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Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)

Score7.4 out of 10

121 Reviews and Ratings

What is Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM)?

Microsoft's System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) is a monitoring and application performance management option, with the core datacenter and cloud-based systems monitoring.

Top Performing Features

  • Threshold alerts

    Alerts indicating when critical thresholds have been reached

    Category average: 8.7

  • Server availability and performance monitoring

    Ability to monitor server availability

    Category average: 9.4

  • Database monitoring

    Database monitoring means looking for database bottlenecks liable to slow response times

    Category average: 8.2

Areas for Improvement

  • Application dependency mapping and thresholding

    Mapping relationships between the application and its underlying infrastructure

    Category average: 8

  • Application performance management console

    The management console is used to manage monitoring agents and et thresholds, etc.

    Category average: 8

  • Predictive capabilities

    Data mining of log and other performance data to understand predictors of slowdowns or outages

    Category average: 7.6

Monitor Windows by Microsoft System Center Operations Manager

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager used as Windows Monitoring Software. Microsoft System Center Operations Manager addresses the issue we faced in monitoring Windows box, it identifies OS bottlenecks and Applications crashes. We are monitoring Microsoft System Center Operations Manager in our org to monitor Windows servers.

Pros

  • Windows OS Monitoring
  • AD monitoring
  • Application Processes and Services monitoring

Cons

  • Cloud Monitoring
  • SaaS
  • Real User Synthetics

Return on Investment

  • Monitor OS and Windows Components
  • Application processes and Services monitoring
  • Dedicated SQL monitoring
  • Active Directory Monitoring

Usability

Alternatives Considered

LogicMonitor

Other Software Used

LogicMonitor, Datadog, OpenText Network Node Manager i (NNMi)

SCOM- The monitoring OG

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use SCOM to provide enhanced monitoring to our customer's Windows servers as a managed hosting service. Proactive monitoring is the biggest business problem that SCOM addresses which reduces the potential incidents that a customer can have due to an outage that poses huge financial threats, especially during their peak business season or hours. We provide monitoring to thousands of customers who depend on their servers to run their critical apps seamlessly and usually, we resolve the issue before an outage occurs.

Pros

  • Server Monitoring
  • Network Monitoring
  • Proactive Alerting
  • Hardware Monitoring

Cons

  • Cloud monitoring especially AWS/GCP
  • Virtual appliances monitoring
  • Slow web console/Operations console. Perhaps a full-fledged web console like MS Azure would be great.

Return on Investment

  • Improved revenue
  • Exceeded customer satifactions
  • Solid NPS score

Alternatives Considered

Nimbus and ScienceLogic SL1

Other Software Used

Nimbus, ScienceLogic SL1, Sophos Intercept X for Server

Microsoft's monitoring solution--the best but still getting better

Pros

  • Management and monitoring of Windows as well as Unix/Linux platforms
  • Remotely connect to Windows machines and perform administrative task from the console itself
  • Even monitors DB applications like MS SQL and provides recommended steps to resolve
  • Can create custom dashboards for the NOC team so they can monitor the datacenter with ease

Cons

  • Unix/Linux platform monitoring is currently limited since this feature was recently introduced
  • System requirements are a bit high, as opposed to other applications
  • Could be more secure if System Center Operations Manager is introduced as a virtual appliance

Return on Investment

  • Performance monitoring and detection of anomalies has decreased the overall downtime by more than 50%
  • NOC team can now monitor critical assets and inform relevant teams with ease, which has improved service SLA by 70%
  • With integration with other System Center products we have achieved over 95% business system uptime

Other Software Used

Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Microsoft Intune + SCCM), SolarWinds Virtualization Manager (VMAN), vRealize Operations

Microsoft Systems Center Operation Manager, pricey & powerful

Pros

  • Allows us to visualize our systems in a single interface and see the status of health as well as relevant performance metrics.
  • A flexible and powerful interface with active alerting covering domain controllers, SQL servers, etc...
  • Allows you to customize your views and workspaces for specific tasks and needs.
  • Reporting is powerful and flexible.

Cons

  • Pricey for small business platforms
  • Setup and configuration are not intuitive for "unseasoned" IT professionals.

Return on Investment

  • Allowed us to proactively monitor consumption of resources (storage) to proactively schedule upgrades if necessary
  • Allows us to proactively visualize if a server or workstation processor is being over utilized and in need of a replacement, configuration change/upgrade.
  • There have been no negative impacts other than the time it takes to get it set up and configured. Knowing what you want to monitor and the thresholds you wish to set take can take some time, but the ROI comes quickly after that.

Other Software Used

AlienVault USM

SCOM to manager all your systems

Pros

  • Alerts
  • Discovery

Cons

  • Clarity events
  • Ability to create dashboards

Return on Investment

  • We are able to proactively monitor applications and tackle events before they become issues.