Alert notifications

You can specify that IBM® Storage Insights Pro sends emails to specific email addresses when alert conditions are detected on monitored resources. The setting is defined globally for all resources, and can be overridden for a specific alert definition, for all alert definitions that apply to a specific resource, or for an alert policy.

Learn more about override behavior, scenarios, and frequency and notification settings for alert notifications:

Notifications and override behavior

You can specify notification settings at the following levels:

Globally, for all alerts.
In alert policies, for groups of resources of the same type.
In individual alert definitions, which can be part of an alert policy, or can be specific to a resource.

Notification settings at the lower levels override the settings at the higher levels. For example,

If you want all email notifications to go to a specific set of email addresses, specify email addresses for global alert notifications.
If you're using alert policies, you can also specify a list of email addresses to notify that are applicable to that policy. These addresses override the global setting.
For an alert definition, you can specify a set of email addresses to notify. This email addresses override the alert policy and global settings.

Scenarios for the different levels of alert notification

A small organization might specify only global email addresses if they want to send all alert notifications to one team.

A larger organization can have multiple storage environments that are managed by different teams. They can create alert policies for each environment and specify different email addresses for each alert policy. For example, they might create alert policies for their mainframe, VMware, and AIX® environments, and specify different email addresses for each of those policies. These email addresses override any global email addresses.

If you want to notify a specific person when a specific condition occurs, you set an email address in an individual alert definition. This email address overrides any alert policy or global email addresses. For example, an operations team might review all of the alerts, but want to notify their storage architect if capacity in a pool exceeds 80%.

Specifying the frequency of alert notifications

You can use the Notification Frequency settings to avoid triggering too many alerts for some conditions. You can select one of the following options:

Option	Description
Send every time condition is violated	Receive alert notifications whenever an alert condition is violated.
Send once until problem clears	Receive one notification for a violation, even if the condition is violated multiple times.
Send every `time_period`	Receive one notification when an alert condition is initially violated. The alert is suppressed and no notifications are sent until both the specified time passes and the alert is triggered again.

You can also select to send notifications only if the violation is not cleared for longer than a time period that you specify. Select Only send notifications after condition is violated for time_period, then specify the time period. If multiple alerts are triggered by the same violations on the same device at the same time, the alerts are consolidated into one alert with that indicates the number of violations that occurred that time.

For example, you might want to be notified about an alert only after the condition has been violated for 20 minutes. You might also want to be notified about the alert only once until the problem clears. In this case, you can set up an alert with the following notification frequency settings:

Alert notification frequency settings. Send once until problem clears and Send after condition is violated for 20 minutes.

Restrictions:

For some attributes, not all the notification frequency options are available. Specifically, you cannot change the notification frequency for the following attributes: New resource, and Removed or Deleted resource.
For attributes that use the changes operator (for example, the Firmware attribute), only the Send every time condition is violated and Send every time_period notification frequency options are available.

Specifying notification settings in the GUI

Table 1. Locations where you can specify alert notification settings
Task	Location in GUI
Specify the global notification settings for all alert definitions.	Global Alert Notifications To specify the global notification settings, go to Configuration > Settings, and specify the email addresses that you want to notify when alerts are generated. The email addresses that you specify are applied globally to all alert definitions, unless overridden.
Specify the notification settings for an alert policy.	Alert policies page To specify the notification settings for an alert policy, go to Configuration > Alert Policies. Double-click the policy whose notification settings you want to specify. Click Edit Policy Notifications. Specify the email addresses that you want to notify when alerts are generated. The email addresses are applied to all of the alert definitions for all resources in the policy, unless overridden.
Specify the notification settings for all the alert definitions that apply to a resource that is not managed by an alert policy.	Resource details page For example, to specify the notification settings for a block storage system, go to Resources > Block Storage Systems. Right-click the storage system, click View Alert Definitions, then click Edit Notifications. The email addresses that you specify are applied to all the alert definitions that are specified for the selected storage system.
Specify notification settings for a specific alert definition in an alert policy.	Alert definitions page Go to Configuration > Alert Policies. Double-click the policy whose notification settings you want to specify. For example, to change the notification settings for specific alerts in a custom alert policy, double-click the policy and click Edit Alert Definitions. Edit the Email Override field or click View Additional Options for an alert definition to specify notification settings. The email addresses that you specify for the alert definition override any global notification settings, any policy settings, and any settings for the resource. Attention: Default alert policy cannot be edited. To create the editable alert policy, right-click the default alert policy and select Copy Policy. The copied policy can be edited as needed. Or select Create Policy to create a new policy.
Specify notification settings for a specific alert definition for a resource that is not managed by an alert policy.	Resource details page For example, go to Resources > Switches. Right-click a resource that is not managed by an alert policy and select View Alert Definitions, and then select Edit Alert Definitions. Edit the Email Override field or click View Additional Options for an alert definition to specify notification settings. The email addresses that you specify for the alert definition override any global notification settings, any policy settings, and any settings for the resource.