I have had a recent experience of working with a recently built Operations Manager environment and taking it through the next logical steps after installation. What has been interesting is that it has ended up being a series of discussions, questions and responses which resulted in a blog link detailing the answer. As I reviewed this list I came to realize that this could provide a solid basis for any client and what to think about after installing Operations Manager. So with no further delays, what are the questions and blog links (and other technical articles) to the answers.
Where to start:
OpsMgr 101: http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2010/09/02/operations-manager-101-download.aspx
Building a lab environment for OpsMgr: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2010/02/12/opsmgr-by-example-building-and-tuning-in-an-all-in-one-environment-for-operations-manager-in-windows-7.aspx
Community MP’s to add:
ReSearch This management pack: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/PackCatalog/PackCatalogDetails/tabid/145/IndexID/21716/Default.aspx
Alert Forwarding management pack: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/tabid/145/indexId/11518/Default.aspx
Additional useful reports in OpsMgr: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/73350/Default.aspx
Computer Groups:
OpsMgr Computer Groups & regular expressions: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2009/11/11/creating-dynamic-computer-goups-using-regular-expressions-in-opsmgr.aspx
Creating computer groups in OpsMgr for VMware: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2010/03/24/how-to-create-a-computer-group-for-vmware-servers-or-hyper-v-servers.aspx
Creating and using custom groups in OpsMgr: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/28146/Default.aspx
Tuning:
Tuning the % Interrupt monitor: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/79973/Default.aspx
Priority and Severity in OpsMgr: http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2008/06/26/using-opsmgr-notifications-in-the-real-world-part-1.aspx
What parameters are available in rules and monitors: http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2007/12/12/adding-custom-information-to-alert-descriptions-and-notifications.aspx
Logical disk fragmentation and Operations Manager: http://blogs.catapultsystems.com/cfuller/archive/2010/05/19/opsmgr-research-this-kb-%E2%80%93-logical-disk-fragmentation-level-is-high.aspx
Changing service and process monitors in OpsMgr: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/73979/Default.aspx
Web Console:
Web console installation requirements on 2008: http://blogs.technet.com/b/momteam/archive/2008/12/17/installing-web-console-on-windows-server-2008.aspx
Web console installation on non-RMS: http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinholman/archive/2008/09/24/installing-the-web-console-on-a-2008-management-server-using-windows-authentication.aspx
Web console failure ‘/’: http://blogs.technet.com/b/operationsmgr/archive/2010/07/06/new-kb-article-the-system-center-operations-manager-2007-web-console-fails-to-open-with-quot-error-could-not-load-file-or-assembly-microsoft-reportviewer-webforms-version-9-0-0-0-quot.aspx and http://scug.be/blogs/scom/archive/2009/12/02/opsmgr-webconsole-runtime-error-server-error-in-application.aspx
Maintenance Mode:
Scheduling Maintenance Mode in a GUI: http://www.scom2k7.com/scom-remote-maintenance-mode-scheduler-20/
Using the Operations Manager environment:
Installing a local SMTP on the RMS for redundancy on channels: http://thoughtsonopsmgr.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-configure-smtp-for-opsmgr-in.html
Editing company knowledge in OpsMgr: http://cameronfuller.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!A231E4EB0417CB76!925.entry
User Roles in Operations Manager: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb735424.aspx
Maintenance:
Monitoring the Operations Manager event log: http://www.systemcentercentral.com/BlogDetails/tabid/143/IndexID/81305/Default.aspx