SCOM Initial Setup
Starlen Sass
Information Technology Consultant at University of the Witwatersrand
The solution's initial setup is a bit complex, but it's not a problem once you get the hang of it.
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GovindarajV
Systems Engineer II at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Setting up SCOM is straightforward. We decide on the number of servers to monitor, configure management servers and gateway services, and install SCOM using the setup executable. Onboarding servers involves scripting or installing the SCOM console, making the process easy with no complexity.
RM
Richard McLaughlin
Vocational Coordinator at UMMS
The initial setup is complex. It requires Microsoft's support in many cases. It takes about a month or two to get SCOM up and running and fleshed out so that you have all the configurations. For example, when you're migrating from '12 to '19, you have to look at everything that's already in place and then try to migrate it. Whereas if you're starting fresh, then you have to start one at a time looking at each component and building it out. They're too different.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
SCOM
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about SCOM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Philippe Roussel
Delivery Manager at Inetum
We use the solution in our work for a big company, but we are rarely involved in the setup of the solution. The company uses and upgrades the solution but is not typically involved in new installations.
I work for a big company and thus have access to a certain piece of system information that can be considered big and vast. Due to its size, we have separated the activities, primarily because there are many activities. Also, we have many engineers working on the solution.
View full review »
Hussein Taha
IT Enterprise System Administrator at Misr Technology Services
The solution is difficult to implement and troubleshoot. Sometimes we need the prerequisites for a task, but we encounter issues that we don't understand or that are not reasonable.
The first time we deployed the solution, there were three of us, but now that we have more experience, we can do it on our own without the requirement of additional people.
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AJITHH G
Solution Engineer at AppSmart
I would rate the initial setup 4.5 out of 5.
It's a complex process. When we deploy any other solution, it comes with a built-in SQL database. With SCOM, it was more of a complicated process.
If it doesn't have a hierarchy, then it takes about one hour. It's a standard installation. If there are hierarchies, like multiple site deployments, then it would take about three to five hours.
YA
YasirAhmed
Managed Services - System engineer at Brennan IT Pty Ltd.
I rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten. From planning to POST checks, the whole process takes one week.
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Mohammed Badowi
IT system manager at NBO
It is actually pretty simple to do the setup. I think it really can be implemented on the same day that you get it. You can do the complete installation and configuration in one day.
But adding services, that takes time. It depends on the business and your scope, what you need to add, what you need to configure when it is added. I consider that as a separate part because it is not the fault of the product that you have additional requirements. The additions made for service monitoring depends on the customer, the requirements that they have, and what they need to add.
Amar Sharma
Monitoring Systems Engineer at Monster Worldwide
The initial setup was straightforward, and only one person was required for deployment and maintenance.
View full review »BW
Bill Watts
Sr. Systems Engineer at Arapahoe County Government
It's quite complicated. I would call it complex.
On a scale of one to five, I would give it at least four or four and a half.
There are a lot of customizations, and it's quite noisy out of the box.
You have a lot of alerts, which is normal for most of them.
I have tried some of the other monitoring systems as well, and they all seem to work in the same way. Basically, all you have to do is tune it. That is what requires time.
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Trevor Watkins
Server Applications Senior Administrator at Home Hardware Stores Limited
The initial setup is straightforward.
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SergiusNkomadu
Service manager at Signal Alliance LTD
The initial setup is complex if you're using the cloud elements because not every part of SCOM works in the cloud, and some need to be integrated in different formats, which not everyone will know how to do. If everything is complete when you start the deployment, it will take an hour or two, but the cloud-based part will increase it to about six hours.
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it_user937584
Manager, Principle Systems Engineer and team lead at BCX
The installation of the product was the easiest thing about using it. If you just follow the instructions and do exactly what it tells you, you don't have to be a trained network surgeon to do it. You can teach a seven-year-old to do the installation. If you can read, you can do the installation. It's really that easy.
