Deploying Microsoft CRM successfully is only half the battle. What can you do once the system is live to ensure a high level of up time? In this article one of our MVP’s, John O’Donnell from Crowe Chizek talks about the new Microsoft CRM 3.0 MOM 2005 Management Pack.
React to server problems before your users notice an issue.
During the planning of your Microsoft Dynamics CRM system, one thing that should always be considered is the level of up time required. Of course as the required level of up time increases so does the hardware cost. What happens if your budget for Microsoft CRM hardware does not stretch to clustered SQL Servers and redundant Web servers? One thing that could suffer is perceived downtime due to hardware / Network / Software failures. We all know the time that hardware or software will fail and that is the time when it is most critical such as when management want to see current sales pipeline data for example.
Even if your project budget can stretch to more exotic server hardware you can still gain by using tools like Microsoft Operations Manager
This tool can be further improved by adding a special monitoring pack for Microsoft CRM. This is available from:
Once installed, you will have the ability to be alerted when certain events happen as can be seen from the following screen.
An example would be that you could be alerted when the Microsoft CRM Workflow Service stops or fails for example. By using this tool you can be pro-actively alerted when a problem happens and potentially take action before users even notice the problem. Microsoft Operations Manager can email or page an administrator to say that there is a server problem, please stop what you are doing and take action.
Microsoft Operations Manager also comes with an operator console application so you could have it running on a second monitor and use it to watch multiple production servers. This screen shows the console program running and also highlights that my workflow service has a problem.
Microsoft Operations Manager can add a whole new level of support to your organization. As more and more servers become critical to the daily operations of your business it is important to take advantage of any tools you can. With the new Microsoft CRM Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager you can finally ensure that the chances of your Microsoft CRM users being impacted by a server problem are greatly reduced.
Microsoft CRM MVP
Crowe Chizek and Company LLC