Operations Manager 2007 Architecture

An Operations Manager (OM) 2007 system has multiple components. At the bottom are the types of physical devices that can be monitored without third-party extensions: Windows Servers, Windows clients, and network printers, routers, and other non-Windows devices supporting Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Although not shown, third-party add-ons allow OM 2007 to monitor non-Windows devices and applications.

The top left box shows the three consoles that can be used with OM: the Operations Console for normal data center monitoring, troubleshooting, and for making configuration changes to OM; an Authoring Console for building OM management packs (MPs); and a lighter-weight Web Console for other users, such as help desk personnel and developers, who need to view system health.

The top middle box shows OM server roles. Every OM installation requires the first OM server installed to perform the root management server (RMS) role. This is the only server to which consoles connect, and it configures and coordinates any additional management servers (shown below it) added for scalability and fault tolerance. The critical RMS server role may also be clustered for even higher availability, using Windows Cluster Services. If the organization must monitor agent-equipped computers across a firewall or that are members of an untrusted domain, the OM gateway server acts as an intermediary and uses certificate-based authentication, rather than Active Directory and Kerberos, when communicating with agents.