Roles of key System Center Operations Manager files and databases

This chapter excerpt from System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed, by Kerrie Meyler, Cameron Fuller, John Joyner and Andy Dominey, is printed with permission from Sams Publishing, Copyright 2008. Click here for the chapter download or purchase the entire book here.

Backing up appropriate files and databases in a timely manner facilitates minimal data loss if there is a catastrophic failure in your OpsMgr infrastructure. An Operations Manager installation includes system databases, user databases, and significant files that you will want to protect from data loss.

SQL Server System and User Databases

Microsoft SQL Server system databases include databases established during the database engine install. These databases are integral to the functionality of the database engine, and include the master, msdb, model, and tempdb databases. Other databases, created for application-specific purposes, are user databases. Operations Manager-specific user databases include the Operational database, Data Warehouse database, and ACS database. Installing the SQL Server 2005 Reporting Component (required for the data warehouse) creates two additional databases: the ReportServer and ReportServer tempdb databases.

Note that the Operations Manager 2007 setup process allows you to specify database names for the three databases it creates. This chapter will refer to the default names. You should include the following items in your backup strategy. This includes various system and user files and databases:

The Operational database (named OperationsManager by default) -- This is Operation Manager's database installed for each management group, and is the most important database to back up. If you lose this database due to a hardware failure or corruption and do not have a database backup, you will have to reinstall the RMS and re-create the database, losing all rule customizations, discovery rules, and operational data collected. This database is shared among management servers within a management group, and must be backed up for every OpsMgr management group.

The Data Warehouse database (OperationsManagerDW by default) -- This database stores aggregated data used for reporting, which is used by SQL Reporting Services (SRS) for trend analysis and performance tracking. Based on the amount of data you are collecting and the degree of aggregation, this database may be large and thus require special handling. If you have not installed OpsMgr Reporting, your management group does not include the OperationsManagerDW, ReportServer, or ReportServerTempDB databases.

The SQL Reporting Services ReportServer database -- This database is used by the SQL Reporting Services Component. It stores the report definitions used for OpsMgr Reporting and is updated when new reports are defined or definitions of existing reports are changed.

The ReportServerTempDB database -- The only reason to back up ReportServerTempDB is to avoid having to re-create it if there is a hardware failure. If there is a hardware failure, you do not need to recover the data in the database, but you will need the table structure. If you lose ReportServerTempDB, the only way to get it back is by re-creating the SQL Reporting Services ReportServer database.

The ACS database (named OperationsManagerAC by default) -- This database is associated with the Audit Collector service, which runs on the ACS collector. The database uses an agent to track cleared Security Event logs, and adds a new table daily for each day's security events. If you have multiple collectors, each uses its own ACS database.

ACS typically uses its own instance of SQL Reporting Services and the SQL Reporting Services database, in which case you will also need to accommodate these items in your backup strategy. Chapter 15, "Monitoring Audit Collection Services," includes a full discussion of ACS.

The Master database -- This is a system database, recording all information used by a SQL Server instance — including database file locations, configuration settings, and security and login account information. This database should be backed up whenever there is a change to your SQL Server configuration. If you installed the Operations, Data Warehouse, Reporting, or Audit database Components on separate database servers or instances, each will have a Master database that should be backed up. This is also true for a separate database server or instance using SRS.

The Msdb database -- The Msdb database is also a SQL Server system database, containing scheduled tasks information for jobs, including regularly scheduled database backups. If you have installed the Operations, Data Warehouse, Audit database, or SRS Components on separate servers, each server will have a Msdb database that should be backed up.

Management packs and reports -- Management packs contain rules and information pertaining to how Operations Manager monitors applications, services, and devices. The management packs are stored in the Operational database, which you should back up as part of your standard procedure. We recommend separate backups of non-sealed/customized management packs because this provides the granularity to import them directly into Operations Manager if necessary and to save a selfcontained copy of any rule customizations. Instances of importing management packs could include rolling back changes to an unsealed management pack or moving a customized management pack from a development to production environment.

Report templates are stored in the ReportServer database. As with management packs, we recommend separate backups of any reports you have created or customized.

IIS metabase -- Both the Web Console Server and SRS components use Internet Information Services (IIS). Most IIS settings are saved in its metabase, although several settings are in the Registry. If you are running IIS 6.0 with Windows Server 2003, the IIS metabase is automatically backed up each time the in-memory database is written to disk. The backups are saved to %SystemRoot%System32inetsrv History.

To create your own metabase backups, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/32477 for IIS 6.0 or http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300672 for Windows 2000 / IIS 5.0. The IIS 5.0 metabase backups, which must be performed manually, are stored at %SystemRoot%system32inetsrvMetaBack. The IIS backup files can be saved for disaster recovery using a physical disk backup.

Custom files -- Custom files include encryption key files for the RMS and Reporting Server components. Customizations to console views are saved in the local user profile on the computer running the console. Those personalizations could be backed up with physical disk backup or a SystemState copy of the local operating system.