Hi All,I was recently approached by a customer and asked what my recommendationswere for setting up SMS alerting on SCOM 2012 R2. Admittedly, this isn’t normally a feature that a lot of our clients use as they prefer the flexibility of email alerting through the use of distribution groups etc, but I thought I’d write up a quick blog post just in case.Items Required

  • GSM Compatible Wireless Modem (RS-232/Serial) – E.G. MultiModem GPRS (MTCBA-G-F4) –
  • SIM Cardwith Unlimited SMS Text Messages Plan – Choose amobile providerwhich has signal when next to your server
  • Microsoft SMS Sender program –
  • (Optional) – Separate PC for installation of modem etc. if you don’t want it on your server. This will require publishing Serial-over-Ethernet. A fantastic guide on this can be found here –

NotesThe process for setting up SMS alerting hasn’t really changed since SCOM 2007.I chose a serial versionof the modem instead of USB as driver relatedissuesmayarise with a 64-bit OS when connected directly to the server itself.Ihavelisted an optional PC in the items above purely for those users who do not wish to connect the modem directly to their SCOM server, or cannot due to virtualisation constraints etc. Serial COM ports can be redirected into virtual servers using similar software to this – , however this post will not cover the process.Steps

  1. Install SIM card into the modem
  2. Plug the modem into COM-1 on the server
  3. Download drivers for the modem and install on the server. (This may have to be done manually using INF files)
  4. Download and run Microsoft’s SMS Sender program from . (You may need to run this in compatibility mode to get it to work as well as running as Administrator.) We’re using this to test outbound SMS functionality using the modem prior to configuring in SCOM.)smssender
  5. Once confirmed as functional, configure SCOM 2012’s SMS notification channel. (This assumes Subscriptions and Recipients have already been appropriately created)
  6. Log on to the SCOM console as a member of the Operation Manager Administrator role
  7. In the SCOM console click Administration
  8. In the navigation pane click Notifications, thenright-click Channels
  9. Click New Channel and click Text Message (SMS)
  10. Type a friendly name for the channel (e.g. SMS Channel)
  11. In the Text message box specific the text which the subscribers will receive
  12. Set the Encoding for the text message
  13. Click Finish

More information on the set-up inside SCOM can be found at the following TechNet page – Hope this helps!Neil