Here’s a short tutorial on a neat add-on product from a relatively new System Center partner you may not yet be familiar with.

Do you know the feeling of looking at an alert for SCFSVR05X4 and not being able to recall where that server is located? Wouldn’t it be nice to see the state of all your locations at a glance? Now you can with Savision’s Live Maps for Operations Manager 2007.

Step 1: Installing Live Maps for Operations Manager 2007
Download the 60 days evaluation version of Live Maps from www.savision.com/download. Copy the ISO image file to your Operations Manager 2007 test server.  Mount the ISO file with a tool like daemon tools, which you can download at http://www.daemon-tools.cc/.

The setup should start automatically, if it doesn’t double-click the Setup.LiveMaps.exe in the root of the ISO image. Install the Authoring console and the OpsMgr console extension (make sure the OpsMgr console is not running).

Step 2: Create a list per location.
Start the Live Maps Authoring console.  Make sure you logon with an account that has the OpsMgr administrator role.  The authoring console will automatically import two management packs during its first start.

Once started, right click the Live Maps folder in the Maps pane and select New -> List. Give the list the name of one of your locations, e.g. London.  Find the managed objects located in London using the Objects pane and drop them on the list in the Designer pane. Repeat this process for all your location.

Step 3: Create an overview map.
Right click the Live Maps folder in the Maps pane and select New -> Map. Live Maps comes with over 300 maps, including all countries, US states and regions like the world. Determine which map makes most sense for your organization and name your map accordingly. Select the appropriate map image from the ‘Select background image’ dialog.

Drop the location lists that you created in the previous step from the Map pane onto the correct position on your map. Save all maps and lists.

Step 4: Viewing your maps in the OpsMgr console
Start the OpsMgr console. Find and select your overview map in the Live Maps folder in the monitoring tree. The alert list below the map will show all alerts for the objects on and under your overview map. Double click a location icon to drill down onto a location. It’s that simple!

With a free evaluation version available and an installation that takes no more than a few minutes you could be looking at your organization in OpsMgr within 15 minutes from now. Visit Savision’s website at http://www.savision.com/ to download an evaluation copy of their software.