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Using Management Packs with a Connector

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Alerts created with the MOM Connector Framework class library will not behave the same as alerts created using a rule unless additional steps are taken to modify the alerts. A Management Pack can be used to specify and store the logic required to process alerts added to MOM through the MOM Connector Framework.

Associating Conventional Alerts with Rules

Conventional MOM alerts are automatically associated with the MOM rule that raised the alert. The alert's initial severity and other properties are controlled by the rule. Product Knowledge entries are also part of the rule, not the alert. The knowledge displayed for a MOM alert is always the knowledge of the rule that created the alert.

Associating Connector-Generated Alerts with Rules

When a connector creates a new alert in MOM using the InsertAlerts method, you can associate an alert with a rule by assigning a value to the AlertInsert.RuleId field of the alert. This field is required if you are using the alert suppression feature of MOM. The rule ID is also useful for querying the knowledge associated with the rule that created the alert. If you know which rule is associated with an alert, you can retrieve the rule's knowledge using the FrameworkBase.GetKnowledge method.

Note Note   

The InsertAlerts method will return an invalid alert ID if the alert was suppressed. If you attempt to update the suppressed alert using the invalid ID, it will fail, but the error will contain the ID for the initial, unsuppressed alert.

Contents of the Management Pack

The number of event rules in the Management Pack will depend on how much control you need over the alerts created by the connector.

A single, generic event rule is sufficient if you want all alerts created by the connector to be handled and suppressed in the same way, using the same settings. To display specific knowledge with each type of alert, you need one event rule for each unique alert the connector is capable of adding to MOM. For examples of rules designed for an MCF-based connector, see the Connector Framework rule group in the Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Management Pack. This rule group includes the rules for the MOM to MOM Product Connector.

For more information about creating Management Packs, see the MOM Management Pack Development Guide.