How can I be alerted if one process runs too long?

You can define an SLC duration schedule to be alerted if one process runs too long.

Since in this situation you are interested only in a single process, either a standard or wildcard SLC would be appropriate to use. If you know the specific process and server name, use a standard SLC because it is more efficient than a wildcard SLC.

You are interested only in knowing whether the process runs for the correct amount of time, not whether it runs during a specific time period. Therefore, you can define an SLC duration schedule. In this example:

  1. On the General pane, set Schedule Type to Duration Schedule, set Name to Duration, and select Enabled.
  2. On the Parameters pane, specify a Maximum Duration value that corresponds to the maximum process duration.
  3. Specify a Minimum Duration value that corresponds to the minimum Process duration.

    In this example, Minimum Duration is set to 000:00:00 and Maximum Duration is set to 000:10:00. In other words, the duration schedule specifies that 0 seconds to 10 minutes elapsed time is acceptable for the SLC you associate the schedule with.

    Note: Choose the minimum duration wisely for your SLC. Remember that the minimum granularity for measuring the elapsed time of processes and process steps in IBM® Sterling Control Center Monitor is seconds. So, if a process or process step runs in less than a second, it can appear to IBM Sterling Control Center Monitor to run in 0 seconds.

    IBM Sterling Control Center Monitor generates events if a process or process step takes less than the specified minimum duration. Specifically, an SLC event with message ID CSLC041E is generated. Remember, processes or process steps that take less time to run than expected can signal a problem as serious as processes or process steps that take more than the maximum expected duration. For example, if you are expecting to receive a 100 GB file and the file takes less than a second to be received, there is a good chance you did not receive the expected data.

  4. Reference the duration schedule you defined when constructing your SLC. In this example, on the Schedules pane, set Selected Schedules to Duration.
  5. Beyond specifying the duration schedule for your standard or wildcard SLC, specify appropriate values for server groups, servers, and other SLC match criteria to define the process, processes, process step, or process steps you are interested in knowing about.