System Center Guide

Management Packs have changed significantly in System Center Operations Manager 2007. First, they are available in two types: sealed and unsealed. A sealed management pack (identified by the .MP file extension) is compiled binary code that can’t be altered. To change the default behavior of a sealed MP you must create overrides. The overrides can then be stored in either the Default Management Pack or another MP (new or existing) so long as it’s not sealed.

An unsealed MP can be sealed using the tool MPSeal.exe, but requires a client certificate to do so.

Beyond the seal and unsealed nature of SCOM ’07 Management Packs, they also typically require multiple management packs that provide different roles in the operations management of the technology covered. Basically, most Management Packs will come with a Library, Discovery and Monitoring management pack. In addition, there may be multiple versions of the Discovery and Monitoring MPs broken down by specific versions (i.e. Windows Server Active Directory 2000 and 2003).

While this may sound complicated, it’s really not once you get used to it and if you’ve selected an MP that has dependencies you’ve not selected it will alert you; requiring that you remove that MP or add the prerequisite ones to the list to be imported.