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Unix and Linux Monitoring Pack for System Center 2012 Released
Microsoft last week released an updated monitoring pack for System Center 2012 running on Windows Server 2008 that provides reporting capabilities for Unix and Linux servers.
The pack, called "System Center Monitoring Pack for UNIX and Linux Operating Systems," was originally released in May, but it was updated on July 24. The monitoring pack works with System Center 2012 running on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2008. It's available at Microsoft's download center page here.
IT pros can use the monitoring pack with System Center Operations Manager 2012 to check the "processes, resources, and server agents" of Unix and Linux servers, according to Microsoft's description. It checks server health, availability and performance, plus it has reporting capabilities and views to enable "near real-time diagnosis and resolution of detected issues."
The Unix and Linux servers that are supported by the monitoring pack include IBM's AIX, HP-UX, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Oracle's Solaris and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
Microsoft's Unix and Linux monitoring pack also supports the adding of the "Audit Collection Services for UNIX/Linux Management Packs," according to Microsoft's description. This management pack works with System Center Operations Manager. It can collect records based on audit policies set by IT pros, according to this TechNet library article.
It's also possible to run Unix and Linux scripts via Operations Manager 2012. According to a Microsoft forum post, that capability was integrated into the final Operations Manager 2012 product. When Microsoft released Operations Manager 2012 in November, it described the Unix and Linux scripting capabilities as happening through Microsoft's PowerShell scripting environment.
The System Center Monitoring Pack for UNIX and Linux Operating Systems isn't yet supported on Windows Server 2012, which is currently at the "release candidate" test stage. Even the currently released System Center 2012 product isn't yet supported on Windows Server 2012, except via a service pack that's at the testing stage. The two products -- System Center 2012 and Windows Server 2012 -- will work together when Microsoft releases Service Pack 1 of System Center 2012.
Microsoft released its second community test preview of System Center 2012 SP1 in June and is planning a beta release for sometime in the second half of this year.
Windows Server 2012 is expected to be available as a final product in September.
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.