Monitoring Office Communications Server 2007 using MOM 2005 SP1

Monitoring Office Communications Server 2007 using MOM 2005 SP1 simplifies the task of an OCS admin to ensure that the OCS 2007 server is doing fine.

The Office Communications Server 2007 management packs for MOM 2005 generate alerts from service states, events, performance counters, and other instrumentation that is exposed in Office Communications Server. In addition, MOM 2005 provides a variety of notification options for operators.

You might need to use following management packs to monitor Office Communications Server 2007 setup:

-      Office Communications Server 2007 Management Pack for MOM 2005

-      Office Communications Server 2007 Quality of Experience Monitoring Server Management   Pack for MOM 2005

-      Speech Server Management Pack for MOM 2005

-      Microsoft SQL Server Management Pack for MOM 2005

-      Internet Information Server (IIS) Management Pack for MOM 2005

Additionally you would also like to ensure that the Active directory and base operating system is also getting monitored.

You can download above management packs from here:

The Office Communications Server 2007 Management Pack for MOM 2005 manages both the standard edition and enterprise edition of Office Communications Server 2007.

Office Communications Server 2007 Management Pack contains detailed rules and management guidelines for each of the server roles that can be installed as part of an Office Communications Server deployment.

Front End Server Role: The Front End Server installs the Front End service, IM Conferencing service, and Telephony Conferencing service. OCS 2007 Management Pack monitors followings:

Process monitoring (RtcSrv), SIP errors, performance counters (queues, latency), Service status alerts, script only applications, SIP stack  certificate manager, MCU factories and infrastructure, inbound and outbound routing, Exchange Unified messaging

Web Conferencing Server Role: The Web Conferencing Server installs the Web Conferencing Service. This server role is required for basic Web conferencing support from your on-premises Office Communications Server deployment. OCS 2007 Management Pack monitors followings:

Conferencing resource limit thresholds, queue state alerts, overall health state for role, certificate errors, Service status alerts

 A/V Conferencing Server Role: The A/V Conferencing Server role installs the A/V Conferencing service. This service is necessary for audio/video functionality in Web conferencing, A/V conferencing over the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 client, and telephony services. OCS 2007 Management Pack monitors followings:

Resource limit thresholds on users, conferences, certificate errors, Service status alerts.

Web Components: The Web Components Server installs the Web components necessary for address book publishing. It also handles functionality for Microsoft Office Communicator Web Access, a Web service that provides a browser-based client of Office Communications Server 2007. OCS 2007 Management Pack monitors followings:

Invalid requests, timed out requests, Exceptions, service status alerts.

Archiving and CDR Server Role: The Archiving and CDR server creates a custom message queue and archives communications to a Microsoft SQL Server database according to  an administrator-specified policy. OCS 2007 Management Pack monitors followings:

Logging process monitoring, validation failures, dropped messages, write failures, logging service status alerts.

For Logging database monitoring: use SQL Server MP.

Mediation Server: The Mediation Server installs the Mediation service. The Mediation service is responsible for telephony integration with a PBX or gateway device. OCS 2007 Management Pack monitors followings:

Performance monitoring for call attempts, rejects, INVITEs, Load call failure Index, Windows® Management Instrumentation (WMI) settings, certificate issues, integration with quality metrics server.

Edge Server Roles: The following edge server roles are available:

-      Access Edge Server

-      Web Conferencing Edge Server

-      A/V Edge Server

These edge servers install corresponding services:

-      Access Edge service

-      Web Conferencing Edge service

-      A/V Edge Service

OCS 2007 Management Pack monitors followings:

-      Access Edge:
Performance monitoring – active connections, above limit connections, dropped message alerting from certificate issues, blocked domains, unknown domains,  incompatible message types etc, service status alerting, SIP stack monitoring, WMI.

-      Web Conferencing Edge:
Throttled server connection alerts, System throttling, client disconnects, service status alerts, WMI consumer alerts – certificates, invalid configuration.

-      A/V Edge:
Bad requests, Authentication failures, too many allocation requests/second, bandwidth limits exceeded, dropped packets, WMI settings.

Communicator Web Access Server: The Office Communicator Web Access role installs a Web site on the server that enables IM connectivity through a Web browser. OCS 2007 Management Pack monitors followings:

Performance monitoring – Outstanding searches, LDAP errors, logon failures, invalid tickets, throttling errors, timed out sessions, failed requests. Policy and User search alerts.

QoE Monitoring Server: The Quality of Experience Monitoring server role provides near real-time access to call quality metrics for all voice communications that use Office Communications Server 2007. OCS 2007 Management Pack monitors followings:

Service status alerts, rejected metrics, reports failing validation, queue, disk alerts and other resource alerts.

QoE Monitoring Server Management Pack monitors followings:

-      Network delays

-      Connectivity degradation

-      Video Pack loss, bit rates

-      MOS score degradation

-      Configuration failures

-      Thresholds on percentage of calls with poor “Network MOS” (based on Jitter, Packet loss, degradation)

Deployment of OCS 2007 management packs

Step 1: Deploy MOM 2005 sp1

You can download MOM 2005 sp1 from here. Install it on a server.

Step 2: Relevant information collection

Collect the following information for each location where SQL Server, IIS, the Active Directory® Domain Services, or one or more server roles are deployed:

-      Server names as specified by either NetBIOS name or FQDN (fully qualified domain name).

-      Roles hosted on each server.

-      Domain membership of the server.

Step 3: Install Office Communications Server 2007 Management Packs

You can download it from here…

Step 4: Install MOM Agents on all Office Communications Servers

MOM Agents can be deployed from the MOM 2005 administration console. For details, see the MOM 2005 product documentation, which is available as a free download here…

To install agents:

-      Open the MOM 2005 Administrator Console and click the Install Agents link in the right pane.

-      In the Select Computers screen, enter one or more computer names. (Separate multiple names with semicolons).

For edge server computers, which are deployed in the perimeter network and cannot be accessed from within your organization’s network, you must install the MOM Agents manually.

Related Links:

Office Communications Server 2007 Management Pack:
Office Communications Server 2007 QoE Monitoring Server Management Pack:
Office Communications Server 2007 Speech Server Management Pack:
MOM 2005 Product Documentation
MOM 2005 Resource Kit
MOM 2005 Operations Guide