It is a lot of explanation for a simple question: “When are you going to tell me this disk needs attention?”

We built SCOM2K7 Windows Disk Monitoring to make that answer straightforward:

• Warning: two consecutive readings below 10 % free.
• Critical: two consecutive readings below 5 % free, producing its own alert.
• Recovery: a reading at or above that monitor’s threshold.

Those are the defaults. Change the percentages, the sampling interval or the required number of readings through clearly labelled overrides.

There is also a reliability change behind those simple rules. The performance counter drives health directly, so a failed detail-collection script cannot block the alert.

Once the alert arrives, an on-demand console task answers the next question, “what is taking up the space?”, by listing the largest folders and files within configurable limits.

Download SCOM2K7 Windows Disk Monitoring

Sealed management pack, version 1.0.0.0, 17 KB zip. Tested in a SCOM 2022 lab; see the testing and limitations below before deploying. Disable Microsoft’s Logical Disk Free Space monitor before you import it.

When will it alert?

Two monitors, one percentage each. Every five minutes each samples the “% Free Space” counter; two consecutive samples below its threshold raise its alert. Because Warning and Critical are separate monitors, a disk at 4 % has separate Warning and Critical alerts after the required consecutive readings, and a subscription on Critical severity gets its own alert rather than an update to an existing one.

Recovery takes one actual reading at or above the threshold. Restarting the agent should not resolve a disk alert while the disk is still low; we tested that with both monitors unhealthy, and the states and alerts held.

The three overrides are named for what they do: “Free space threshold (% free)”, “Sample interval (seconds)”, “Consecutive samples before alert”; set them per disk, per group, or for everything. For very large volumes, an optional unsealed companion pack adds a “SCOM2K7 – Large volumes (1 TB and over)” group at 3 % and 1.5 %.

Why can’t the detail script block it?

Because nothing in the detection chain runs a script; the counter sample is the health decision. Our earlier pack detected low space and then ran a script to collect the GB figures for the alert text, and if that script failed to return usable data the monitor could remain healthy despite the low readings. The new pack removes that dependency. When either monitor becomes unhealthy, a diagnostic runs one Win32_Volume query and writes free GB, total GB, the label and the current percent into Health Explorer under State Change Events. If it fails, the alert is already open.

The alert says which threshold was crossed, shows the sample that crossed it, and says where the GB details and the threshold live. Both monitors carry a knowledge article with causes, resolutions and tuning.

How do I investigate?

Select the disk and run SCOM2K7: List largest folders and files on this disk. It runs only when you ask, with a hard timeout, a time budget and a depth limit, never follows junctions or mount points, and labels any folder total it could not finish. On a lab server it scanned 297,590 entries on the system drive in under 10 seconds. The defaults are conservative on purpose; a full scan is the wrong thing to start on a struggling disk.

What we tested, and what to expect

Tested in a SCOM 2022 lab with Windows Server 2022 agents. We verified separate Warning and Critical alerts, automatic recovery, diagnostic output, and the investigation task. Restarting the agent while the disk remained low did not clear its alerts.

Alerts are not instantaneous. Windows’ free-space performance counter lagged behind file system changes in our testing. Detection depends on counter freshness, the sampling interval, and the required consecutive readings. Tests used a 60-second interval; timing at the default five-minute interval has not yet been validated.

Mount-point volumes are targeted but have not been tested. Cluster shared volumes and cluster disks are outside this pack’s scope. The Administrator Guide contains the full test results and limitations.

When this pack fits

It fits when you want a threshold an operator can explain in one sentence, a Critical alert that is its own alert, and a health decision no script can block. It is a weaker fit if the fastest reaction to a sudden fill matters more than that, or if you want a megabyte floor without a group. It replaces Microsoft’s monitor rather than running beside it: disable Microsoft.Windows.Server.10.0.LogicalDisk.FreeSpace by override, or you get two sets of alerts per disk.

Download and migration

• SCOM2K7 Windows Disk Monitoring 1.0.0.0, the sealed pack.
• SCOM2K7.Windows.Disk.Monitoring.Overrides 1.0.0.0, the optional large-volumes companion pack.
• The Administrator Guide, as PDF or HTML: tuning, installation, limitations, troubleshooting and the full test summary.

If you use the 2017 pack from the original post, Custom.Windows.Disk.Monitoring, follow the migration guide to export your existing overrides and resolve dependencies before removing it. This is a replacement installation, not an in-place upgrade. Alert history does not carry over.

This pack is free and always will be. If you like a tool that explains itself, have a look at what we spend most of our time on: SCOM Pulse, your everyday SCOM console, in your browser. Investigate alerts, explore health, deploy agents and schedule maintenance from one web console, with nothing to install on monitored computers. The 30-day trial needs no key.

Microsoft’s guidance names two alternatives: Azure Monitor, or System Center Operations Manager, depending on your requirements. That second one deserves attention, because for a large number of estates it is the only one of the two that actually fits.

What this is, and what it is not

This is not Microsoft abandoning monitoring, and it is not a verdict that cloud monitoring failed. Azure Monitor is a capable product and for cloud-native workloads it is frequently the right answer.

What ended is the specific idea that you could take a System Center Operations Manager estate, lift it into a Microsoft-managed cloud service, and carry on. That path is closed.

If you were running SCOM Managed Instance

You need a plan this quarter, not this year. Two routes:

Back to on-premises SCOM. Your management packs come with you, because SCOM Managed Instance ran the same engine and supported the same agent-based packs. Your agents, your overrides, your tuning and your institutional knowledge all still apply. This is the shortest distance between where you are and something supported.

Forward to Azure Monitor. Realistic if your estate has genuinely moved to Azure and your monitoring needs have moved with it. Less realistic if you are monitoring domain-joined Windows servers, SQL Server, IIS, Active Directory and DNS on hardware you own, using packs written for exactly that. There is no management pack import on the other side.

