Starting and stopping policies

You can start or stop a policy as you find necessary. When you create or edit a policy that is set to start automatically, it starts running as soon as you click Apply or OK in the Workflow editor. If it is not set to Auto start, you can manually start it. You can also stop the policy and restart it manually.

Before you begin

For you to stop or start a policy, your user ID must have Start/Stop Policy permission.

About this task

A workflow can involve many activities and can be in various states for different monitoring agents. Stopping or restarting a policy causes those states to be lost.

You can choose to start or stop a policy on all monitoring agents to which it is distributed or, if your configuration includes remoteCloud Pak System Software Monitoring Servers, on all agents that report to a particular monitoring server. With this added control, you can configure your enterprise in such a way that automation can be stopped for agents that, say, are monitoring subsystems that are undergoing maintenance.

Procedure

  1. Open the policy list:
    • In the Navigator Physical view, right-click the Enterprise Navigator itemEnterprise Navigator item or an Agent Navigator item Agent Navigator item and click Manage Policies Manage Policies from the menu. With this method, you can see and select from all the policies that are distributed to the selected managed system.
    • Click Workflow Editor Workflow Editor. With this method, you can see and select all policies, distributed or not distributed.
  2. Select the policy that you want to start or stop.
    You can use Ctrl+click to select additional policies or Shift+click to select all policies between and including the first selection and this one. In the Manage Policies at Managed System window, you can also click Select All for all the policies in the list.
  3. Click Start PolicyStart Policy or Stop PolicyStop Policy.
  4. When a message asks you to specify the TEMS list on which to start or stop the policy, select the monitoring server (or servers) and click Start or Stop.
  5. If you are in the Manage Policies at Managed System window, click RefreshRefresh to refresh the view and see your changes.

Results

When you start a policy, it starts on the managed systems to which it is distributed on the selected monitoring server (or servers). All the situations within the policy are also started or restarted.

When you stop a policy, if it was in the middle of executing an activity, that activity will complete. Policies are stored at and controlled by the monitoring server to which the managed system connects. The policy will remain stopped until you start it again manually or, if it is set to Auto Start, until you next edit the policy or restart the monitoring server.

If the policy distribution is changed manually or dynamically, the policy is restarted. Dynamic updates happen after a new agent comes online or after an agent connection switches from one monitoring server to another.