Managing the system depends on the size of the environment for the most part, but I think it depends on the environment and the client as well. When their needs are more demanding or specialized the work will be harder. We've got a client that's got nearly 2,000 servers and they have only one engineer working on the entire thing. There is no need for additional personnel.
OK
OmidKoushki
Solution Architect at KIAN company
The initial setup was a very simple process. That said, in general, the installation process is not very straightforward, as you need to install it and then secure the server, and configure the database, and you need to provide different specific options in the configuration process. It can be a bit tricky. It should be improved to provide a straightforward installation.
View full review »MO
Morne' O'Kennedy
Lead specialist at OKCIUS (Pty) Ltd
The initial setup depends on the size of the environment, but on average, it will be more complex than straightforward.
The complexity comes from understanding the various components that contribute to monitoring a specific item on the server. First, you have to understand the Management Pack. Then, you move on to the workflows, and this leads to understanding the rules and monitors. There are bits and pieces that you need to understand in order to make it work properly in your particular environment. This will further depend on things like whether you have restrictions in place, or whether the networking is good or bad. All of these things play a role.
While the deployment time varies depending on the environment, on average, deployment takes about five months.
View full review »UM
Usama Mustafa
Solutions specialist lead at Jaffer Business Systems
The initial setup is complex. It also depends on the current infrastructure and Active Directory for this level. Sometimes there are some misconfigurations, or you may have faced configuration issues that need to be fixed at the infrastructure level about the ADA and other elements.
There are different phases in the deployment process. After planning the deployment then, you install the SCOM
server management. You install the additional management server and the agent on the infrastructure system server. You need to collect a debt and monitor the system.
Then, of the incident, you configure all those agents and define your monitoring objective. Like, how you want to create the tools and classify and configure the alerts notifications. And once it's done, you'll start configuring the reporting or want to
see other reports concerning performance and availability. Once that is done, if we do the test and validate the deployment, it will be done as per the plan we did in the initial phase.
So once that's done, then there is the monitor and the routine maintenance required.
Three staff helped with the deployment.
View full review »YE
reviewer1423482
Group CIO at a import and exporter with 51-200 employees
The initial setup took a lot of time. I can't remember exactly what the timeframe was. However, it took longer than we expected. I'd rate it 2.5 out of five in terms of the ease of setup. While it's not difficult, it does take time. We had to do and redo a few things during implementation. They didn't have any documentation for us to work out of, which would have helped.
View full review »it_user397317
Programmer Analyst at a leisure / travel company with 10,001+ employees
Initial setup was extremely complex with security certificates, multiple installation options depending on the server roles in the system, multiple service accounts are needed, as well as delegation of rights for each account. It took several days of troubleshooting to resolve each issue as they were found during initial installation.
View full review »AB
Amit Ben-Horin
Monitoring Systems Administrator at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
The initial setup of this solution is very simple. It is not complex to establish the environment.
While the setup is easy, we have a large environment, so it took some time to complete. In total, the deployment took between two weeks and one month.
View full review »KM
reviewer1647066
DevOps Engineer at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
The initial setup could be more straightforward and the deployment could be simplified in SCOM.
it_user1297926
Owner at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
It is very complex to install because you have to plan the whole deployment. You have to design the central server, the deposit server, and the domain. It is a little bit complex as compared to other common server installations. The deployment took two months.
View full review »MM
reviewer1566126
Vice President at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Its initial setup is straightforward. It doesn't take long.
View full review »MM
Molatelo Mashabela
IT SEC at a government with 10,001+ employees
The initial setup was done with the help of a Microsoft engineer. From what I saw, it wasn't a complex setup.
View full review »it_user374592
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The initial setup is not very straightforward and requires good preparation work to be done before you can install and make SCOM up and running.
View full review »HV
Helder Valente
Infrastructure and Networks at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The initial setup is straightforward. It's easy for us.
We have a team of four to deploy and maintain it.
