Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (MECM)

The old System Center Configuration Manager 2012 Management Pack is no longer available.  Customers often used this to monitor current branch, and it still works well for the most part.

Now that it was pulled, there is a gap for customers who don’t have that old MP, or want something a little more relevant to MECM deployment monitoring.

I have taken the old SCCM 2012 MP’s, and combined them into a single MP.  It largely works the same way, but I made some enhancements based on things I saw in the field.

The biggest changes are around controlling noise for transient errors, and changing the alert source to the Unit monitors, as alerting from rollup monitors was a terrible design as a method to limit noise, because you also limit quality detailed alerts.  Fixed some workflows that flat out didn’t work, and aligned the MP closer to best practices.

• MECM Client Class discovers sitecode and version properties
• Fixed errors on MECM client discovery that logged events
• Added MatchCount property to most monitors to support multiple consecutive samples to reduce noise
• Removed overrides that were muting alerts from unit monitors
• Added overrides to disabled alerts from the aggregate rollup monitors and dependency rollup monitors
• Added ScaleBy to Process based CPU Rules and Monitors so they actually work.
• Changed Max sample separation on Perf Collection rules from 10 to 4 so one data point will be collected every hour on any perf collection rules that are enabled.
• Deleted all Manual Reset Monitors and replaced with Rules.
• Deleted all Classes, Rules, and Monitors for Deprecated and Unsupported roles
• Renamed all Element ID’s to include the MP ID, and follow structured rules:
• Datasource ends with .DS and with Displaystring Datasource
• ProbeAction ends with .PA and with Displaystring Probe Action
• WriteAction ends with .WA and with Displaystring Write Action
• MonitorType ends with .MT and with Displaystring MonitorType
• Discovery ends with .Discovery and with Displaystring Discovery
• Rule ends with .Rule and with Displaystring Rule
• Monitor Ends with .Monitor and with Displaystring Monitor
• Aggregate Monitor ends with .AggregateRollup.Monitor
• Dependency Monitor ends with .DependencyRollup.Monitor
• Groups end with .Group and with Displaystring Group
• Task ends with .Task
• Removed all Override Displaystrings which were pointless
• Reduced frequency of MECM Client Discovery from 60 seconds to once a day.
• Created an override to disable the SMSExec service monitor for members of the Site Database Computers Group, since this was causing false alarms as Database servers are not typically Site server roles with SMSExec service present.