Management Tools

This domain explains how the environment is actually managed in practice.

What Ranger Collects

The management-tools domain should document:

• Windows Admin Center deployment and extension posture
• SCVMM and SCOM integration when present
• Azure portal or Azure CLI-based management surfaces where relevant
• notable third-party management, backup, recovery, or monitoring agents detected on the nodes
• tool compatibility limitations for the current identity or operating variant

Manifest Sub-Domains

The v1 collector writes to these named sections of the managementTools manifest domain:

Sub-domain	Content
tools	Detected management services — Windows Admin Center, SCVMM, SCOM, OEM tooling, and third-party agents
agents	Per-node agent inventory — installed agents, versions, and connection state
summary	Count of running management services and identified control surfaces

Current Collector Depth

Current v1 collection also covers:

• Windows Admin Center presence, service state, and certificate signals where visible.
• Third-party agent inventory for backup, monitoring, and operations tooling.
• SCVMM and SCOM presence indicators for environments that still carry those agents.
• Service-level roll-ups used to explain management-plane coverage in the reports.

Why It Matters

An environment is managed through tools, not just through cluster objects. Ranger should document that operational reality so a receiving team knows which control surfaces matter.

Connectivity and Credentials

Requirement	Purpose
WinRM / PowerShell remoting	Host-side discovery of installed and connected tooling
Cluster credential	Required
Optional Azure credential	Helpful where management surfaces are Azure-hosted or Azure-registered

Default Behavior

This domain should run by default when cluster credentials are available because it is low-friction host-side discovery and often high value for handoff.

Variant Behavior

Local Identity with Azure Key Vault

Current Microsoft documentation states that Windows Admin Center is not supported in Azure Key Vault-based identity environments and SCVMM support is limited or unsupported. Ranger should call those boundaries out clearly.

Disconnected Operations

Ranger should distinguish public-Azure management tools from the local disconnected control-plane management surfaces.

Multi-Rack Preview

Current Microsoft documentation emphasizes Azure portal, ARM, and Azure CLI management for multi-rack preview. Ranger should describe that as a different management posture from standard hyperconverged environments.

Example Manifest Data

A successful collect produces entries like this:

{
  "id": "managementPerformance",
  "status": "success",
  "domains": {
    "managementTools": {
      "tools": [
        { "name": "Windows Admin Center", "detected": true, "serviceState": "Running",
          "version": "2311.0.0.0", "port": 443 },
        { "name": "SCVMM", "detected": false },
        { "name": "SCOM", "detected": false }
      ],
      "agents": [
        { "node": "tplabs-01-n01", "name": "Microsoft Monitoring Agent", "version": "10.20.18053",
          "state": "Running" },
        { "node": "tplabs-01-n01", "name": "Azure Monitor Agent", "version": "1.22.0",
          "state": "Running" }
      ],
      "summary": { "managementServicesDetected": 1, "totalAgentsDetected": 8 }
    }
  }
}

Common Findings

Finding	Severity	What it means
Windows Admin Center service stopped	Warning	WAC is installed but not running; management via WAC is unavailable
Windows Admin Center not detected	Info	WAC is absent from this environment; cluster is managed through other surfaces
Legacy MMA agent detected alongside AMA	Info	Both old and new monitoring agents are installed; the old agent may be redundant
SCVMM detected	Info	SCVMM is part of the management surface; document its version and connection state
No management tooling detected	Info	No WAC, SCVMM, SCOM, or third-party tooling; cluster is managed solely through PowerShell and Azure portal

Partial Status

status: partial on the management-tools collector means:

• Agent inventory succeeded on some nodes but not others (node unreachable)
• Service detection succeeded but WAC certificate or version queries failed

Core tool detection (WAC present/absent, service state) is usually complete even when version or configuration detail fails.

Domain Dependencies

Depends on the cluster-and-node domain for a node list. Independent of storage, networking, and Azure collectors.

Evidence Boundaries

• Direct discovery: host-side detection of management and operational tooling
• Azure-side discovery: Azure-registered management surfaces where applicable
• Manual/imported evidence: operator-supplied process notes when management happens outside discoverable tooling

v1 and Future Boundaries

v1 should document what tools are present and how they relate to the environment.

It should not attempt to become a complete runbook or process-mining system for every operational workflow.