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I’ve been seeing a lot of questions on just how to enable the sending of SMS inside of SCOM. The ‘configuration’ inside OpsMgr is very simple; just a little check box that says "Enable short message service notifications".

To figure this all out, I talked to my friends up the street at MultiTech and had them send me a few of their SMS modems so I could figure it all out. They sent me 3 GPRS modems¹. This article will focus on the USB and RS-232 versions, which are almost completely identical in setup, and the same in operations. The MultiTech MultiModem GPRS² is a small (4 inches long, 2.5 inches wide, 1 inch high) device that accepts a SIM³ card and talks to your computer (Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008) via USB or RS-232 Serial (They have an additional model which uses Ethernet, that will be in part 2). Here’s the Cliff’s Notes Version:

1. Open the modem
2. Install SIM card into modem
3. Plug in antenna, plug in USB, plug into your server
4. Download and install the drivers
5. Open the OpsMgr admin console, and place a check in the box to enable SMS

Now, if you want a more indepth step by step via, with plenty of pretty pictures to look at read on after the jump! Read more…

1. GPRS, or General Packet Radio Service, is one of the most popular data standards in use in the US. They also make modems that talk to EDGE and CDMA systems though [↩]
2. USB Model: MTCBA-G-U-F4, RS-232 Model: MTCBA-G-F4 [↩]
3. Subscriber Identity Module – See Wikipedia [↩]

MultiTech GPRS MultiModems

I’ve seen a lot of questions, both in the MVP email list and on the forums/newsgroups, about how to setup OpsMgr to use SMS. The easiest way is with these, GPRS (Cellular) modems.

So I sent an email to my friends at MultiTech and the above showed up – a USB, RS-232, and Ethernet GPRS modems. I will be setting them up, documenting the process, then posting it here for you all to take in.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how simple it is to setup and, more importantly, how much more cost effective it is versus a paging solution like Telelink, Hiplink, etc. No more needing to know the carrier a number is under, no more global gateways to license. An unlimited messaging plan with no voice can be had for as little as $7/month.

So look for that coming soon!