Email Notification SCOM

Table Of Contents

1. Installation of System Center Operations Manager 2012 R2
2. Installation Of Agents On Clients/Servers using System Center Operations Manager 2012
3. Email Notification System Center Operations Manager 2012
4. Setting up My Workspace System Center Operations Manager 2012
5. Disable a Monitor or Rule using Overrides System Center Operations Manager 2012
6. Create a Report and Schedule using System Center Operations Manager 2012
7. Create and Monitor Custom Service using System Center Operations Manager 2012

How to Enable an Email Notification Channel

To configure alert notifications for System Center 2012 – Operations Manager, your first task is to enable a notification channel.

Before you begin, gather the following information:

• SMTP server information

• Fully qualified domain name (FQDN).

• Port number for the SMTP server.

• Authentication method for the SMTP server. You have two choices: anonymous or Windows Integrated.

• Return email address. This address is used for all email notifications on this channel and will receive any replies to notifications.

• Email subject and body text that you want subscribers to receive.

Start by opening the SCOM console and navigate to the Administration space. You will notice a section called ‘Notifications’, and beneath that section, 3 other items: Channels, Subscribers, and Subscriptions.

Channels

1. Start by right clicking on ‘Channels’ and selecting ‘New Channel’. From there select the type of channel you want to create. In this example we are going to create an ‘E-Mail (SMTP)’ channel.

2. On the Description screen, you can accept the defaults for Channel Name and Description, unless you want to provide something specific. Make the applicable decision, and then click Next.

3. On the Settings screen, click the ‘+ Add’ button to enter an SMTP server.

4. Enter the server FQDN, Port Number, and the Authentication Method applicable to your environment, and then click OK.

5. You will be returned to the Settings screen. On here you must enter a Return Address. Please note that this address does not need to be a real email address, so it literally can be anything (i.e. see my example). In a Production environment, you may want to enter a Distribution List for a specific team, but that is a decision you have to make for your implementation. Now click Next.

6. On the Format screen, you can customize what the Email subject will display, along with the information provided in the email. Additionally, you can control the email Importance and Encoding.
7. As an example, from my personal experience, for one SCOM implementation I created 4 different SMTP channels, one for each ‘zone’ (i.e. PROD, UAT, TST, and DEV). For the DEV/TST zones, we set the Importance to Low, for UAT we left it at Normal, and for PROD we set it to High. This way when the various teams received the Alert emails (i.e. the SQL team), they could immediately identify which emails (and thus which Alerts) they needed to respond to immediately. Again, this is more of a design/configuration decision.

8. Make the applicable changes and click Finish.

9. You will receive indication that the channel was successfully created. Click Close.

10. Back in the SCOM console your newly created channel will now appear.

Congratulations, now you have a channel setup. But, that still doesn’t get Alerts via email to your support team. For that, we need Subscribers.

Subscribers

1. To send Alerts via email, SCOM needs email address to send to. So let’s now configure some Subscribers.

2. Start by right clicking on Subscribers and select ‘New Subscriber’.

3. The Notification Subscriber Wizard will start. On the Description screen it asks for a name, and even gives you the ability to look a user up in Active Directory. Note, as per the sentence on the screen, this is just to make it easier to identify.

4. Enter a name and then click Next.

5. On the Schedule screen, you can choose either to ‘Always send notifications’ or ‘Notify only during the specified times’. If you choose the second option, click the Add button to create the required schedule. For our example we are going to accept the default to ‘Always send notifications’. Make you choice and click Next.

6. If you want to specify a schedule, make the applicable changes on the prompt provided and click OK.

7. Now you need to add the email address that will be used for this Subscriber. Click the Add button.

8. This will cause another wizard to launch, the Subscriber Address wizard. Again you are prompted for a name, but only for the use of identification later, and does not factor into how the Notifications work. From my personal experience, on this screen I would add the users name so that I knew who it was for (i.e. in case from the email address it is not apparent). In my example, I used my own name, and entered “Ronald Patan”. Make your decision and then click Next.

