Time to configure the Microsoft System Center Core Monitoring pack per health model and best practice. That’s where the SCOMCore Addendum pack comes in. Addendum adds High Agent Handle count group, daily report and alert closure automation, and rule/monitor overrides. Some assembly required – update the discovery pattern for offending high handle counts, and high handle count group ContextInstance GUID after import.
Quick Download: https://github.com/theKevinJustin/SCOMCoreAddendum
Background:
While High Agent Handle count was more an issue before the x365 platform migrated UC, SharePoint, and email (i.e. Lync/Skype, SharePoint, Exchange on prem) went to the cloud. This is still seen where cloud scalability options and virtualization/storage limitations exist. Example typically is an over-utilized virtual machine in hybrid/IaaS/premise scenarios. Kevin Holman caught this performance issue years back, creating monitoring alerts pack and blog. In case you’re on SCOM jeopardy, the LAW/OMS/Microsoft Monitoring Agent/SCOM agent has a built-in health check. The built-in health check restarts service when Handle Count or memory of the HealthService (aka Microsoft Monitoring Agent service) ran too hot per SCOM PG. SCOM agent restarts caused config churn, and high compute, as workflows re-ran after the service restarted.
Assess agent restarts
Begin by verifying if you have Kevin Holman’s pack for SCOM agent restarts downloaded and installed, which sets memory/handle count informational alerts https://github.com/thekevinholman/SCOM.AgentThresholds
Validate pack installed
Configure addendum for environment
Download and Install ‘SCOMCore Addendum pack’ here
Open saved XML in notepad or Notepad++ (your favorite XML editor here!)
Update the regular expression pattern line for offending servers in the
Figure out the group GUID for the high agent handle count
From PowerShell on SCOM management server, run:
Get-SCOMClassInstance -DisplayName “Proactive High Agent Handle Count servers” | fl DisplayName,ID
Find/Replace GUID
Save file and Import > enjoy less alerts!
Documentation:
Kevin Holman blog on SCOM agent restarts
Holman’s pack for SCOM agent restarts and setting memory/handle count alerts https://github.com/thekevinholman/SCOM.AgentThresholds
Addendum download https://github.com/theKevinJustin/SCOMCoreAddendum