Most SCOM estates are the second description, which is why on-premises is on the list at all.

If you deferred SCOM investment waiting to see how this played out

It played out.

Plenty of teams spent the last two years being told that SCOM was a legacy platform on the way out, and postponed upgrades, tuning work and tooling decisions on that basis. Some of those teams are now running SCOM 2019 on Windows Server 2016, with a monitoring estate nobody has been allowed to invest in, because the strategy was to move to something else.

The something else is deprecated. SCOM 2025 shipped in Q4 2024, supports Windows Server 2025 and SQL Server 2022, and is in mainstream support until January 2030, with extended support until January 2035. If your organisation is running SCOM, it is going to keep running SCOM, and that is now a decision someone can defend rather than apologise for.

What we would actually do this quarter

1. Get current. If you are on 2019 or 2022, plan the 2025 upgrade. The support runway is the whole point of the exercise.
2. Find out what you are actually monitoring. Most estates have years of accumulated overrides and half-remembered tuning. You cannot make good decisions about a system you cannot see the configuration of.
3. Fix the day-to-day experience. The most common complaint about SCOM has never been the monitoring engine. It is what it takes to work with it: a Windows-only console, installed per machine, that service owners never get access to and on-call reaches through a jump box.

That third point is why we built SCOM Pulse. It is a browser-based operations console for Operations Manager: alert investigation with the reason each alert fired, an inline Health Explorer, the effective configuration of any server, Windows agent deployment, overrides, maintenance on a calendar and management group administration. It runs against the management group you already have, uses your existing SCOM user roles and Windows Authentication, and makes no outbound internet calls. It includes our Maintenance Mode Scheduler.

The trial is 30 days, needs no licence key and no sales call. Download the trial · See what it does

The short version

The cloud-hosted version of SCOM is gone. On-premises SCOM is supported, current, and for most of the estates that were considering the move, it is the option that actually fits. If you have been treating your management group as a system in wind-down, it is worth revisiting that.

We have been building tools for Operations Manager since 2007. We did not expect the argument to be settled quite this cleanly.

SCOM Pulse brings dashboards, alert investigation, performance history, maintenance planning and management group administration together in a browser. See how your services are performing, find out exactly what SCOM is configured to monitor on a server, and look inside the operational database and data warehouse to understand where the space is going.

It connects to the management group you already run, uses your existing SCOM user roles, and works alongside the Operations console. We have been building tools for Operations Manager since 2007, and this is the biggest thing we have shipped.

Version 1.3.0 is available now. Download the 30-day trial: no licence key or sales call required.

Dashboards that put the details in context

A useful dashboard should help you decide where to look next.

Pulse brings health, alerts, inventory and performance together. On the DNS dashboard you can see server and zone health alongside query rates, responses, recursion failures and forwarder health. On the IIS dashboard you can see websites, application pools, requests and connections together, with stopped sites and pools listed first.

That gives you context: which service is affected, how it is behaving, and which objects need attention. Build your own dashboards, organise them into folders, and share read-only links with people who need visibility into the environment.

See what SCOM is actually configured to monitor

“What are we monitoring on this server?” should be a straightforward question to answer.

The Effective configuration view brings together the rules and monitors that apply to an object, with the option to include its contained objects. See which workflows are disabled, which generate alerts, and which have been changed by overrides, with the default and the value in effect side by side. Search the configuration, filter it, or export it to CSV for review.

That makes it useful when investigating missing alerts, reviewing monitoring coverage, or checking what your tuning has changed. You can examine the configuration that applies to a server and its workloads in one place.

Understand what is happening inside SCOM itself

SCOM administrators also need visibility into the platform doing the monitoring.

Pulse includes dedicated views for the operational database and the data warehouse. The warehouse view shows where the space is being used, retention by dataset and aggregation, when grooming last ran, the age of the oldest data, rows waiting in staging and any aggregations that have fallen behind. The operational database view does the same for the live database: how full its files are, which kinds of record fill its tables, and the grooming retention for each.

You can see whether events account for most of the warehouse, review retention setting by setting, and spot signs that processing or grooming needs attention.

Plan maintenance on a calendar

See maintenance in the context of the day, week or month. Pulse shows active maintenance, upcoming occurrences and recent history, with calendar and agenda views alongside the table. Review planned windows, see where schedules overlap, and start immediate maintenance or schedule a future window from the same page.

Pulse uses SCOM’s own maintenance schedules, so the Operations console sees the schedules you create.

Move from an alert to an informed action

Open an alert to see why it fired, the management pack knowledge and the related open alerts. The inline Health Explorer opens on the unhealthy path and follows dependencies into related objects, so you reach the object that is actually unhealthy.

From there, acknowledge or assign the alert, add a comment, run a task, put the object into maintenance or create an override, without leaving the page.

Performance views add the longer-term picture, with live counters and 30-day, 90-day and 1-year ranges from the data warehouse when it is enabled.

Keep the everyday administration close at hand

Discover computers and deploy Windows agents with progress for each computer, then repair, uninstall, reassign or approve agents.

Manage rules, monitors, overrides, management packs, groups, Run As, user roles and notifications, with an audit trail of changes made through Pulse.

The experience is built for moving between an overview, an individual server, its monitoring configuration and the action you need to take.

What it takes to run

Pulse goes on one Windows server, a dedicated server or a management server; a dedicated server does not need the Operations console. One installer wizard installs and configures it, then opens the site.

• Operations Manager 2016 UR7 and later, 2019, 2022 and 2025
• Windows Server 2016 or later, and .NET Framework 4.6.2 or later — in-box on every supported version
• IIS with ASP.NET 4.x and Windows Authentication; setup installs the features if they are missing
• A domain service account; setup suggests the SCOM Data Access Service account by default

There is no additional software on monitored computers, no separate database server, and nothing changes about how your agents report.

