Create a Windows Performance Collection Rule in SCOM 2007 R2

How to create a Windows Performance counter collection rule in System Center Operations Manager. This post will outline the following steps:

Create a Management Pack Create a Rule Create a Performance View

Create a Management Pack

This step is not essential but you can create a management pack to consolidate rules, alerts, events, states etc. This custom management pack can be exported later.

Open the Operation Console for System Center Operations Manager. Navigate to Administration > Management Packs > Create Management Pack.

In the Create a Management Pack dialog enter a name for the management pack and select Next.

Select ‘Create’ to create the management pack.

Create a Rule

In the Operation Console, navigate to Authoring > Management Pack Objects > Rules > Create a new rule…

In the Create Rule Wizard expand Collection Rules > Performance Based. From the drop down select the destination management pack and select Next.

Enter the name and description for you rule. From the Rule Category drop down select Performance Collection. By Rule target click ‘Select’.

In the ‘Select Items to Target’ dialog scroll down to ‘Windows Server’ (part of Windows Core Library management pack). In you know the target name, type the name to filter the item list. Select ‘OK’.

Leave ‘Rule is enabled’ checkbox selected and select ‘Next’.

Specify the time interval to 15 seconds. To specify the performance counter click ‘Select…’.

In the ‘Select Performance Counter’ select the object and counter to monitor. In this case I have selected ‘All instances’. Select ‘OK’ and then ‘Next’.

Select ‘Create’ to create the rule and close the rule wizard dialog.

Rules properties can be viewed and overridden. To override rules properties, in the rules pane filter enter ‘windows server’. Right click and navigate 'Overrides > Override the Rule > For all objects of class: Virtual Server.

Select override check box individually to override the values.

Create a Performance View

To create a performance view navigate to Monitoring > ‘Your Management Pack Name’, right click and select New > Performance View.

Enter a name for the performance view and select the eclipse button as indicated below.

In the ‘Select Items to Target’ dialog enter windows server to filter the data targets in the item list. Select Windows Server and click OK.

To specify the collection rule select the ‘specific’ link.

From the ‘Select Rules’ select the rule to collect and click OK.

Click OK to create the Performance View.

In the View Counter Data pane select the performance counter to monitor.

The default is one day. The time range can be changed to hours and minutes and as a date range.

To change the time range, in the Actions pane click ‘Select Time Range…’

Below is a one hour time range:

Below is a ten minute time range.

This document has demonstrated how to create a collection rule based on Windows Performance counters in System Center Operations Manager