Summary

This chapter, as well as the previous chapter, covers the Microsoft management packs. In this chapter, we covered the following management packs:

• MBSA management pack

• Exchange Server management pack

• SQL management pack

A range of management packs covers nearly every technology that Microsoft offers. This is because a part of the software development cycle at Microsoft now includes building management packs.

This is great as long as you're running all of your applications on Microsoft software, which is generally not the case. Usually a solution is pieced together using a variety of software. Fortunately, a lot of third-party vendors are building management packs. This means a lot less work for the MOM administrators.

This is not to say that any monitoring solution is perfect. There will be some gaps even with management packs from Microsoft. There simply isn't a way to build a monitoring solution that extends the length of every possible scenario. Load up the management packs that make sense for your organization. Remember that everything is customizable and can be adjusted by changing thresholds or modifying parameters. In Chapter 11, we cover third-party management packs and product connectors to see how you can extend the value of MOM beyond the Microsoft platform.