I’ve seen this question come up a few times in the forums, and thought I would write a quick post on correct targeting for monitoring instances of an existing class.

For example, let’s say you have the Exchange 2013 management pack installed and you want to collect some additional counters on Exchange Server 2013. You can easily create these counters, either by using the Operations Console or Visual Studio Authoring Extensions (or you favorite xml editor), and target the rule/monitor correctly.

You will need to add a reference to the Exchange pack either way. If you are using VSAE, it’s very easy to do this. If you are using some other xml editor, then you need to add the reference to the manifest section of you custom pack. VSAE is always going to be the easiest way to add references and target a sealed vendor public class.

If you are using an xml editor, an easy way to figure out what class to target is to open the pack with MPViewer and then taking a look at the Exchange Server class.

If you click on the Raw XML tab in the details pane, you will see the class id you need to put into the target of your new rule or monitor.

Another easy way to find the class id of your target is to use the Operations Command Shell. For example:

get-scomclass -displayname ‘Exchange Server’ | select name, id

These are just some options for finding the correct class id. If you are creating these monitors/rules using the Operations Console, then you don’t need to worry about finding the class id – the Operations Console will automatically add the correct id and give it a UI namespace.

Please target responsibly.

🙂