The application makes no calls to the internet: no CDN, no external fonts, no telemetry. It is built to run on a network with no outbound path at all. The installer is Authenticode signed and timestamped, and a sealed management pack ships with the product so SCOM can monitor Pulse itself — we do not import it for you, because importing changes your management group.

Sign-in and access

Pulse uses Windows Authentication, so there is no Pulse password to type or store, and your existing SCOM user roles. People see the objects their roles cover and can perform the actions those roles allow. There is no separate Pulse permission model to maintain.

Signing in on its own grants nothing: someone in no SCOM user role sees nothing, and is told why. To give someone access, add them to a SCOM user role. What each role can do is on the product page.

Where this leaves the Maintenance Mode Scheduler

Exactly where it was, with one addition: it now comes with Pulse. A SCOM Pulse licence includes the SCOM Maintenance Mode Scheduler at no extra charge for as long as Pulse is active. If you already have a Scheduler subscription and move to Pulse, the unused portion is credited against your Pulse licence. If scheduling windows is your whole requirement, the Scheduler is still sold on its own and still costs less. If your team lives in the Operations console all day, Pulse replaces more of that day, and the Scheduler comes along.

Pricing and the trial

One licence covers the whole management group, with unlimited users and no named-user seats. Pulse is priced by the number of agents in your management group and billed annually, in US dollars.

• Up to 500 agents — $5,000 a year (about $417 a month)
• Up to 1,500 agents — $8,500 a year (about $708 a month)
• Up to 4,000 agents — $12,000 a year (about $1,000 a month)
• Above 4,000 agents — from $20,000 a year, by quote

A 3-year subscription paid up front carries a 10% discount and holds the price for the term. The first three tiers can be bought straight from the pricing page.

You do not need any of that to try it. Download the package, install it, and leave the licence key blank — a 30-day trial starts on its own.

Try Pulse against your own management group. Explore your dashboards, inspect a server’s effective configuration, and see what is happening inside your data warehouse. Then tell us what you think: write to support@scom2k7.com, or use the contact form.

Update, 23 September 2026. Microsoft has now archived the documentation for Azure Monitor SCOM Managed Instance, which is planned for deprecation by 30 September 2026. Microsoft’s own guidance names Azure Monitor or System Center Operations Manager as the alternatives, depending on your requirements. For on-premises and hybrid estates, that means on-premises SCOM. The section below was written before the retirement date arrived; the argument it makes has aged well.

If you’ve been following IT monitoring discussions on Reddit, Microsoft Tech Community forums, or X (formerly Twitter), you’ve likely encountered a persistent narrative: “SCOM is dead.” The announcement that Azure Monitor SCOM Managed Instance would retire on 30 September 2026 only seemed to fuel this narrative further. Skeptics argue that Microsoft is abandoning System Center Operations Manager in favor of cloud-only solutions, leaving on-premises infrastructure monitoring in the dust.

But here’s the reality that often gets lost in the noise: Microsoft just released SCOM 2025 in Q4 2024, with comprehensive support for Windows Server 2025, SQL Server 2022, and a commitment to mainstream support extending through at least 2030. If SCOM were truly dead, why would Microsoft invest engineering resources into a major new release with a decade of support ahead?

The truth is more nuanced than the “SCOM is dead” soundbite. While Azure Monitor SCOM Managed Instance is being deprecated, the retirement actually reinforces Microsoft’s strategy: organizations should choose either full Azure Monitor for cloud-native workloads or on-premises SCOM for hybrid and on-premises environments. The retirement isn’t a death knell; it’s a clarification of Microsoft’s dual-path monitoring strategy.

In this post, we’ll examine what’s new in SCOM 2025, explore why on-premises and hybrid monitoring remains critical for enterprise organizations, and discuss how purpose-built add-ons can extend SCOM’s value even further. Whether you’re a longtime SCOM administrator or evaluating your enterprise monitoring strategy for 2025 and beyond, understanding SCOM’s current state and future trajectory is essential for making informed decisions.

What’s New in SCOM 2025: A Platform Built for the Next Decade

SCOM 2025 represents more than just an incremental update. Microsoft has positioned this release as a future-proof platform with support extending for at least the next decade, following the company’s Fixed Lifecycle Policy that provides 5 years of mainstream support and 5 years of extended support. Let’s break down the key improvements and what they mean for enterprise IT operations.

Full Support for Windows Server 2025 and SQL Server 2022

One of the most significant updates in SCOM 2025 is comprehensive support for the latest Microsoft server technologies. The platform now fully supports Windows Server 2025 for both management servers and monitored agents (including Standard, Datacenter, and Server Core editions). This ensures that organizations investing in Microsoft’s latest server infrastructure can maintain consistent monitoring without compatibility concerns.

On the database front, SCOM 2025 supports SQL Server 2022 with Cumulative Update 11 (CU11) or later for the Operations Database, Data Warehouse, and Reporting Server roles. This requirement for the latest CU demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to security and stability. Organizations can also continue using SQL Server 2019 (with CU8 or later) or SQL Server 2017, providing flexibility for existing deployments while offering a clear upgrade path to the latest database platform.

According to Microsoft’s official system requirements documentation, the combination of SCOM 2025 running on Windows Server 2025 with SQL Server 2022 represents the recommended configuration for new deployments, offering the best performance, security, and long-term supportability.

Enhanced Security Features

Security remains a critical focus for enterprise infrastructure tools, and SCOM 2025 delivers meaningful improvements in this area:

• OpenSSL 3.1 to 3.3 support: Updated cryptographic libraries ensure secure communications across monitored infrastructure
• Reduced CredSSP and NTLM dependencies: Addressing modern security best practices by minimizing reliance on legacy authentication protocols
• TLS 1.3 support: The latest transport layer security protocol for encrypted data transmission

These security enhancements are particularly important for organizations subject to compliance requirements such as PCI-DSS, HIPAA, or SOC 2, where maintaining current security protocols is not optional.