9. On the Channel screen, you need to specify the channel to use for Notifications for this individual. Click the down-arrow for the selection list.

10. In our example, since we only have an SMTP Channel setup/configured, we will choose ‘Email (SMTP)’. You will also be required to supply a Delivery Address for use with the selected channel. Make the appropriate selection and enter the required information and then click Next.

11. On the Schedule screen, you can create a schedule (exactly like the option we had before) but this is specific for the user that you are adding. This may seem confusing right now, because, aren’t we already adding a user as a subscriber? Yes, but you can use the Subscriber option like an email distribution list.

12. For example, the very first Subscriber ‘Name’ that you enter could be the name of a team, like say “SQL Team”. You can then use the Subscriber Address wizard to add the individual team members email addresses.

13. You may have to try some different configurations to find the right combination that will work for you. Make applicable configurations and then click Finish.

14. Back on the Notification Subscriber Wizard, this is where you will be after clicking Finish on the Subscriber Address wizard, click Finish.

15. The wizards will then go off and create the Subscriber, and you will receive confirmation once it is complete. Click Close.

16. Returning to the SCOM console you will now see your Subscriber that you created.

You now have Channels setup, and Subscribers to send to, but you still need a trigger to send the Notifications. We are now going to configure the final piece, Subscriptions.

Subscriptions

1. OK, we now need a way to trigger SCOM to send Alert notifications to our Subscribers. We do this through Subscriptions.

2. Start by right clicking on Subscriptions and select ‘New Subscription’.

3. On the Description screen, create a name for the Subscription. For example, from my personal experience, I would create a subscription based on zone and technology (i.e. PROD – SQL Alerts). Enter a name, and click Next.

4. On the Criteria screen, you can modify the conditions that will trigger the Alert to be sent to the Subscribers via the Subscription.

5. NOTE: This guide does not cover the vast and complex options on Condition customization. I would recommend searching online if you need help, and best of all, try different options.

6. Make your customizations and then click Next.

7. On the Subscribers screen, click the Add button.

8. From here, you can search for any existing Subscribers you have already created. Select them (you can add more than one), press Add, and then click OK.

9. Your added Subscribers will now appear in the list. Click Next.

10. Now you can add the Channels to use for this Subscription. Click the Add button.

11. Similar to the Subscribers search, you can search for Channels. Find the Channel(s) you want to add, click the Add button, and then click OK.

12. You Channel(s) will now be displayed in the list. Notice that on this screen you can also customize a delay in notifications being sent out. Why would you want to have a delay? Here’s an example from my personal experience.

13. Imagine that you are part of an Operations team that is on-call and paged when there are issues with Production servers. You have a Subscriber/Subscription setup specifically for paging. When a system that is being monitored by SCOM loses its ability to communicate with the Agent installed, it throws an Alert about the Agent being unreachable. SCOM also attempts to ping the system to confirm that there is an issue with either just the SCOM Agent, or if the system is in fact down. If ICMP is blocked in the environment, even if there is only an issue with the SCOM Agent, the “Server down” Alert will still be generated. This will then cause the individual to be paged to respond.

14. This sounds fine, and normally it is. However, sometimes SCOM can lose connectivity with the Agent for one reason or another, though it may only last a few minutes (i.e. network bandwidth, backups running, etc.). If there is no delay in sending notifications, then even if SCOM loses connectivity for a moment, someone will be paged. If there is a delay enabled, and SCOM loses connectivity to the Agent and that connection is re-established within the delay timeframe, then no notification/paging will occur.

15. I speak from personal experience, being paged multiple times in a night, just because SCOM lost connectivity to the Agent; not that the server(s) were actually down!

16. Make applicable changes, and click Next.

17. Review the information on the Summary screen, and then click Finish.

18. You will receive confirmation that the Subscription was created successfully, and then click Close.

19. Back in the SCOM console, your Subscription will now be present.

Excellent, you now have SCOM setup to notify individuals of Alerts based on any customizations you need.