Microsoft Learn - Learning Paths / Modules for SCOM
SCOM as a product can be somewhat difficult to learn, mostly because of insufficient learning material or courses for existing/new users/customers. I have personally received many comments and questions about SCOM being a difficult and complex product.
Although there are a lot of great community blogs and materials out there, it may still be spread out abit everywhere and difficult to come by.
So I thought of a Microsoft Learn, which is a free, interactive, hands-on training platform that helps people develop in-demand technical skills related to widely used Microsoft products.
I think Microsoft Learn modules for SCOM could be a very good idea for both existing and new people that want to learn more about SCOM, or even starting fresh.
To start off there I would suggest a fundamentals learning module, for example:
• System Center Operations Manager fundamentals
The first module could go through some of the following SCOM concepts:
• SCOM Roles
• SCOM Management Packs
• SCOM Classes and Objects
• SCOM Models
....
Any thoughts / suggestions? Leave a comment below!
Leon Laude
shared this idea
11 comments
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Anonymous
commented
I would be up for it! Great idea!
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Shah
commented
I would love to attend training in SCOM Advance admin as well from designing and implementation related with enterprise level
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Shane Hutchens
commented
As was stated previously, just make sure to involve Kevin Holman in whatever you do. 😀
It is important to understand how all of the components work together to allow SCOM to perform its job, so structuring the training as a ground-up approach will be the best way to go about this. -
George Mattson commented
Apologies in advance for the Wall of Text, but I have several:
General thoughts:
Structure any MOCs with a more user-friendly approach. Instead of 1-2 minute video clips that provide the 5,000 ft view and require manually clicking to proceed to each succeeding clip, provide more "hands on" content (as in, show us how to do things, instead of simply telling us that they can be done). "Here's all the pre-requisites to installing SCOM," "here's how to install the SCOM SQL server," with a video demonstration and an explanation on why that needs to be the next step after handling the pre-requistes, followed by "here's how to install your first management server," with video, etc. The 2012 SCOM MOC is nothing but, "here's what you can do," broken down into 20 separate video clips you have to click through for a specific topic (when you have a few dozen topics), with no instruction on HOW. It's also broken.
Limit your labs to a reasonable number of steps and start a new lab with the next topic. I would recommend 20-45 minutes per video, with intermittent knowledge checks. I would also suggest that any labs be broken down to cover specific areas, and NOT be reliant on 200 separate steps being done and working exactly the right way to finish a particular lab. Wanting to bring progress over from one lab to the next is fine, but causes problems when step #187 doesn't work (speaking from personal experience here, btw). Find a way to fix that. Either “part 1” details how to do steps 1-50, and then stops. Part 2 starts from a pre-built environment and continues with part 51, going to part 100. Repeat as needed. Do not build your labs in such a fashion that you have a 200-step process with 200 single points of failure. Failing that, test, test, test your labs to the ends of the Earth and back to ensure that it works, and ensure that support will be both able and willing to assist if the lab breaks.
As for specific content:
1 - Design considerations on what kind of SCOM environment you want. Provide an overview of what SCOM is, what it can/can't do, what kind of servers there are, and how it fits in to the Operations Manager suite as well. How many management servers, how many SQL servers, where to put the reporting server function, how to manage permissions, how to manage multiple sites/subdomains (MS Premier Support doesn't seem to know how to do that, btw), etc. All of the “do this before you build your environment” stuff.
2 - A BASIC "Here's how to build your SCOM environment," from the ground up. Single site to begin with; just a basic, “get it up and running as a barebones install.” Then follow with how to add clients, an explanation of management packs (along with how to approach adding & tweaking them one at a time), overrides (we could really use more detail on this, as it’s easy to accidentally override more than you intend to), notifications/alerts, and day to day management.
3 – A detailed troubleshooting/management course, covering what to do with the most common errors, how to tune management packs, manage your databases, manage organization health, agent connectivity, a thorough overview of the Operations Manager event log, alert history, etc.
4 – Advanced SCOM management – covering PowerShell, authoring, dependency/aggregate alerts, diagnostics & recovery options, alert spamming remediation, gateway servers, subdomains, etc.
Oh, and on a final note, make DAMN sure that Kevin Holman is involved. Also, I might suggest polling the MS Premier tech team for their thoughts. Adam Wood and Robert King would be great people to involve. There's also a woman I used to deal with (I think she's since been promoted) who was ridiculously good as well, but... point being, get some input from the line folks, and DO NOT, for the love of all that's holy, just listen to the devs while ignoring everyone else.
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Pascal Verdieu
commented
Actually 2 courses would be required:
One for (new) admins which would be strictly administration
One advanced for MP creation (basically the one that was on MVA).Personally, my knowledge/ease of use of SCOM came after the MVA course (now on Channel9)
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Anonymous
commented
That is a wonderful idea!
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Hitesh K
commented
Very good idea. SCOM is powerfull but very difficult to learn by its own.
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Yasar
commented
Good idea Leon ,in addition reporting and it's counters to fetch reports
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Patrick Seidl (s2)
commented
Btw... Can't vote anymore.
These restrictions are a nightmare and doesn't bring us further. -
Patrick Seidl (s2)
commented
Yes, please.
Onboarding new admins is hard... -
Nima
commented
would love it! SCOM is a pretty power platform that can do almost every type of monitoring but it isn't exactly user friend or easy to pick up. Some of its best capabilities aren't even obvious that they are there, so would love a learn series.