Correlating situations

Create a correlated situation, which is made up entirely of other situations, to target a set of conditions on a subset of the original distribution. For example, you might have two situations that signify a critical breakdown when they both become true on a particular managed system. You can create a correlated situation of these two situations and distribute it to the managed system in question.

About this task

The behavior of situations embedded in a correlated situation can each be targeted to monitor a subset of their original distribution.

Suppose you have a Disk_Usage_Warning situation that has been distributed to 100 managed systems. The correlated situation in this examples alerts you when Disk Space Warning is true on the most critical managed systems:

	Disk_Usage_Warning @Primary:MAIN1:NT	Disk_Usage_Warning @Primary:MAIN2:NT	Disk_Usage_Warning @Primary:MAIN3:NT
1	== True	== True	== True

This correlated situation can be edited so that it becomes true when the Disk_Usage_Warning situation opens an event on any two of these three managed systems:

	Disk_Usage_Warning @Primary:MAIN1:NT	Disk_Usage_Warning @Primary:MAIN2:NT	Disk_Usage_Warning @Primary:MAIN3:NT
1	== True	== True
2	== True		== True
3		== True	== True

Take these steps to create a correlated situation:

1. Perform either of the following steps to open the Situation editor:
   • Click if, for the time being, you do not want to see an event indicator when this situation becomes true. (You can associate the situation at a later time.)
   • Right-click the Enterprise Navigator item and click Situations.
   Correlated situations are run at the HubCloud Pak System Software Monitoring Server, so they can be associated only with the Enterprise Navigator item. If this is a custom Navigator view, the association can be to any Navigator item where the hub (HUB_HOSTNAME) is assigned.
2. Click New Situation to open the Create Situation window.
3. Type a name for the situation in the Name field and, optionally, a description in the Description field.
   The situation name can contain any UTF-8 characters and can be up to 256 bytes long. The description can be up to 64 characters long. The description is displayed in the Situation editor, in the Manage Situations window, and when you select the situation for embedding in or correlating with another situation.
4. Select Correlated Situation from the Type list and click OK.
   After you select Correlated Situation, the Monitored Application field is set to All Managed Systems and disabled. Correlated situations are distributed to the hub monitoring server automatically.
5. In the Correlated Situation Selection window, select a situation from the Available Situations list, select the managed system (or managed systems) to correlate from the Available Managed Systems list, then click OK to add the situation to the editor.
   A column is inserted for each managed system that was selected.
6. Click in a cell below each new column to add == True and complete the expression.
   If the comparison must be satisfied on both managed systems, this is an AND comparison and their expressions must be entered on the same row; if the comparison can be satisfied on either managed system, this is an OR comparison and the expressions must be entered on different rows.
7. A correlated situation is not complete until it has at least two conditions. If you have more situations to add, click Add Conditions, select the next situation and managed system (or managed systems), click OK, and select inside a cell of each column added.
   If a managed system name is colored blue instead of black, it means the situation for this managed system was already added to the correlation formula.
8. Adjust any other settings in the Formula tab to complete the formula:
   • To add event persistence, click Advanced.
   • To change the sampling interval, click inside the dd (day), hh (hour), mm (minute) or ss (second) field and click the up and down arrows.
   • To start the situation manually rather than automatically, clear .
   • To choose a different State, select one from the list. (Not available if you opened the Situation editor from the main toolbar.)
   • To play a sound when an event opens, select in the Sound area. Click Edit to change the sound file or its properties. (Not available if you opened the Situation editor from the main toolbar.)
9. Specify options on the other tabs as needed.
10. When you are finished composing or editing the situation, save your changes and start the situation by clicking Apply to keep the editor open; or by clicking OK to close the Situation editor.