Improved Browser Support and Web Console Functionality

SCOM 2025 modernizes the administrative experience with support for current browser versions, including Microsoft Edge version 121 and later (with IE compatibility mode) and Google Chrome version 121 and later. The web console has received important fixes, including resolution of issues with security policy settings (allow-popups and allow-forms) and HttpParseException errors affecting favorite reports.

These improvements may seem minor, but they significantly impact day-to-day operations, allowing administrators to manage monitoring infrastructure from modern browsers without compatibility workarounds.

Simplified Licensing Management

SCOM 2025 introduces more flexible licensing options. Organizations can now register product keys during initial setup or post-deployment through the Operations console. The new Set-SCOMLicense PowerShell cmdlet enables remote license registration from any management server, simplifying license management in distributed deployments.

Proven Stability and Maturity

While some observers characterize SCOM 2025 as primarily “security and version updates” rather than groundbreaking new features, this perspective misses a crucial point: for enterprise infrastructure monitoring, stability and maturity are features, not bugs. SCOM has evolved over nearly two decades, with a vast ecosystem of management packs covering hundreds of technologies, from Microsoft workloads to third-party applications.

Unlike newer monitoring platforms that require extensive custom configuration, SCOM’s management packs provide out-of-the-box monitoring with established health models, proven alert tuning, and years of community refinement. This maturity translates directly to faster deployment times and lower total cost of ownership.

SCOM in Hybrid Environments: Why On-Premises Monitoring Still Matters

The cloud-first narrative often overlooks a fundamental reality: most enterprise IT environments are hybrid and will remain so for the foreseeable future. According to industry analyses, cloud workloads represent only a small percentage of total enterprise infrastructure, with the majority remaining on-premises for regulatory, performance, or cost reasons.

The Hybrid Cloud Reality

Organizations face complex hybrid scenarios combining legacy on-premises data centers with cloud IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS resources. This hybrid reality creates both challenges and opportunities for monitoring strategies. As Microsoft’s own guidance acknowledges, customers have significant investments in SCOM and need unified monitoring across on-premises, Azure, AWS, and other cloud platforms—not separate monitoring silos for each environment.

SCOM excels in this hybrid context because it was purpose-built for comprehensive infrastructure monitoring regardless of location. Organizations can monitor on-premises servers, virtual machines, network devices, applications, and cloud resources from a single platform, maintaining consistent health models and alerting across the entire estate.

When SCOM Outshines Azure Monitor

While Azure Monitor is powerful for cloud-native Azure workloads, several scenarios favor SCOM for enterprise monitoring:

1. On-Premises Expertise and Control

SCOM remains Microsoft’s best solution for monitoring on-premises servers. Organizations maintain complete control over the monitoring infrastructure, data retention policies, and customization. For regulated industries where data sovereignty and audit trails are critical, keeping monitoring data on-premises provides clear compliance advantages.

2. Deep Application Monitoring with Management Packs

SCOM’s management packs provide metrics out of the box for specific applications like SQL Server, Exchange, SharePoint, Active Directory, and hundreds of other technologies. These management packs encode years of expertise about what to monitor, appropriate thresholds, and troubleshooting workflows. Azure Monitor requires manual configuration to achieve similar depth, and migration tools don’t exist because the underlying architectures differ fundamentally.

3. Customization for Unique Use Cases

SCOM offers superior customization capabilities for unique applications and monitoring scenarios. Organizations can create custom management packs, execute local scripts on monitored systems, and build sophisticated health models that Azure Monitor cannot replicate. This customization is essential for monitoring proprietary applications or industry-specific systems.

4. Service-Level Monitoring and Alert Suppression

SCOM provides robust tooling for ticket management integration, service monitoring (grouping infrastructure components into business services), alert suppression, and health state rollup. While Azure Monitor has some of these capabilities, it lacks the maturity and integration depth of SCOM’s established ecosystem.

Real-World Enterprise Examples

Consider a financial services organization with data center infrastructure supporting trading platforms, customer databases, and compliance systems. Regulatory requirements mandate specific data residency and audit capabilities that cloud-based monitoring complicates. SCOM allows this organization to maintain comprehensive monitoring with complete data control while selectively using Azure Monitor for cloud-native disaster recovery systems.

Another example: a healthcare provider using custom SCOM management packs to monitor specialized medical applications. The organization built monitoring for performance, availability, and health of their clinical platforms directly within the SCOM framework, enabling proactive incident detection that would require extensive custom development in Azure Monitor.

SCOM vs. Azure Monitor: A Strategic Comparison

The comparison between SCOM and Azure Monitor isn’t winner-take-all; it’s about choosing the right tool for specific workloads:

As Microsoft’s own documentation suggests, most customers benefit from a hybrid monitoring strategy that leverages SCOM’s strengths for on-premises infrastructure and server workloads while using Azure Monitor for cloud-native resources. This approach allows gradual cloud migration without sacrificing monitoring coverage during the transition.

Enhancing SCOM with Add-ons: How Specialized Tools Multiply SCOM’s Value

While SCOM 2025 provides comprehensive monitoring capabilities out of the box, purpose-built add-on tools can significantly enhance efficiency, reduce operational overhead, and extend SCOM’s functionality. At SCOM2K7, we’ve seen firsthand how the right tools transform SCOM from a monitoring platform into a true operational efficiency multiplier.

The Alert Fatigue Problem

One of the most common challenges facing SCOM administrators is alert fatigue. Without proper maintenance mode management, engineers face two problematic scenarios:

1. Forgotten Alert Management: Engineers manually disable alerts before maintenance windows and forget to re-enable them, creating permanent monitoring blind spots
2. Alert Noise: Engineers don’t disable alerts during planned maintenance, generating hundreds of false-positive alerts that condition operations teams to ignore notifications

Both scenarios undermine SCOM’s core value proposition: providing actionable, timely alerts when infrastructure problems actually occur.

