SCOM plugin

For more information about what this plugin does and the data streams it retrieves, see:

Monitor your SCOM environment, including Windows Computers, Enterprise Applications and more.

To add a data source click on the + next to Data Sources on the left-hand menu in SquaredUp. Search for the data source and click on it to open the Configure data source page.

An on-prem data source connects a service running in your internal network to SquaredUp. They require an agent installed on a machine that has access to your internal network.

Before you start

Prerequisites

The plugin is only compatible with Windows Server.

Configuring the agent for a SCOM data source

The SquaredUp agent service uses the local system identity by default. SCOM uses Windows authentication which requires at a minimum Network Service or a Domain User account, the agent you use for the SCOM data source needs to have its service identity changed to such an account.

When using a NetworkService account, the computer account the agent is running on must be added to a Read Only Operator Role. If using a domain account for the service, the service account must be added to SCOM in a Read Only Operator role.

Configuring and deploying an agent

If you have already created an agent in SquaredUp that you can use for this data source, you can skip this step and choose the agent group you want to use while Configuring the data source.

See Configuring an agent (Windows platforms) for detailed instructions on deploying an agent.

Consider which objects you want to index and set the permissions for the service account accordingly. As the SCOM data source supports SCOM RBAC you can use scoping in the user role for the account in SCOM to control which objects will be indexed.
You need to manually add the service account to the opsmgreader role of the Data Warehouse in the SCOM console see Manually creating the Data Warehouse permissions

Configuring the data source

Display Name:
Enter a name for your data source. This helps you to identify this data source in the list of your data sources.
SCOM Management Server:
Enter your SCOM management server as a FQDN, for example server.domain.local
Agent Group:
Select the Agent Group that contains the agent(s) you want to use.
Dashboard Server SCOM Edition URL:
Optionally, if you use SquaredUp DS for SCOM, you can enter the URL to your instance. This will create a link from a SCOM object in SquaredUp to the same object in your SquaredUp DS for SCOM.

Enter the URL to the root domain including https, for example: https://myserver.mydomain/SquaredUp/
Advanced Settings:
Optionally, define additional classes of data to be retrieved from SCOM. See Testing and troubleshooting for assistance with the corresponding required setup.
Restrict access to this data source:
You can enable this option if you only want certain users or groups to have access to the data source, or the permission to link it to new workspaces. See data source access control for more information.
Install Sample Dashboards:
Select whether you would like to install sample dashboards with the data source. By default, this is set to on.
You can also add a data source from Settings > Data Sources > Add data source, but sample dashboards are not added when using this method.
Click Test and add to validate the data source configuration. SquaredUp will now attempt to connect to SquaredUp using the provided authentication method. If this process fails, see Testing and troubleshooting for assistance with the corresponding errors.

Testing and Troubleshooting

Timeframe format differs in SquaredUp Cloud and SquaredUp DS for SCOM (Cloud using zero hour / minute for "hours and minutes"), meaning you will retrieve more values in Cloud if there is a noisy metric - which is more likely the further from the top of the hour you are.

For example, if you want to request the Last 24 hours in Cloud, the following format is used:

"timeframe": { "start": "2024-10-07T22:00:00.000Z", "unixStart": 1712527200, "end": "2024-10-08T22:00:00.000Z", "unixEnd": 1712613600, "enum": "last24hours", "interval": "PT15M" }

Whereas DS for SCOM uses the following format:

start: 10/07/2024 22:19:34 end: 10/08/2024 22:19:34

Likewise, the following format is used in Cloud for a seven-day request:

"timeframe": { "start": "2024-10-01T18:00:00.000Z", "unixStart": 1711994400, "end": "2024-10-08T18:00:00.000Z", "unixEnd": 1712599200, "enum": "last7days", "interval": "PT6H" }

Whereas DS for SCOM uses the following format:

start: 10/01/2024 18:09:56 end: 10/08/2024 18:09:56

When Configuring the data source, you can select the Advanced Settings check box to display the Custom Classes section, which allows you to retrieve additional classes from SCOM.

If you want to retrieve custom classes, do the following:

Click the Add new custom classes button to display the entry fields.
Enter a name for the additional class in the Class name field. For example, Windows Computer.

