Working with Alerts

This section includes the following topics:

• Investigating alerts
• Configuring Alerts settings
• About editing metric properties
• Setting Alerts SNMP connectivity
• Alerts MOM connectivity
• Creating customized metrics

Investigating alerts

Alerts provides real-time alerts about potential performance problems in your application.

Alerts displays alerts at various levels, which provides alerts summary of the entire application (or few applications if you monitor more than single application). You launch Alerts from the Application screen or by selecting the Alerts tab on the Dashboard screen. From the Alerts screen, you can view alerts from Application level down to metrics level. Each of these alert levels helps you to isolate the causes of the alerts in the monitored application.

The alert levels described in the following topics are ordered from the overview perspective up to the most detailed data:

Launching Alerts

To view the Alerts tab, see Launching Alerts.

Carrying out further examination of an alert in the Alerts tab

The Alerts tab displays the alerts of each AppTier. The Alerts tab includes a Alerts tree that lists all AppTiers, Instances and metrics.

To carry out further examination of an alert

1. In the Alerts tree, click on a row to view the details of a specific alert (for example, a key metric with critical alert).
   The details that are displayed on the right side of the screen differ according to the level that you selected in the Alerts tree (see Alerts user interface elements.)
2. Click a row in the table on the right side of the screen to drill down and display details of the specific metric.

Manually initiating the metric sampling process

Metrics are sampled according to the settings of the metric sampling (which can be minutes, hours, or even days). During investigation of an alerted metric, it is important to be sure that the data is the most updated data. Therefore, if you are not sure about the data, you can initiate a sampling process manually.

To manually initiate the metric sampling process

1. On the What To Do Next area, click Resample.
2. Wait a few seconds until the sampling process is completed.
3. On the Precise bar, click Auto Refresh is on or click Refresh to refresh the screen immediately.

Launching other Precise products

To launch the user interface of the relevant Precise product, click the link in the What to do next area.

Configuring Alerts settings

To configure Alerts settings, see About editing metric properties.

Editing metrics

It is possible to edit the properties of each metric that is available in your Precise application, including the AppTiers metrics (FocalPoints, Agents, Processes, and Licenses) in the system generated “i3 Status” application. You can also add customized metrics to a Tier (excluding the AppTiers), or delete customized metrics.

Go to AdminPoint and see the Precise Administration Guide to perform the following:

• To configure the Alerts settings
• To edit a metric of a Tier or Tier

Process Availability alerts

Process Availability metrics allow you to monitor a list of processes for specific instances of a specific technology. A process is considered available when running on the server.

The Process Availability monitoring functionality is available for all instances and technologies (Tiers) defined in the Precise installation. You can monitor any process by assigning it to the Process Availability configuration of any instance of any Tier.

The Process Availability metric status is periodically updated every 60 minutes. When a metric status change occurs, the monitoring agent (Insight OS) sends an immediate notification and the status is updated in Alerts within 1 minute.

Functional specification

When you configure Process Availability settings for an instance, a Process Availability metric of the instance is made available. Insight Savvy for OS monitors the availability of instance processes according to the Process Availability settings for the instance. Alerts samples Insight for data that was gathered with a predefined Process Availability metric and sets the metrics alert accordingly. Every change in the Process Availability metric status or content is viewed on the Alerts user interface.

A Process Availability configuration can be defined for all Tier instances as the default configuration (see Instance Association on the Process Availability Settings dialog box). This means that any instance that is recently added to an Tier inherits the Process Availability configuration automatically. In other words, you do not have to manually redefine the configuration for a recently added instance.

Metrics

The Process Availability metric for a specific instance is available on the Alerts user interface only if all of the following conditions are met:

• The Precise framework is installed.
• Alerts and Insight are installed and Insight product is integrated with Alerts.
• Insight OS Agent is installed on the machine the instance is running on.
• The instance is monitored by Alerts (the FocalPoint of the specific instance is integrated with Alerts). This is required so that the instance can be viewed in the Alerts user interface.
• Process Availability settings are defined for the instance.

For more information on the installation of these products, see the Precise Installation Guide.

Settings

A Process Availability configuration includes the list of processes that you want to monitor and their respective details. You configure Process Availability in the Process Availability Settings dialog box, accessible from the Alerts user interface.

