Overview & System Requirements

What is Easy Tune

Overview

Easy Tune solves the headache of alert tuning in Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), by allowing overrides to be tuned en-mass using Tuning Packs. Tuning Packs can be created locally from existing overrides or sourced from the Community Store – a collection of Tuning Packs, curated by the community.

Key Concepts and Features

It is worth watching the above video, which explains the basic concepts of Easy Tune covering what Easy tune does, what a tuning pack is, what is in each tuning pack, what a level is, and the basics of adding custom tuning

There are several key concepts to understand to be successful with Easy Tune:

  • Tuning Packs – a collection of workflows from Rules, Monitors (unit only), and Discoveries which are to be overridden along with Levels which contain the override values. Stored in CSV, for easy editing by IT pros with no SCOM knowledge and imported into SCOM by Easy Tune. Tuning Packs can be used to tune monitoring Globally, per group, or per instance. 
  • Levels – contained within a Tuning Pack, levels define the override values. A Tuning pack contains multiple Levels and come with 2 defaults:
    • MP Defaults – the override values defined in the Management Pack you are targeting tuning at. Useful for getting visibility of the MP Author's recommended tuning, and easily apply it.
    • Discovery Only – only discoveries will be enabled with this setting. Useful when you want to allow discovery of all components with the weight of full monitoring
  • Easy Tune Management Pack (MP) – Installed into SCOM, the Easy Tune MP handles setting overrides from Tuning Packs, tracks configuration drift, and exporting overrides from SCOM into Tuning Packs. Easy Tune functionality is accessed from the Administration pane of the SCOM console or via the PowerShell SDK (PRO Edition)
  • Community Store – a GitHub hosted store containing Tuning Packs curated by the community, allowing you to benefit from the wisdom of expert IT Pros in the field. Extremely useful when setting up monitoring for a new area or to compare your overrides with expert recommendations.
  • Config Drift – once your overrides are set, it is possible for SCOM admins to change the overrides you set or for overrides outside the control of Easy Tune to take precedence over those desired. Easy Tune will show you the effective overrides to help you maintain Alert nirvana.
  • PowerShell SDK (PRO Edition) – great for automating alert tuning. Config drift, Import and export functionality available in the UI can also be used via PowerShell cmdlets. Time of day Alerting (PRO Edition) – Tune SCOM Alerting capabilities differently depending on the time of day/date/day of the week. Useful where you have predictable workloads that will otherwise trigger alerts such as when backup jobs run

Minimum Requirements

A SCOM 2012 R2 or above environment that could benefit from alert tuning. Enterprise features require a valid Enterprise edition license key. The Community Store feature requires direct internet access to use its tuning packs or tuning packs copying locally.