SCOM Alert Update Connector Pro: Intelligent Alert Management That Eliminates Noise

Tools like SCOM Alert Update Connector Pro address alert fatigue through intelligent workflow automation. This powerful web-based solution integrates seamlessly with SCOM to help organizations create personalized alert workflows for different teams, ensuring that each group receives only the alerts relevant to their responsibilities—with the context they need to take action.

Key benefits include:

• Personalized Alert Workflows: Create team-specific alert rules that automatically route alerts to the right people with the right information, eliminating the “spray and pray” approach that leads to alert fatigue
• Selective Ticketing: Easily choose which alerts should create tickets in your ITSM system from a fast web interface, preventing ticket system overload with hundreds of low-priority or informational alerts
• Custom Field Enhancement: Enrich alerts with team-specific data, priority levels, and routing information that tells your ticketing system exactly how to handle each alert—including which queue should receive it
• Alert Noise Reduction: Organizations report dramatically reduced alert volume by filtering out non-actionable alerts before they reach operations teams, allowing staff to focus on genuine incidents rather than sorting through noise

The typical SCOM deployment suffers from a common problem: hundreds of alerts sit in the “New” state, overwhelming operations teams and causing important alerts to be missed in the flood of notifications. Alert Update Connector Pro solves this by acting as an intelligent filter between SCOM and your downstream systems, ensuring only relevant, properly contextualized alerts reach your ticketing system or on-call teams.

Instead of complex rules scattered across your ITSM platform that require constant updating, Alert Update Connector Pro centralizes alert logic in an easy-to-manage web interface where you can quickly create, test, and deploy new alert workflows without scripting or development work.

Advanced Automation Scenarios

Beyond scheduled maintenance, SCOM administrators can implement sophisticated automation scenarios:

Gateway Outage Automation

For organizations using SCOM gateways to monitor remote sites, network or gateway outages can trigger hundreds of heartbeat failures and “computer unreachable” alerts. Custom management packs can automatically detect gateway failures and place downstream agents in maintenance mode, suppressing cascading alerts until connectivity restores. When the gateway returns to healthy status, maintenance mode automatically ends and normal monitoring resumes.

Agent-Initiated Maintenance Mode

Organizations can enable systems administrators to place their own servers into maintenance mode directly from the monitored Windows computer using the Start-SCOMAgentMaintenanceMode PowerShell cmdlet. This distributed approach empowers teams to manage maintenance windows without requiring SCOM console access or creating bottlenecks through central operations teams.

The SCOM2K7 Approach

At SCOM2K7, our philosophy is simple: SCOM’s monitoring capabilities are only as valuable as your team’s ability to focus on actionable alerts. Our add-on products are designed to:

• Eliminate repetitive manual tasks through intelligent automation
• Reduce alert fatigue so operations teams trust and respond to SCOM notifications
• Extend SCOM’s accessibility beyond specialized administrators to entire IT organizations
• Integrate seamlessly with native SCOM capabilities rather than requiring parallel systems

By enhancing SCOM with purpose-built add-ons, organizations maximize their SCOM investment while reducing operational overhead—achieving the best of both worlds.

Conclusion: SCOM 2025’s Future is Bright for the Right Organizations

So, is SCOM dead in 2025? The evidence overwhelmingly says no. Microsoft’s release of SCOM 2025 with comprehensive modern platform support and a commitment to at least a decade of support demonstrates that on-premises and hybrid infrastructure monitoring remains central to enterprise IT strategies.

However, the more nuanced answer is that SCOM 2025 is the right choice for specific organizational contexts:

• Hybrid and on-premises environments where cloud-only monitoring creates gaps or compliance challenges
• Organizations with significant Microsoft infrastructure (Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange, Active Directory) that benefit from mature management packs
• Regulated industries requiring on-premises data control and detailed audit capabilities
• Enterprises with custom or proprietary applications needing deep customization beyond what cloud monitoring platforms offer
• Organizations with existing SCOM investments looking to modernize their monitoring infrastructure without wholesale platform replacement

Evaluating SCOM Fit for Your Organization

When evaluating whether SCOM 2025 is right for your environment, consider these questions:

1. What percentage of your infrastructure will remain on-premises over the next 3-5 years?
2. Do you have regulatory or compliance requirements that favor on-premises monitoring?
3. Are you monitoring primarily Microsoft technologies where SCOM management packs provide immediate value?
4. Do you need deep customization and local script execution for specialized monitoring scenarios?
5. Is your team already trained on SCOM, or would cloud-based monitoring require similar training investment?

If you answered yes to several of these questions, SCOM 2025 deserves serious consideration in your monitoring strategy.

The Path Forward: Hybrid Monitoring Excellence

The future of enterprise monitoring isn’t about choosing between SCOM and Azure Monitor—it’s about strategically deploying both for hybrid excellence. Use SCOM 2025 for comprehensive on-premises and hybrid monitoring with mature management packs and deep customization. Leverage Azure Monitor for cloud-native Azure workloads and modern observability workflows. And enhance both with purpose-built tools that reduce alert fatigue and increase operational efficiency.

Take the Next Step

If you’re currently running SCOM 2019 or 2022, now is an excellent time to plan your SCOM 2025 upgrade and evaluate how add-on tools can enhance your monitoring strategy. At SCOM2K7, we offer:

• SCOM Pulse, a browser-based operations console for Operations Manager: alert investigation, inline Health Explorer, Windows agent deployment, overrides, maintenance and dashboards, running against the management group you already have. See what it does
• Free trials of every tool we make, so you can evaluate the impact in your own environment. No licence key and no sales call. Start a free trial

SCOM 2025 represents Microsoft’s continued investment in enterprise monitoring for hybrid and on-premises infrastructure. For organizations with the right profile, it’s not just relevant—it’s essential. Don’t let the “SCOM is dead” narrative distract you from the facts: SCOM 2025 is here, it’s supported for the next decade, and it remains the gold standard for comprehensive Microsoft infrastructure monitoring.

