Working with Resource Alerts :: SAS(R) Environment Manager 2.5: User's Guide, Second Edition

Overview of Alerts

If you want to identify a type of event for notification or further action, you can create an alert. Alerts are a user-defined type of event that indicates a critical condition in a selected resource. When an alert occurs, it must be fixed or acknowledged, and alerts are listed until they are marked as being fixed. You can define escalation schemes to identify the actions that happen if an alert is not fixed within a specified time. You can also create SNMP notifications for critical alerts. See Example: Defining an SNMP Alert Notification for information.

Alerts are logged by the agents and all events throughout the entire deployment are displayed in the Alert Center. To access the Alert Center, select Analyze

Event Center.

You can filter the alerts, for example, so that only the most recent ones or the ones of a specified type are displayed.

You can mark alerts as fixed or acknowledged. You can acknowledge an alert only if an escalation scheme has been defined for it. If an escalation scheme has not been defined for the alert, you can mark the alert only as fixed. Select the check box next to an alert, and then click Fixed or Acknowledge. You can also click on the entry in the Alert Definition column to display the Alert Details page, where you can view details about the alert and mark the alert as fixed and add comments.

If you initialize SAS Environment Manager Extended Monitoring, a set of alerts is automatically created for you. These alerts identify the most common problems in a SAS environment. Using the alerts in extended monitoring enables you to start working with SAS Environment Manager quickly, without having to manually define alerts. See Initializing SAS Environment Manager Extended Monitoring for initialization instructions.

Defining an Alert

To define an alert, follow these steps:

Select ResourcesBrowse or use a dashboard portlet to locate the resource for which you want to create an alert.
There are three icons on the left of the entry for the resource in the table . Click on the alert icon , which is on the right of the group. The Alerts page for the resource appears.
Click New to display the New Alert page.
In the Alert Properties area, specify the name and priority for the alert and whether it is active.
In the Condition Set area, specify the conditions that must be met in order for the alert to be triggered. You can specify up to three conditions for each alert. Use these fields to specify the condition that triggers the alert

Metric

specifies that the alert is triggered based on the value of a metric that is monitored for the resource. You can specify that the condition is based on comparison to a fixed value, a percentage of a value, or a change in value. If you want to create an alert for a metric that is not listed, you must first enable collection of that metric.

Update the metric collection settings for the resource type (choose Monitoring Defaults from the Manage page) or for the specific resource (click Metrics on the resource’s Monitor page).

Inventory Property

specifies that the alert is triggered based on a change in the value of a resource property (such as version number). This condition is available only for certain types of resources (such as platforms and SAS Metadata Servers).

Control Action

specifies that the alert is triggered when an action meets a specified condition (such as the action of stopping a failed server). This condition is available only for servers that can be controlled through control actions. See Controlling Resources Using Control Actions for more information.

Events/Logs Level

specifies that the alert is triggered when a selected type of log entry (such as Error) and an optional accompanying text string appears in the log.

If you are defining an alert based on events from SAS server logs, the available values in this field do not match the logging levels available in SAS server logs. The four SAS Environment Manager levels must match the six levels in SAS server logs. Selecting Error in this field matches both the Fatal and Error levels in SAS server logs. Selecting Debug in this field matches both the Trace and Debug levels in SAS server logs.

Config changed

specifies that the alert is triggered when a configuration file changes (you can choose to specify the name of the configuration file).
In the Enable Action field, specify whether the alert is triggered only once, or periodically as long as the alert condition persists.
Click OK to define the alert and display the Alert Configuration page.
On the Alert Configuration page, you can specify an escalation scheme and identify the users and roles that should be notified when the alert occurs. To create an escalation scheme, see Defining an Escalation Scheme.
Click Return to Alert Definitions when you are finished.

Defining an Escalation Scheme

An escalation scheme is a series of actions that take place when an alert is not acknowledged or fixed within a certain period of time. An escalation scheme can be applied to multiple alerts. You can define an escalation scheme to perform any of these actions:

send an email or SMS text message
make an entry in a system log
issue an SNMP notification

To define an escalation scheme, select Manage

Escalation Schemes Configuration (in the Server Settings area).

For information about the information required when defining an escalation scheme, refer to the Help for the page.

Notifying Users of an Alert

There might be some types of alerts that you want members of your organization to be informed of if they occur. For users that are defined in SAS Environment Manager, you can notify specific users or roles. For users that are not defined in SAS Environment Manager, you can notify these users by email.

To notify users of alerts, follow these steps:

Select AnalyzeAlert CenterDefinition to display the table of alert definitions.
Click on the entry in the Alert Center table for the alert for which you want to send notifications.
At the bottom of the Alert Definition window, select one of the following:

Notify Roles

whenever the alert occurs, notify all SAS Environment Manager users who are members of a specified role. Select Add to List to select the roles that should be notified.

Notify Users

whenever the alert occurs, notify specific SAS Environment Manager users. Select Add to List to select the users that should be notified. You can select only users that have been defined in metadata and synchronized with SAS Environment Manager. See SAS Environment Manager and SAS Metadata Users for more information.

Notify Other Recipients

whenever the alert occurs, notify users by email. Select Add to List and specify the email addresses that should be notified.

Specifying Email System Parameters

The SMTP email server that SAS Environment Manager uses is specified by the SAS Deployment Wizard during installation and configuration of your SAS system. However, if your email server is restricted or uses a port other than the default, you must modify the configuration file where these parameters are stored.

To change the email server parameters, modify the file [SAS_config]/Levn/Web/SASEnvironmentManager/server-5.8.0–EE/conf/hq-server.conf. Specify these parameters:

server.mail.host=mailhost

specifies the email (SMTP) server. The default value is the host name that was specified in the SAS Deployment Wizard during installation.

mail.user=SMTPuser

specifies the user ID required to log on to a restricted email server.

mail.password=SMTPpassword

specifies the password required to log on SMTPuser into the email server.

mail.smtp.port=port

specifies the port used to connect to the email server. The default value for an unsecured server is 25, and the default value for a secured server is 587.