What is an action?

A policy also defines the mapping of a rule exception and severity level to a resulting action.

A policy implements an action when a rule condition is reached or exceeded during a policy evaluation.

An action for each exception is actually an action recommendation. An action is determined by the action list defined in the policy. Three forms of an action are possible:

Send an exception message for each exception detected
The exception message is sent to the destinations that are contained in the notification list or lists that are associated with that exception class and severity level either specified by the Rule, or the Policy. For example (for rule IBM.FREE_SPACES.10):
```
IMS space utilization statistics of %RESOURCE% has reached or crossed a threshold.
```
The exception message text is contained in the rule template.
Messages are typically sent to the client's SYSOUT and recorded in the Policy Services journal report.
Perform a process only (for example, perform a database reorganization)
Policy Services can recommend a specific process to the caller (client) of the Policy Services.
The purpose of the recommended process is to remove the detected exception or lower the level of the exception.
Recommend a process and send an exception message for each exception that remains after the process
A process action can also be accompanied by the standard exception message that is associated with the rule.
The process action is delegated to and handled by the IMS Tools client or some other external program.
The associated exception message is handled by Policy Services.

The following figure shows the features of an action list entry for a policy:

This diagram illustrates the mapping of exception class and level to a specific action, which can be a message or a process. — Figure 1. Policy action components

Example action process flow

An exception message associated with a rule is sent only when at least one notification list is attached to the rule. If a notification list is not defined for the rule, the notification list that is defined by the policy for the summary notification is used.

The process action is not performed immediately and the exception message associated with the process action is not sent immediately. The resulting action or actions are determined by the set of process actions recommended by the policy evaluation.

For example, in the Smart Reorg utility of IMS Database Reorganization Expert, multiple reorganization processes, each of which was recommended for a different exception, result in a single reorganization action.

The reorganization is performed by the Smart Reorg utility only once, not multiple times. The exception message that was associated with an action is sent only when the exception still remains after the action has been performed.

At the end of a policy evaluation session, a message that summarizes the result of the policy evaluation is sent to the destinations contained in the notification list or lists associated with the policy if at least one exception was detected by a rule defined in the policy. The message is called the summary message for the policy evaluation session.

Action selection: Exception-to-action mapping

The form of action depends on how the specific rule exception was mapped in the policy. A rule threshold set is mapped to a severity level for the exception class that is associated with the rule. In turn, the severity level is mapped to an action.

The following table illustrates that threshold sets are mapped to severity levels that are mapped to an action type:

Table 1. Thresholds mapped to severity levels mapped to policy actions
Threshold sets	>>MAP TO>>	Severity levels	>>MAP TO>>	Policy actions
LOW MED HIGH MYLOW MYHIGH		WARNING SEVERE CRITICAL		Message Process

For example, the custom threshold set MYLOW can be mapped to severity level WARNING, which in turn is mapped to the action of sending an exception message out to the notification list that is associated with this exception class and severity level.

In predefined policies provided by IBM®, the severity-level-to-action mappings are fixed for each exception class and are not customizable through the Policy Services ISPF user interface:

WARNING always maps to a message action
SEVERE always maps to a message action
CRITICAL maps to either a message action or a process action
The following topics contain a table for each policy that shows the exception class and severity level pairs that specifically result in a process action:
- Domain REORG policies
- Domain RECOVERY policies

Exception message format

Exception messages are sent to the target by the Policy Services Action Manager. Those exception messages are also returned to the IMS Tools Policy Services client, such as IMS Database Reorganization Expert, with information on the source of the exception detection.

The following example from the Diagnosis Report of IMS Database Reorganization Expert shows how an exception message from Policy Services can appear:

The size of a database data set in BKDB has reached or exceeded a threshold

Message text: The message text that comes from the text contained in the rule template (indicating the resource affected; the database BKDB in this example)
You cannot modify the message content.
Class: The exception class name
Level: The severity level (WARNING, SEVERE, CRITICAL)
Rule: The rule template that detected this exception
Threshold Set: The name of the threshold set in this rule template that was used to detect this exception
This threshold set was mapped to the severity level.

Additional information about message actions

Although reaching or exceeding a rule condition can trigger one of the three severity levels, the text of the exception message for each severity level is the same (shared among all severity levels). The text comes from the IMS Reorganization Expert report. The messages are distinguished by the return of the exception class and severity level type with the message.

For example:

The size of a database data set in BKDB has reached or exceeded a threshold
   Class: DATA_SET_SIZE_GROWTH             Level: WARNING
   Rule: R:IBM.DBDS_GROWTH.10      Threshold Set: MYLOW

The size of a database data set in BKDB has reached or exceeded a threshold
   Class: DATA_SET_SIZE_GROWTH             Level: SEVERE
   Rule: R:IBM.DBDS_GROWTH.10      Threshold Set: MED

The size of a database data set in BKDB has reached or exceeded a threshold
   Class: DATA_SET_SIZE_GROWTH             Level: CRITICAL
   Rule: R:IBM.DBDS_GROWTH.10      Threshold Set: MYHIGH

In the conditional reorganization scenario of Reorganization Expert, Policy Services uses the same exception class messages for both the phase 1 first evaluation and the phase 2 second evaluation that is made after the actions recommended in phase 1 have been performed.

In the policy evaluation that is performed by Autonomics Director, only the phase 1 policy evaluation is performed.

Additional information about the summary message

A set of summary messages are defined for the policy domain and they are specific to the domain and the resource type. The appropriate summary message is selected based on the combination of the results of phase 1 and phase 2 policy reevaluations.

In the conditional reorganization scenario of Reorganization Expert, the summary message is returned after phase 2 processing completes successfully and at the same time the standard exception message or messages are returned. If the phase 2 policy evaluation fails, a specific summary message is returned that indicates the reason. The appropriate summary message is selected based on the combination of the results of phase 1 processing, process action (such as REORG of the Database), and phase 2 policy reevaluations.

In Autonomics Director, the summary message is returned at the phase 1 policy evaluation.

Policy Services messages can direct you to the IMS Tools product for which the summary message was issued, where more tool-specific explanation, system action, and user action information is available.

Additional information about process actions

The response to a recommendation to perform a process action is specific to the IMS Tools client product.

For example, the Smart Reorg utility in IMS Database Reorganization Expert can respond to a Policy Services recommendation and perform a reorganization process. In this example, the recommendation is returned to the tool's Conditional Reorganization Support Service, which internally calls Policy Services.

The recommendation for a process action can be accompanied by the standard exception message that is appropriate for the exception class and severity level. This exception message describes the rule condition that was reached or exceeded and that caused the recommendation for the process action.