To add a new Process Availability setting

1. From the Alerts user interface, on the Precise bar, click Settings>Process Availability.
2. In the Process Availability Settings dialog box, select the technology you want to work with and Click Add.
3. In the Process Availability Setting - Add dialog box, enter a Process Availability Name. Do not leave any empty spaces in the name.
4. Enter User Name (optional). Entering the user name limits the availability of processes search to the collection of processes related to the specified user name.
5. To search for processes stored in the PMDB, enter a name or use wildcards (*) at the beginning and/or end of the word (for example, *sql*) and click Search Now.
6. Select each process you want to assign to this definition and click the corresponding arrow to move it to the Processes Assigned to this Definition table.
7. You can Add Other Processes/Wildcard Patterns by inserting them in the text box and moving them to the Processes Assigned to this Definition table (for example, sqlWb*).
8. To create an instance association, select whether to associate to Instances that have not been associated with a Definition or to Specific Instances.
9. If you select Specific Instances, a list of instances that can be monitored (instances that have OS agents installed on the server they are running on) is displayed. Select each instance you want to associate and click the arrow to move it to the table on the right. You can also remove an instance's association by moving the instance back to the table on the left.
10. Click OK to accept the settings. The Process Availability Settings dialog box is displayed showing your newly configured Process Availability setting.

The configuration will be deployed and sampled automatically on the selected servers. Data will be available on the Alerts GUI according to the sample rate of the selected metric. If you want to resample, you can do so after a 15 minute wait.

To edit an existing Process Availability definition

1. On the Precise bar, click Settings>Process Availability.
2. In the Process Availability Settings dialog box, select the technology you want to edit.
3. Select the Process Availability Name you want to edit.
4. Click Edit.
5. In the Process Availability Settings - Edit dialog box, make the changes you want to the processes definitions and instance associations.
6. Click OK.

To delete an existing Process Availability definition

1. On the Precise bar, click Settings>Process Availability.
2. In the Process Availability Settings dialog box, select the technology in which you want to make a deletion.
3. Select the Process Availability Name you want to delete.
4. Click Delete.
5. On displayed confirmation dialog box, click Yes.

About editing metric properties

Alerts issues alerts according to the metric properties, which must be adjusted to your individual application and organization preferences. The metric definitions must be accurate and adequate. Sampling frequencies and periods require careful considerations. Thresholds need to be set in accordance with the performance level you want to meet.

In addition, alerts must reach the relevant personnel, or in severe cases, management representatives immediately and regardless of their location. Subsequently, the threshold-exceeding values must be examined.

Metric properties are configured by selecting Settings in the Precise bar and choosing Alerts Metric Settings.

Defining actions on the Actions tab

An application that is monitored by Alerts may generate alerts at any time. Sitting in front of the screen waiting for a metric to go critical may be strenuous and time consuming. Instead, you can set Alerts to inform you about any alert, or to run your repair utility to fix certain problems. See “Defining actions on the Actions tab” in the Precise Administration Guide.

Using dynamic parameters in actions

To use dynamic parameters in actions, go to AdminPoint. See the Precise Administration Guide for details.

Setting Alerts SNMP connectivity

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is the Internet standard protocol for network management software. See “About setting Alerts SNMP connectivity” in the Precise Administration Guide.

Browsing the Alerts MIB

Before you start browsing the Alerts MIB, it is recommended to be familiar with the following issues:

• Technology representation
• Identifying applications and instances in the MIB
• Identifying metrics in the MIB
• Identifying property fields in the MIB
• MIB structure

See “Browsing the Alerts MIB” in the Precise Administration Guide.

SNMP trap operation

Using SNMP trap operations, you can automatically receive alerts in your SNMP server. The trap message contains critical information about the trap alert.

To enable Alerts to send SNMP traps to your SNMP manager, go to AdminPoint. See the Precise Administration Guide for details.

Alerts MOM connectivity

See About Alerts MOM Connectivity in the Precise Administration Guide.

Creating customized metrics

Alerts allows you to monitor any performance aspects using pre-defined metrics for each Tier. For data that is not collected by any of the pre-defined metrics, you can create new customized metrics. (Only users with Administrator privilege are allowed to define customized metrics.)

You can create customized metrics in AdminPoint. See the Precise Administration Guide for details.

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