Simplicity, ease of use and configuration were the qualities that made the performance management software known as Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 worthy of the Gold Award in the SearchWinSystems.com systems management category.

Designed to reduce the complexity associated with managing today's IT infrastructure environments, MOM 2005 helps simplify the identification of performance issues. It also streamlines the process for determining the root cause of the problem and facilitates quick resolution to restore services and to prevent potential IT problems.

MOM 2005's integrated framework provides Web-services-based interconnection with other management systems already in place. With its new console, you can view the systems' health and access the integrated reporting server. MOM 2005 supports an expanded set of configurations and architectures over and above those offered by MOM 2000.

Other new features that come with MOM 2005 include management of applications running on 64-bit operating systems; agentless monitoring (limited management capabilities for servers without requiring the installation of a MOM agent); the ability to stop alerts from being displayed in the Operator Console while a system is being maintained. In addition, the rule override and hierarchy feature allows administrators to override the default parameters and thresholds for selected computers or groups, and precedence setting prevents potential conflicts caused by multiple overrides.

A new multi-homing feature allows information collected by MOM 2005 agents to be forwarded to and monitored by multiple and separate IT groups requiring visibility into the health of the same servers.

All of the judges gave MOM 2005 high marks for performance, functionality and ease of integration, which outweighed their scores for service and support, an area in which they thought Microsoft could improve.

Pricing: MOM 2005 Server License: $729; MOM 2005 OML (Operations Management License) five-pack: $2,689; MOM 2005 Workgroup Edition (manages up to 10 devices): $499

SearchWinSystems.com editors