RMS and the SDK, Config and Health Service

In this post I'm going to run through the Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 RMS (Root Management Server) and three critical services:

• SDK Service
• Configuration Service
• Health Service

All these services can be viewed in the services.msc console on a RMS server in a SCOM environment. It is Microsoft best practice that you do not run the SDK and Config services using the standard SYSTEM account and that you create a new account in AD Users and Computers to run both of these accounts as a service account. This account must be local admin on the RMS server.

SDK Service

Every SCOM management group contains one RMS. The SDK Service is one service account that can only be found on all Management Servers, however it is only enabled on the RMS. SDK stands for Software Development Kit. The SDK Service has a number of responsibilities, one of the main ones being an interface into the Operations Manager environment. All applications created to talk to Operations Manager must talk through the SDK Service.

Although all interface communication must come through the SDK Service, there is two connectors that applications must talk to first before being passed through the SDK Service. These connectors are known as the Operations Manager Class Libaries and the Operations Manager Connector Framework.

The Operations Manager Class Libaries is what all Microsoft interface tools use such as operations manager console, operations manager command shell and the operations manager web console.

The Operations Manager Connector Framework is for non-microsoft operations manager products. It allows developers to create custom applications for monitoring their SCOM environments using the extensive knowledge database Microsoft has made freely available on their MSDN website.

Here is a diagram I made that shows how this fits together nicely:

The SDK Service is also responsible for viewing the current state of a monitored object, importing management packs to the database, storing management packs in the database, and storing managed group configuration in the database.

Configuration Service

The configuration service is used to synchronise configuration from the root management server to all other management servers. It also lets all management servers know who the root management server is.

Health Service

The health service monitors the health of all the hosts on the network. This is done using management packs and other tools which SCOM provides. If the health service is stopped, performance logging and detection of failures will not occur.