Management packs are the core of SCOM.
MP's contain object/application discoveries, monitors (green, yellow, red - health), rules (perf collection, event matching, etc), views for the particular application, run as profiles, reports, etc.
Some MPs will break out discovery from monitoring. Some will contain several different MPs based on the product and version (import only what you want).
These are XML documents that get sent to agents, and then agents execute a seed class discovery. If the object that the mp is trying to discovery is found, then that agent will get any other MP's that are associated with the discovery (unless of course
discovery is part of the monitoring mp).
MPs are developed by MSFT, 3rd party partners, Consulting firms, and the community.
Testing MP's is very crucial before importing them into a production environment. You should always keep at least one version behind the most recent one in case you run into any issues with the latest release so that your can revert your change.
Not all management packs will contain all of the things possible in a mp (reports, views, run as profiles, etc).
Regards, Blake Email: mengotto<at>hotmail.com Blog: http://discussitnow.wordpress.com/ If my response was helpful, please mark it as so, if it answered your question, then please also mark it accordingly. Thank you.