Enter / paste the JSON for the class you want to import in the Custom class JSON field. For example:

[
   {
      "name":"Import class 'Microsoft.Windows.Computer'",
      "classId":"ea99500d-8d52-fc52-b5a5-10dcd1e9d2bd",
      "types":[
         {
            "className":"Microsoft.Windows.Server.DC.Computer",
            "type":"addomaincontroller"
         },
         {
            "className":"Microsoft.Windows.Computer",
            "type":"host"
         }
      ],
      "properties":[
         
      ],
      "children":[
         {
            "name":"Import related class 'Microsoft.Windows.LogicalDevice'",
            "classId":"3361982a-7dfd-288d-f48c-e04e85149750",
            "types":[
               {
                  "className":"Microsoft.Windows.LogicalDisk",
                  "type":"volume"
               },
               {
                  "className":"Microsoft.Windows.NetworkAdapter",
                  "type":"interface"
               }
            ],
            "properties":[
               
            ]
         }
      ]
   }
]

The optional properties parameter is a special property that provides a mechanism to add or modify properties from the target class. Here is the basic structure of the properties parameter:

"properties":[
   {
      "name":"Parameters",
      "as":"monitorUrl",
      "XPath":"/Parameters/Parameter[@name='URL']",
      "transform":"url"
   }
]

Example

To add a new property, simply omit the XPath, jsonPath, and transform options. Here is a functional example that adds the NetbiosComputerName field to the Windows Computer class:

[
   {
      "name":"Import class 'Microsoft.Windows.Computer'",
      "classId":"ea99500d-8d52-fc52-b5a5-10dcd1e9d2bd",
      "types":[
         {
            "className":"Microsoft.Windows.Server.DC.Computer",
            "type":"addomaincontroller"
         },
         {
            "className":"Microsoft.Windows.Computer",
            "type":"host"
         }
      ],
      "properties":[
         {
            "name":"NetbiosComputerName",
            "as":"netbiosComputerName"
         }
      ],
      "children":[
         {
            "name":"Import related class 'Microsoft.Windows.LogicalDevice'",
            "classId":"3361982a-7dfd-288d-f48c-e04e85149750",
            "types":[
               {
                  "className":"Microsoft.Windows.LogicalDisk",
                  "type":"volume"
               },
               {
                  "className":"Microsoft.Windows.NetworkAdapter",
                  "type":"interface"
               }
            ],
            "properties":[
               
            ]
         }
      ]
   }
]

Optionally, click the Add another custom class button to add an additional class and enable another line of entry fields.
Example
Here is a functional example of Custom class JSON you can enter to imports the Web Application Test Web Test Base class from SCOM:

[
   {
      "name":"Import class 'Microsoft.SystemCenter.WebApplicationTest.WebTestBase'",
      "classId":"8e5cb3e8-3a88-4301-a703-553772fe72dd",
      "types":[
         {
            "className":"Microsoft.SystemCenter.WebApplicationTest.WebTestBase",
            "type":"monitor"
         }
      ],
      "properties":[
         {
            "name":"Parameters",
            "as":"monitorUrl",
            "XPath":"/Parameters/Parameter[@name='URL']",
            "transform":"url"
         }
      ],
      "children":[
         
      ]
   }
]

Next Steps

Data streams

The following data streams are installed with this plugin.

Data streams standardize data from all the different shapes and formats your tools use into a straightforward tabular format.

While creating a tile you can tweak data streams by grouping or aggregating specific columns.

Depending on the kind of data, SquaredUp will automatically suggest how to visualize the result, for example as a table or line graph.

Data streams can be either global or scoped:

Global data streams are unscoped and return information of a general nature (e.g. "Get the current number of unused hosts").
A scoped data stream gets information relevant to the specific set objects supplied in the tile scope (e.g. "Get the current session count for these hosts").

See Data Streams for more information.

Metric

This data stream calls an API endpoint to get metrics from your SCOM instance. The following parameters can be configured:

Object Name:
Enter the name of the object you want metrics for, for example, LogicalDisk.
Counter Name:
Enter a name for the metric, for example, Free Megabytes.
Instance Name:
Optionally, enter the name of the SCOM MI instance you want metrics from.
Top N:
Optionally, enter the Top N number of items you want to see in the results.
Sort descending:
Select if you want to sort the results descending instead of ascending.

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