By Rob Horwitz [bio]
Posted: May 21, 2007

The following is an illustration accompanying an article published by Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy & technology. More samples of our content, as well as a list of upcoming articles and reports are also available.

Operations Manager (OM) 2007 requires a server license for each management server and one of three types of Operations Management Licenses (OMLs) for each managed device. The accompanying illustration depicts an OM 2007—based system typical of a large organization.

Along the bottom are the devices monitored by OM. The type of device (e.g., server or client) and the type of workload that is managed determines which of three kinds of OMLs are required. Server applications such as Exchange Server, SQL Server, and SharePoint Server (pictured along the bottom right) and a variety of services built into Windows Server, such as Active Directory (AD), require an Enterprise OML ("E OML"), which retails for US$426. Simpler server workloads, such as file & print services and DNS (pictured along the bottom center) require the less expensive Standard OML ("S OML"), which retails for US$155. Client devices such as kiosks and desktops (pictured along the bottom left) require a Client OML ("C OML"), costing US$32.

Of the eight server machines used to implement the monitoring infrastructure (pictured in the upper two-thirds), six run OM 2007 server code and thus require an OM server license ("OM Svr"), which retails for US$573. These six are (starting from the top and going counterclockwise) the two OM Root Management Servers (which coordinates the other OM servers and is the server that consoles connect to), three OM Management Servers (which offload monitoring tasks from the root management servers), and one Gateway Server (used as an intermediary to manage computers across a firewall at a branch location). The two SQL Servers pictured at the upper right do not run OM 2007 server code but host the OM 2007 database and the SQL Reporting Services used by OM. While they don't require an OM server license, they do require an Enterprise OML since they are themselves monitored by OM.