View full review »VR
Vinicius Ribeiro
Head of IT South America at Compass Minerals
The initial setup for this solution is complex in terms of the configuration. The standard product is very simple to set up, but if you go for different solutions then it takes a lot of effort to set it up.
View full review »it_user617970
Senior System Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees
It’s complex and somewhat painful to get all the accounts created (SQL configured). Overall, it’s not bad though.
View full review »it_user380994
Senior Officer in IT management systems department with 501-1,000 employees
Initial setup is very clear and straightforward, especially when taking into account the MVPs' blog posts and advice.
View full review »PZ
paul zuber
Operating Partner at Thoma Bravo LLC with 51-200 employees
I was not involved in the initial setup.
View full review »it_user375357
Advanced Systems Engineer - 3 at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
The initial setup is fairly simple if you read the installation documents beforehand and install all the prerequisites properly, otherwise it can be a fairly long task.
View full review »it_user384843
Group IT Infrastructure Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It's not straightforward, SCOM is relatively “noisy” out of the box, so time is required to tailor the alerting, adjusting threshold triggers and over-riding alerts that are not required to ensure alerts captured are relevant and require action.
View full review »it_user376986
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
It never use to be, but since the 2012 release the deployment side of SCOM was simplified greatly. This was obviously great news for I.T pro's like myself as the client conversation became a little more straight forward. However, installing SCOM was the easy part, making it work after the install is where the fun begins, this side of the setup however remains a little more challenging.
View full review »EP
Enginsys677
Snr Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The initial setup of SCOM is very easy. It is packaged in a great fashion and it is a very simple process. I have done it many times over the years, and the installation process has been made very, very easy.
There is some preliminary work that needs to be done in terms of an envisioning phase and technical design. After this, all of the hardware needs to be provisioned, the service accounts and the required access for these all need to be in place. Once we completed all of this, implementing the solution took us about two days.
Beyond the setup, we have a team of seven administrators that look after the monitoring role. In addition, we have between twenty and thirty operators. There is a command center that looks at that part of the business, which purely consumes the SCOM control. We provide the monitoring service for them and they've got the operators.
View full review »it_user379620
IT Infrastructure Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
SCOM can be somewhat tricky to implement, and if you’re implementing more than one System Center module, you definitely need to be careful about the order you deploy them in. However, there is good documentation online from Microsoft and other sources, so take your time and read the documentation completely to avoid having to start all over. I have worked in mainly small to mid-size environments, but scalability, from my understanding, is generally not an issue for SCOM.
View full review »TM
reviewer1505493
Systems Engineer at a educational organization with 11-50 employees
The initial setup is straightforward. But configurations and maneuvering around it and getting things to a level you want is very difficult. Installing and deploying it properly takes close to a week. It takes time to take out things that are just unnecessary. It also takes time to customize things according to the environment. You need to read a lot of documentation, even with the management packs. You need to go back to the documentation all the time.
It doesn't take many people to implement this solution. You have to know math and the Microsoft server platform for you to manage it properly.
View full review »AO
reviewer1260267
Senior System Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would say that the initial setup is 50-50. It is not easy and it's not hard to set up. It should be easier to install. It took us between three days and a week to deploy.
The length of time for deployment depends on the size of your environment. If I am installing a new System Center Operations Manager for 100 servers, it will take maybe two weeks. The process requires implementing monitoring agents, and I need to change the configuration as well.
View full review »SA
reviewer1381938
IT operation manager at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The initial setup did not take more than five minutes. It was activated in general, initially.
it_user1295745
Information Technology Auditor at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
As far as I can remember, the initial setup was pretty simple, but we started with pretty easy devices to monitor. We started with a couple of servers and almost all of them had the same version of the operating system. So it was simple to figure out how things were progressing.
I would say it took a couple of days or a week for the whole setup. It took about five days to install all the servers, and installation and all the integration, and the checks probably took a week.
View full review »it_user375540
SCOM Specialist at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The initial setup is very simple if you follow the documentation, best practices setup guides and use the sizing calculation models. Install the prerequisites right the first time and the rest flows from there.
