Note
Access to this page requires authorization. You can try signing in or changing directories.
Access to this page requires authorization. You can try changing directories.
System Center - Operations Manager uses heartbeats to monitor communication channels between an agent and the agent's primary management server. A heartbeat is a packet of data that the agent regularly sends to the management server, by default every 60 seconds, through port 5723 (TCP).
When an agent fails to send a heartbeat four times, the system generates a Health Service Heartbeat Failure alert and the management server tries to contact the computer by using ping. If the computer doesn't respond to the ping, the system generates a Failed to Connect to Computer alert. The following illustration shows this process.
When you see both alerts, you know the management server can't contact the computer. When you see only the heartbeat failure alert, you know the management server can contact the computer but there's a problem with the agent. Both alerts close automatically when heartbeats resume.
Note
By default, alerts for missed heartbeats and response to ping are disabled for client operating systems. To receive alerts for client operating systems, override the Health Service Heartbeat Failure and Computer Not Reachable monitors for the class Windows Client Operating System and set the Generates Alert parameter to True.
For agents reporting to a gateway server, you need to configure the Automatic Agent Management Account that the system uses to automatically diagnose agent failures (for example, heartbeat failures and failure to receive data) so the Run As account has privileges to both the Management Server and the gateway. Otherwise, the recovery task fails on a gateway server. This scenario is only supported if:
- The gateway server is a member of an Active Directory trusted forest, but outside the Kerberos trust boundary of the management group.
- The gateway server is a member of the same Active Directory forest as the Operations Manager management servers. The gateway server in this case is used because of a firewall or member of a local resource pool.
The health state for the agent-managed computer changes to critical (red) when the Health Service Heartbeat Failure alert is generated. To view details for the health state, right-click the computer in Active Alerts, point to Open, and select Health Explorer. The Availability node expands to display the critical item. Select Health Service Heartbeat Failure, and select the State Change Events tab. You see a list of state changes with the date and time of occurrence. Select any occurrence to display information in the Details pane. The health state changes to healthy (green) when heartbeats resume.
You can change the heartbeat interval for all agents and number of missed heartbeats for all management servers in Settings in the Administration workspace, as shown in the following illustration.
You can also override the global heartbeat interval for individual agents and the number of missed heartbeats for individual management servers by opening the properties for the computer in Agent Managed or Management Servers in the Administration workspace. For example, you might increase the heartbeat interval for a computer that has a slow connection to the network.
Next steps
To learn more about how to investigate an agent heartbeat failure and ways to resolve them, see Resolving Heartbeat Alerts.
Review Configure Computer Not Reachable Recovery Task for Gateway Servers when agents report to a gateway server in a secure network environment.