Ready to see how SCOM 2025 and purpose-built add-ons can transform your monitoring strategy? Start a free trial — 30 days, no licence key, no sales call. Or get in touch if you have questions.

1) Preparation

Install two Windows Server 2019 VMs (Note: Windows Server 2022 isn’t compatible as a Replication Server) and join them to the domain.

VM1: AzMigrate1
VM2: AzReplicate1 – Allocate at least 700GB of drive space for replication.

Create a Resource Group called Migration-RG in Azure.

2) Create the Azure Migrate Project

Go to the Azure Migrate blade in the Azure portal.

On the left-hand side, select Servers, databases and web apps, then click Create project.

Select the Migration-RG resource group.

Give the project a name, for example MigrateProject.

Select a location, for example United States.

Click Advanced, choose Private endpoint for the connectivity method, and set Disable public network access to Yes.

Select your subscription, virtual network, and subnet.

Click Create.

3) Set Up the Azure Migrate Appliance

In Azure Migrate, click Servers, databases, and web apps again.

Click Discover, then select Using appliance.

Under “Are your servers virtualized?” choose Physical or other.

Under “Generate project key,” give your appliance a name (e.g. MigrateApp), then click Generate Key.

Log in to the AzMigrate1 server using RDP.

Download the Azure Migrate Appliance. Copy and extract it to the AzMigrate1 server.

Copy the project key and save it to a text file on AzMigrate1.

Important: Ensure your on-premises server can communicate with Azure Private DNS.

You will need conditional forwarders set up for these Private DNS zones:

privatelink.blob.core.windows.net
privatelink.prod.migration.windowsazure.com
privatelink.siterecovery.windowsazure.com
privatelink.vaultcore.azure.net

If your local DNS can’t communicate with Azure Private DNS directly, you may need a DNS server in Azure or a Private DNS resolver. With a private DNS resolver, you can set conditional forwarders there.

Here is how I have my private resolver set up:

If Private DNS isn’t working, you could use an LM hosts file on AzMigrate1, but it’s not recommended.

To get host files if you don’t have Private DNS working:

Go to the Azure Migrate project and click Overview. Under Project Details, click Properties, then select Download DNS Settings.

If you’re using a hub-and-spoke network, ensure that each private DNS zone has a virtual network link to your hub network with the site-to-site VPN. Otherwise, DNS queries won’t resolve privately.

We can verify private DNS is working by running an NSlookup from AzMigrate1 against one of the private DNS records:

Once verified, proceed with the Azure Migrate Appliance installation.

On AzMigrate1, open PowerShell and navigate to the directory where the appliance files were extracted. Run:

.\AzureMigrateInstaller.ps1

Select 3 for Physical, 1 for Azure Public, and 2 for Private Endpoint connectivity. Press Y to continue.

When asked to install Microsoft Edge, select Y. If it fails, download it manually from this link. Choose to remove IE as prompted.

After the server reboots, log back in and install Microsoft Edge if it wasn’t automatically installed.

4) Configure the Azure Migrate Appliance

Launch Azure Migrate Appliance Configuration Manager on the desktop of AzMigrate1.

Use the project key you saved earlier. If lost, go back to the Azure Migrate project, click Overview, then Manage Appliances, and find the Unregistered appliance to get the key again.

Paste the key and click Verify. After verification, click Login. Click Copy code & Login, then sign in with an account that has rights to access the Migrate project and resources. You should see a success message stating the appliance is registered.

Add credentials for an admin user that can run discovery (use domain\username format).

Click Add Discovery Source. Enter the FQDN of the server(s) you want to migrate. You can list multiple servers.

For software inventory and dependency analysis: It’s recommended to add credentials here as well. Even though you added them before, this step ensures inventory runs properly. You can specify application-specific credentials if needed.

Click Start Discovery. After discovery completes, go back to the Azure portal and refresh the Azure Migrate project page.

Click Discovered Servers to see the discovered servers. You can run an assessment if desired for VM size recommendations, though it’s not required for migration.

5) Set Up the Replication Server

Under Migration and Modernization, click Discover.

Choose Azure VM as the target.

For virtualization, select Physical or other.

Select the target region where you plan to migrate the VMs. Be sure to pick the correct region, as you can’t change it later for this migrate project.

Choose Install a replication appliance. Download both the replication appliance and the registration key file.

Copy them to AzReplicate1.

Launch MicrosoftAzureSiteRecoveryUnifiedSetup on AzReplicate1.

Leave the default option: Install the configuration server and process server.

You’ll need MySQL Community Server. Download it beforehand because the installer may fail to install MySQL when using private endpoints.

Download MySQL from: MySQL Installer

Install MySQL (Server Only). You may need Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 Redistributable (both 32-bit and 64-bit) due to a MySQL bug. Install both, then proceed with MySQL installation.

Use a password for MySQL—this will be needed by the Azure Replication Server installer.

Finish the MySQL configuration and return to the Azure Site Recovery Unified Setup wizard. Provide the key file (.VaultCredentials) you downloaded earlier and proceed with the setup.

Run prerequisite checks, enter the MySQL password, and when prompted, select No for environment details.

Select network interfaces as needed and click Next.

Before installation, you may need to run some commands to fix MySQL permissions or remove leftover data if the setup fails. Stop MySQL, delete the data directory, and ensure no mysqld.exe processes are running. Reset permissions and clear temp files if necessary.

Save the configuration server passphrase to a file named passphrase.txt. You will need this later.

On the Microsoft Azure Site Recovery Configuration Server page, click Add Account to add the account and credentials used previously.

Go back to Azure Migrate, under Migration tools click Discover again. Make the same selections, but now select your configuration server and click Finalize registration.

You should see a success message. Click Close.

