Watches are monitors that observe specific diagnostic state and can be configured to send one or more notifications based on configured rules. A watch rule specifies relationships among multiple diagnostic states, such as the values of MBean attributes, log record fields, or instrumentation events. When the conditions of a watch rule are met, the associated notification or notifications are sent.

Watches and notifications are configured and used in the scope of a diagnostic system module targeted to one or more server instances. Therefore, to use watches and notifications, you must first create a diagnostic system module. Then, you can configure watches and notifications in that module and target the module to one or more server instances.

To configure watches and notifications: