Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 can deliver a huge amount of value to organizations of any size. It automates burdensome and lengthy diagnostic tasks so that you are notified of an event in your environment almost as soon as it happens. Armed with this information, and a set of integrated tools engineered to help you fix whatever is wrong, a solid MOM implementation helps any IT infrastructure reduce outages and simply run better. And if your machines and applications are healthier, chances are your life will be just a bit easier.

System administrators of any network must perform operations management duties. If your network is small and relatively uncomplicated, you probably handle these tasks without the assistance of a tool like MOM. Instead, you rely on your end users to tell you about an outage or an incident with a system. More than likely, you rely on built-in tools such as event logs, performance counters, Dr. Watson logs, and application-specific logs to provide the data you need to diagnose issues with your systems. In addition, you perform tasks such as pinging the IP address of a device to see if it is up on the network. You run diagnostic tools to get more in-depth diagnostic information, such as DCDIAG and REPLMON for domain controller issues. You rely on your experience, your knowledge of the systems involved, and external support coming from online research or a phone call to a support engineer to determine a course of action to fix issues and restore service.

Sometimes, issues resolve themselves, or they arise intermittentlyevaporating before you can capture the data needed to diagnose them. If you are lucky and can determine the root cause of the incident, you will need a good deal of self-discipline to record the facts of the issue and the steps you took to resolve it for future reference. Then, during the budgetary cycle when you have to justify why new server hardware is needed, or why a different backup solution is appropriate, you will probably scramble to find that supporting documentation.

Ultimately, you would probably describe your workday as being interruption drivenyou spend most of your time putting out fires. You never have time for systems design and new implementations. You are always in a reactive mode.