6) Install and Configure the Mobility Agent on the Source Server

On AzReplicate1, browse to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Azure Site Recovery\home\svsystems\pushinstallsvc\repository and find the Microsoft-ASR_UA_9.61.0.0_Windows_GA_18Mar2024_Release.exe file. Copy this to the server you want to replicate.

Follow the official instructions for installing the Mobility Service via command prompt: Microsoft Docs

Copy the installer to C:\Temp on the source server. Run:

cd C:\Temp
ren Microsoft-ASR_UA*Windows*release.exe MobilityServiceInstaller.exe
MobilityServiceInstaller.exe /q /x:C:\Temp\Extracted
cd C:\Temp\Extracted
UnifiedAgent.exe /Role "MS" /InstallLocation "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Azure Site Recovery" /Platform "VmWare" /Silent /CSType CSLegacy

Use the passphrase you saved earlier. If you forgot it, run the following on AzReplicate1:

C:\ProgramData\ASR\home\svsystems\bin\genpassphrase.exe -v

Create passphrase.txt on the source server in C:\Temp\Extracted and paste the passphrase there.

Get the IP of AzReplicate1 and run:

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Azure Site Recovery\agent"
UnifiedAgentConfigurator.exe /CSEndPoint /PassphraseFilePath C:\Temp\Extracted\passphrase.txt

Wait 15-30 minutes for the registration to complete.

7) Create an Azure Storage Account for Replication

Create an Azure Storage account in the same region you selected for replication.

Under Networking, enable public access from selected virtual networks and IP addresses as needed. Under Data Protection, uncheck all backup and replication options. Leave other defaults and create the storage account.

Follow the Microsoft documentation for required permissions. Assign Contributor and Storage Blob Data Contributor roles to the Managed Identity for the vault and migrate project at the storage account level.

8) Start Replication

Return to the Migrate project and select Replicate. Choose Physical or other as the source, and select the region, storage account, and network you configured.

Under “Virtual Machines,” select “No, I’ll specify” and choose the servers you discovered earlier. Set the VM size, disk type, and other settings as needed.

Click Start Replication. Once replication starts, you can monitor its status in the portal. It may take several hours to complete.

Once replication is complete, you can perform a test migration. Be careful, as this will bring the server online in Azure. Consider turning off the on-premises server before the test to avoid conflicts.

After testing, clean up the test migration to remove the test VMs.

After verification, you can finalize the migration.

This concludes the detailed process of migrating physical VMs using Azure Migrate with private endpoints.

What’s New in 2.1?

1. Azure SCOM Managed Instances Support – Expanding our horizon, version 2.1 introduces full support for Azure SCOM Managed Instances. This feature allows users to seamlessly integrate their Azure-managed environments with the SCOM Maintenance Mode Scheduler, providing a unified maintenance management solution across cloud and on-premises infrastructures. Now, managing maintenance windows for Azure SCOM Managed Instances is as effortless as for your on-premises servers.
   
   
   
2. Speed Enhancements – We understand that time is of the essence. That’s why we’ve optimized our website to load faster, providing you with a swift and responsive experience. Whether you’re scheduling maintenance, viewing upcoming windows, or accessing reports, you’ll notice a significant improvement in performance.
   
   
3. CSV Import Improvements – Importing your server list has never been easier. With version 2.1, the CSV import functionality has been enhanced for greater flexibility. You no longer need to format your list strictly as a true CSV file. Now, you can import a straightforward list of computers, similar to the functionality available in the SCOM 2012 Maintenance Mode Scheduler. This improvement streamlines the process, saving you time and effort when managing large numbers of servers.
   
   
4. Bug Fixes – We’re committed to providing a reliable and bug-free experience. In version 2.1, we’ve addressed several minor bugs, further stabilizing the application and enhancing its overall performance. These fixes are part of our ongoing effort to ensure the SCOM Maintenance Mode Scheduler meets your needs and exceeds your expectations.
   

Getting Started with 2.1

Upgrading to version 2.1 is straightforward and we strongly encourage all our users to update to take advantage of these new features and improvements. Visit our website for more details on the upgrade process and to download the latest version.

We’re excited to see how these new features will empower your maintenance management processes. As always, we value your feedback and are here to support you. Should you have any questions or need assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Thank you for choosing SCOM Maintenance Mode Scheduler. Here’s to making maintenance management smoother and more efficient than ever!

Features:

• Easily access web based maintenance mode scheduler from any browser (Chrome, Edge, Safari and IE)
• Schedule Azure Alerts for maintenance in a few seconds.
• Import a CSV or text list of Alerts for scheduled maintenance.
• Instant MM: Server and application admins can instantly place Azure Alerts into maintenance before reboots and maintenance.
• Instant MM can be called by a PowerShell or Unix Shell script from anywhere. This can be used to start and stop maintenance on any server for a specified amount of time. This makes it easy to integrate into your current change or software management process.

Download

Instant Maintenance Mode

This solution makes it easy for IT staff to put a server into maintenance mode without having to go to the Azure console. Anywhere on your network, the administrator can visit the Azure Maintenance Mode Scheduler Instant MM website at http://yourMMserver/Home/MM/InstantMM

Create a shortcut on the desktop of the servers to make it even easier.

Instant MM can be called by a PowerShell or Unix Shell script

Using URL Parameters, you can put Azure Alert rules into Maintenance Mode from any computer using a script. Typical use case would be using SCCM when updates or software is installed. SCCM would execute the PowerShell script before the install process to start maintenance mode. After the updates or software is installed SCCM would call the script to stop maintenance mode.