View full review »it_user372540
NOC Senior Technical Shift Leader at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
MOM experience helped a lot since the basics are the same. You have to open the required TCP ports and allocate the required resources so that setup succeeds.
it_user370203
Microsoft System Center Consultant with 10,001+ employees
The initial setup is straightforward and easy to understand, the first thing you do is size your enviornment and do all the preparations after that installing SCOM itself is very easy.
View full review »NJ
reviewer1412814
SCOM Administrator at a government with 201-500 employees
Deploying SCOM itself is of medium difficulty. I would say that it is not too easy and not too complicated. However, configuring all of the monitoring and all of the management packs is somewhat complex. It's an ongoing job and requires more than one person. Actually, in our case, it requires that everybody contribute.
If you want to configure SCOM to work properly and bring value to your organization, it is very hard, which is one of the bad things about it.
View full review »EN
Endre Németh
Senior IT System Owner and System Management Specialist at MOL Plc
This is an easy solution to install.
View full review »it_user370770
Chief of Monitoring Service at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nowadays, the initial setup is quite simple and straightforward. It is very well-documented. The installation process checks a lot of parameters and provides tips about what we should do.
View full review »it_user146802
QA Engineer at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Initial setup was pretty straightforward.
View full review »EP
Edgar Parra
Senior Technical Consultant at The Instillery
Configuration of alerts and monitors is very convoluted. You need to configure four or five different places to make a monitor work.
View full review »it_user382557
IT Administrator & Major Incident Coordinator at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Since SCOM and its customized features were already set-up when I arrived, I cannot comment on this. I have not installed SCOM in the past so I also cannot comment on the installation process.
View full review »it_user369678
IT Consultant with 501-1,000 employees
It was straightforward, with the guide documentation it is easy to deploy and configure SCOM servers and components.
View full review »it_user82122
Solution Architect at a cloud provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Single-server deployment was quite straightforward. We deployed it for a POC and pre-prod environment. Online TechNet articles cover most of the steps. But when it comes to HA design for multiple datacenters, it gets complicated.
Also, we had to use PowerShell for some settings to reduce the deployment time. SCOM shell commands are not enough to achieve most of the tasks so we used SDK instead of PowerShell, which was an oddly difficult experience.
View full review »it_user337107
Manager: Monitoring, Performance, and Availability at a hospitality company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Setup was straightforward, not hard at all.
View full review »it_user372657
Infrastructure Consultant, specialist SCCM, SCOM, VMware, Hyper-V at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The initial setup is easy for a sysadmin, but the proper settings and MP tuning require a lot of attention. Out of box it works but not for enterprise level.
View full review »it_user375618
Senior Technical Consultant at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
It was straightforward. You just follow the setup guide provided but just need to make sure the pre-requisites are installed properly.
View full review »it_user1063098
Head of ICT at JAROLA
The initial setup was straightforward. Deployment wasn't that long. Maybe a couple of days. We needed half a day for the installation and then three to four days for implementing and configuring all the monitoring agents. Deployment is not a big job, so you just need one person and then after that, you just need someone for an hour a day on the system.
View full review »it_user382458
Senior Production Analyst at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
There were no issues with setting up SCOM.
View full review »it_user393687
IT Technical Support at a local government with 501-1,000 employees
The initial implementation stage can be a bit of a challenge but once things are up and running, it's worth it.
View full review »it_user79782
Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The deployment of the server is really straightforward. You can follow step by step the installation wizard.
View full review »
it_user539793
IT Solutions Architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
it_user76893
Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Initial setup is quite simple, you need to be aware of the prerequisites which are required to start the deployment.
Deployment is straightforward as we have the application installer available, whenever any failure is there, resolution is shown along with the results.
The sizing tool is always available whenever planing for the hardware recommendations.
View full review »
Buyer's Guide
SCOM
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about SCOM. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free SCOM Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
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