Alarm Management Examples

There are many methods that you can use to define and manage alarms. Here are a few examples to better illustrate how you might perform these functions in your environment.

Example: To Define and Respond to an Alarm

This example illustrates how to create and acknowledge a simple critical alarm when the memory usage on the specified system exceeds 50%.

1. Access the Details window for the managed object on which you want to define the alarm.

2. Click the Module Browser tab in the Details window.

3. Click the expansion icon next to the Operating System icon in the hierarchy tree view.

   The Operating System modules are displayed.

4. Click the expansion icon next to the Kernel Reader icon.

   The Kernel Reader properties are displayed.

5. Double-click the Memory Usage Statistics icon.

   The Memory Usage Statistics properties table is displayed in the contents view.

6. Select the table cell for % Memory Used.

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   Tip –

   If the Attributes button is unavailable and is dimmed when you select the table cell, verify that you selected the data cell not the label cell.

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7. Click the Attributes button.

   The Attribute Editor window is displayed.

8. Click the Alarms tab.

   The Alarms panel appears on which you can define threshold values for Critical, Caution, and Alert alarms.

9. Type 50 in the Critical Threshold (>) field.

   A critical alarm will be generated when the memory usage exceeds 50% on the selected managed object.

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   Note –

   This example uses a low threshold to create an alarm immediately. Normally, you might generate alarms according to the following criteria:

   • An alert alarm when the usage exceeds 50%

   • A caution alarm when the usage exceeds 65%

   • A critical alarm when the usage exceeds 80%

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10. Click the OK button to apply your changes and close the Attribute Editor window.

    Almost immediately, the % Memory Used data field in the table turns red. In addition, red alarm icons are displayed on the Operating System, Kernel Reader, and Memory Usage Statistics folders and icons. If the red icon does not appear, verify whether your system has an open, unacknowledged black alarm.

11. Click the Alarms tab in the Details window.

    The alarm that you created is listed in the alarms table. See Chapter 12, Managing Alarms for more information.

12. Click the Acknowledge button to acknowledge this alarm.

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    Tip –

    The Acknowledge button looks like a check mark.

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13. Create additional alarm thresholds, and familiarize yourself with their operation.

    Once you have created these alarms, you can set up security permissions so that another Sun Management Center software user cannot change your alarm thresholds. For more information about security, see Chapter 18, Sun Management Center Security.

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    Note –

    You do not need to fill in alarm information for all alarm thresholds. For example, you might choose to create only a critical alarm threshold.

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    This example illustrates creating a situation where an alarm is registered if a value exceeds the alarm limit. Table 10–1 lists other common alarm limits in the software.

Example: To Send an Email

This example sets up an email to be sent when the system load average exceeds the threshold.

Before You Begin

When an alarm condition is met, sending an email message is a good solution in most situations. However, if a router or an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is down, your email message would not be sent.

You might consider setting up a pager alarm to send an alarm message to a terminal and to a pager through a modem for such failures. For more information, investigate quick paging or instant paging solutions.

1. Click the Module Browser tab in the Details window.

2. Click the expansion icon next to the Operating System icon in the hierarchy tree view.

   The Operating System modules are displayed.

3. Click the expansion icon next to the Kernel Reader icon.

   The Kernel Reader properties are displayed.

4. Double-click the System Load Statistics icon.

   The System Load Statistics properties table is displayed in the contents view.

5. Select the table cell for Load Averages Over the Last 5 Minutes.

6. Click the Attributes button.

   The Attribute Editor window is displayed.

7. Click the Actions tab.

   The Action Selection screen appears.

8. Click the Email radio button to activate the To and Message fields.

9. Type the usernames in the To field and the message in the Message field.

10. Click OK to accept the changes that you made and close this window.

    The following email is sent to the usernames whenever the load averages alert alarm occurs.

    Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2000 15:25:39 -0800 From: root@MachineB (0000-Admin(0000)) Subject: Sun Management Center - Alert Alarm Action Mime-Version: 1.0 Sun Management Center alarm action notification ... {Alert: machineB Kernel Reader Load Average Over The Last 5 Minutes > 0.01Jobs}