft SQL Server. Some groups are created by Operations Manager, such as the Operations Manager Agent Managed Computer Group and the All Windows Computers group. You can create groups to meet your specific monitoring needs, such as all Windows computers in a specific organizational unit (OU). For more information on creating groups, see How to Create Groups in Operations Manager.

Groups can have explicit or dynamic membership. Suppose you wanted to create a subscription that would send notifications for alerts generated by five specific servers to one person and notifications for alerts generated by a different five servers to a second person. You could create two groups and explicitly assign each server to one of the groups, and then create a subscription that would send notifications for each group to the appropriate person.

When you select a specific group as a condition for an alert notification, notifications are sent for alerts raised by any member of the specified group.

Classes

A class represents a kind of object, and every object in Operations Manager is considered an instance of a particular class. All instances of a class share a common set of properties. Each object has its own values for these properties which are determined when the object is discovered. Most management packs define a set of classes that describe the different components that make up the application that is being monitored and to the relationships between those classes.

Every class in Operations Manager has a base class. A class has all the properties of its base class and potentially adds more. All of the classes from the different management packs installed in your management group can be arranged in a tree with each class positioned under its base class. If you start at any class, and then walk up the tree following its base class, and then the base class of that class, and so on, you eventually reach the Object class which is the root of the System Center class library.

When you select a specific class as a condition for an alert notification, notifications are sent for alerts raised by any instance of the specified class.

Examples

Example 1: To send notifications of alerts for UNIX computers to your UNIX administrator, you create a subscription using the condition Raised by any instance in a specific group, select the UNIX/Linux Computer Group as the value for the condition, and select the UNIX administrator as the subscriber.

Example 2: To send notifications of alerts for the UNIX operating system to your UNIX administrator, you create a subscription using the condition Raised by any instance in a specific class, select the UNIX/Linux Operating System as the value for the condition, and select the UNIX administrator as the subscriber.

In the first example, the UNIX administrator would be notified of alerts raised by the operating system on a UNIX computer, as well as any other alerts that are raised by a UNIX computer. In the second example, the notifications would only be sent when the alert was raised by the UNIX operating system.