Operations Manager offers a variety of tools for creating management packs, of which the VMPD is only one. Depending on the complexity of your system or your application, the VMPD might not be the right tool for you.  If this is the case, then you should use the Visual Studio Authoring Extentions or the Operations Manager Authoring Console.

When to use the VMPD

• When your application fits one of the patterns provided: single-server patterns for single server roles or groups, with or without components; or distributed applications, two-tier or three-tier, with individual servers or computer groups.

• When your monitoring needs fall within the bounds of the five performance monitors the VMPD provides: Performance monitoring, Event monitoring, Service monitoring, Web site monitoring, and Database monitoring. However, those monitors are subject to some limitations, described below.

When not to use the VMPD

• If your monitor is based on a script. The monitoring shapes that are part of the VMPD provide a wide range of monitoring features but do not support script-based monitoring at this time.

• If your monitor requires logic that is not available in an existing shape.  For example, you may want an event monitor that checks an application log at specific intervals and looks for a heartbeat event. If that event does not appear for a certain period of time, you’d want to raise an alert. There is not currently a missing event monitor in the VMPD.