PowerShell Example Download: https://www.scom2k7.com/downloads/AzureMM.ps1.txt

param (
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$mmServer,
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$ruleName,
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$min,
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$action
 )

 $FullURL = "http://" + $mmServer + "/AzMM/Home/InstantMM?RuleName=" + $ruleName + "&Min=" + $min + "&MMAction=" + $action
 $FullURL

Invoke-RestMethod $FullURL -Method 'POST'

Unix/Linux Example Download: https://www.scom2k7.com/downloads/AzMM.sh

RuleName=$2
RuleName=$( printf "%s\n" "$RuleName" | sed 's/ /%20/g' )

url="http://$1/AzMM/Home/InstantMM?RuleName=$RuleName&Min=$3&MMAction=$4"

echo $url

wget $url --method POST 

In Part 5, I have a couple tips and tricks.

I don’t like the idea of having a plug near my Hot Tub so I purchased some of these connectors to go from SMC to BNC.

Link

Link

Then I ran 3 33ft standard BNC cables from my basement to my raspberry PI to the sensors in my hot tub.

After a while my ORP and PH sensors wore out after being submerged in water for over a year.

I purchased this cheaper ORP sensor that works better and last longer. Link

I also switch to this PH Sensor. Link

How to import the workbook into Azure.

Download the workbook from https://github.com/timmcfadden/HotTubMonitoring

Open up the HotTub.workbook in Notepad++ or VSCode

Copy out the JSON.

Create a new workbook in Azure Workbooks.

Click Advanced Editor

Leave it on Gallery Template and Paste in the JSON code and click Apply.

You will see a bunch of red X’s. We need to change to your Log Analytics workspace.

Click Edit

The click Edit

Then Click Edit again

Now click Change

Under Log Analytics workspace. Select your log analytics workspace

Click Done Editing

Repeat the process for all of the Red X’s

When you are done all the data should be showing up

In part 4 we are going to create e-mail alerts to tell us when the water has breached our desired thresholds for water quality.

We are going to setup rules to alert us when

PH is below 7.2 or PH is greater then 7.8 – More Information

ORP (Chlorine/Bromine Level) is below 650 or is greater than 750. More Information

Temperature is between 95 and 106 (This is for a HotTub)

Open up Monitor, Logs. Type in the following query

HotTub_CL
| where todouble(PHValue_s) < 7.2 or todouble(PHValue_s) > 7.8
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(60m)

Set the Threshold value to 1 and the Period in minutes to 60. As you can see it won’t create any alerts right now as my current reading for the past 60 minutes has been around 7.6 which is within the range I want to be in.

Click Done, Under Actions select Add Action groups

Click Create action group. Set Resource Group, Action group name and display name.

Set you notifications

Click Review + create and then Create

Set the following and click Create alert rule.

Repeat the process for ORP. (No need to create another action group. Reuse the existing one)

Here is the query.

HotTub_CL
| where todouble(ORPValue_s) < 650 or todouble(ORPValue_s) > 750
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(60m)

Repeat the Process for Temperature. Here is the query.

HotTub_CL
| where todouble(TempValue_s) < 95 or todouble(TempValue_s) > 106
| where TimeGenerated >= ago(60m)

Here are all my Alert Rules Setup

Now for some final tips and tricks

Monitoring a Hot Tub or Pool with Azure Monitor and Azure Log Analytics Part 5 – Tip and Tricks

In part 3 we are going to build a dashboard like this to chart out history and progress of our water.

In Azure go to your Log Analytics workspace and verify the data is coming in. In Log Analytics query the HotTub_CL table and check the date time of the last entry and make sure its within a few minutes of the current data time .

Now lets chart out the data. By default the data is coming in as a string data type. To chart the data we need to change it to a double. Type in the following command to chart out the PH data.

HotTub_CL
| extend PH=todouble(PHValue_s)
| render timechart

It should look like this.

Now lets create some workbooks to show the data. Go to Monitor, Workbooks

Click Add, Add query

Select your log analytics workspace

Copy and Paste the Query

HotTub_CL
| extend PH=todouble(PHValue_s)
| render timechart

Change the Legend to Last Value and click Done Editing

Repeat the above process to create the ORP and Temperature Graphs. Here are their queries

ORP

HotTub_CL
| extend ORP=todouble(ORPValue_s)
| render timechart

Temperature

HotTub_CL
| extend Temperature=todouble(TempValue_s)
| render timechart

Now I would like to chart out the data over the last 30 days. I also want to set some visual thresholds. For PH anywhere between 7.2 and 7.8 is good.

Here is my query for PH for the last 30 days. This query uses the bin function to round the data to 30 minute intervals, if I tried to use all the data points for the last 30 days the chart wouldn’t render.

HotTub_CL
| where TimeGenerated > ago(30d)
| summarize avg(todouble(PHValue_s)) by bin(TimeGenerated , 30m)
| order by TimeGenerated desc
| extend UpperLimit = 7.8
| extend LowerLimit = 7.2
| render timechart

You can download the entire workbook and Import it into your Azure environment.

Link Click Code, Download Zip

**Note** See Part 5 – Tip and Tricks for how to import and configure the workbook to work in to your environment.

Now that we have all of the charts created lets add them to an Azure Dashboard.

In the portal go to Dashboard.

Give the Dashboard a name like HotTub and click Save.

Now click Share

Then click Publish. This will make it easier to find later.

Go back to the HotTub workbook under Monitor, Workbooks. Click Edit

Now click the Pin and select Pin All. (**IMPORTANT** If you don’t click Edit first you won’t get the option to Pin All and your charts won’t show up correctly)

Select Shared and Select the HotTub Dashboard.

Click the Pinning succeeded to go to your dashboard

It will bring in all your charts and values. Now we have to clean up the dashboard so it looks nice. Click Edit and start resizing and moving tiles around

To change the headings. Click the … when you hover over a tile and click Configure tile settings

When you give it a name it will replace the HotTub name at the top of the tile.

Click Save when you are done. You should now have a complete dashboard.

Next lets setup some alerting so we don’t have to stare at the dashboards all day.

Monitoring a Hot Tub or Pool with Azure Monitor and Azure Log Analytics Part 4 – Alerting