MOM 2005: Unexpected OnePoint database growth

MOM 2005 administrators may find in certain instances that their OnePoint database grows in size unexpectedly, even though the administrator has not added new agent machines, additional management packs, or enabled additional rules in existing management packs. Initial examination of the MOM reporting server's event logs doesn't reveal errors regarding the MOM Reporting DTS job and the Application event log and the status of the DTS Scheduled Task in Control Panel\Scheduled Tasks report successful completion of the DTS task itself.  In addition, the DTS task finishes successfully if it is initiated manually.

So what's the deal? Closer examination of the OnePoint database\ReportingSettings table may reveal that the TimeDTSLastRan value is unchanged after the job finishes. The DTS job is coded to update the TimeDTSLastRan value to the date/time that the DTS job completes successfully, yet this value is not changed/updated in this instance when the job runs normally under Task Scheduler or when it is initiated manually.

Root cause for this issue is usually a mismatch in how the machine names are specified in the DTS Scheduled Task command line and in the OnePoint database \ReportingSettings table \datawarehouseDataSource value. The DTS Scheduled Task command line requires that two machine names be specified: The source server, designated in the command line as /srcserver, and the data warehouse server, designated in the command line as /dwserver. A machine name specification is also required in the OnePoint database \ReportingSettings table \datawarehouseDataSource value. If the DTS command line specification uses NetBIOS names for /srcserver and /dwserver and the database table uses a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the datawarehouseDataSouce value, the TimeDTSLastRan may not be updated. If the DTS command line specification uses FQDN's for /srcserver and /dwserver and the database table uses a NetBIOS name for the datawarehouseDataSource value, the TimeDTSLastRan may not be updated.

The resolution to this is to ensure that a uniform naming convention (FQDN or NetBIOS machine names) is used in both the DTS Scheduled Task command line and the OnePoint database \ReportingSettings table \datawarehouseDataSource value. In the instances in which this issue has been observed and documented, it appears that neither the NetBIOS naming convention nor the FQDN naming convention was functionally superior than the other. What is important is that the same naming convention is used in the DTS Scheduled Task command line and in the OnePoint db \Reportingsettings table \datawarehouseDataSouce value.

Examples:

1. Proper naming convention:

Note that both the DTS command line and the ReportingSettings table use NetBIOS names. Using an FQDN name in both places works also.

2. Mixed naming conventions:

Terry McKinney, Manageability Support Engineer