Managing situations

Situations are descriptions of conditions to which you want to be alerted. Situations periodically verify the values of attributes used in the situation description.

When they are distributed to systems monitored by OMEGAMON AI for CICS agents, situations can, for example, issue a message when a queue count is greater than or equal to 100 messages. Situations can also trigger simple (reflex) actions, or complex automation policies.

If situations are associated with Navigator items, they can generate auditory or visual event indicators, which provide access to special event workspaces containing more information about the event and guidance for how it should be handled.

OMEGAMON AI for CICS provides an extensive set of predefined situations. These situations check for conditions that are typically considered to be problematic or noteworthy. They can also serve as templates for creating customized situations of your own. All these situations include expert advice for handling these conditions should they arise.

You can use the predefined situations as-is or modify them to meet your requirements. You can also create your own situations using the attributes provided by OMEGAMON AI for CICS.

Note: Do not modify the product-provided situations. If you want to modify a product-provided situation, copy the situation, modify the copy, and rename the copy.

Details on the predefined situations that are included with this product are available in Situations and in the OMEGAMON AI for CICS section of the Tivoli Enterprise Portal online help.

Using situations

You manage situations from the Tivoli Enterprise Portal using the Situation editor. Use the Situation editor, to complete the following tasks:

Create a situation
Save a situation
Display a situation
Edit a situation
Start, stop, or delete a situation
Investigate the situation event workspace for a situation

Note: The Situation editor window cannot be resized.

In the Navigator, right-click either the name or the icon of a system, agent, or attribute group. Select situations from the popup menu that is displayed.

The Situation editor opens. The left frame of the Situation editor initially lists the situations associated with the Navigator item you selected. When you click a situation name or create a new situation, the right frame opens with the following tabs:

Condition: Add to and edit the condition being tested
Distribution: The systems to which the situation is assigned and assign the situation to systems
Expert advice: Write comments or instructions to be read in the event workspace
Action: Specify a command to be sent to the system.
You can also enter take action commands by adding a take action view to a workspace, selecting Take Action from the popup menu for an item in the Navigator Physical view, or creating take action commands and saving them for later use.
Until: Reset a True situation when another situation becomes True or a specified time interval elapses

The Situation editor buttons let you Apply your changes by saving and starting the situation, and click OK to exit saving your changes or Cancel to exit without saving your changes. If you plan to edit multiple situations while in the Situation editor, click Apply to save your changes before selecting the next situation to edit or creating a new one.

You can view situations and create others in the Situation editor.

To display a situation, click its name in the tree view on the left; or if you do not see the situation and you opened the Situation editor from the Navigator popup menu, click the Situation Filter icon to identify a broader range.
To create a new situation, click the New Situation icon.
To create a new situation by copying another, select the original and click the Create Another icon.
To delete a situation, select it and click the Delete Situation icon.

For information on creating, editing, and distributing situations, see the Tivoli Enterprise Portal online help.

Activating predefined situations

Predefined situations included with OMEGAMON AI for CICS are not set to autostart. You must activate these situations before they can begin monitoring.

To activate a situation you use the Situation editor of the Tivoli Enterprise Portal to distribute (assign) the situation to one or more managed systems or managed system lists and then start the situation.

You do not need to associate predefined situations with Navigator items. Each situation is already associated with an appropriate Navigator item. After you distribute a situation, you see its name listed under the name of its associated item in the Situation editor.

Some situations are set with very high or very low values, which essentially disable them. Others have values that might be inconsistent with your site's policies, goals, or monitoring requirements. Examine the predefined situations and customize them with values that are meaningful for your installation before you activate them.

Distributing situations

Distribute only the situations that you are going to autostart or plan to manually enable. If you distribute all the situations, they will be propagated to the agents when the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server starts. Distributing all situations can simplify any subsequent activation procedures, but it also extends startup time. Review the situations to determine which ones you plan to use and add distribution lists for only those situations. After the situations are distributed, their alerts will appear on the Navigator items they are associated with.

To distribute a situation perform the following steps:

Open the Situation Editor. You can access the Situation editor from the toolbar or by right-clicking an item in the Physical Navigator and selecting Situations from the popup menu.
If necessary, use the Situation Filter to view the situations available for distribution. Check Eligible for Association to see a list of all the situations that are written for this type of managed system (depending on where you access the Situation editor from; if you access the editor from the toolbar, you see situations for all types of managed systems). Any undistributed situations will show their icon, partially dimmed.
Click the situation you want to distribute. The Situation editor displays the Condition tab for the situation.
Select the Distribution tab. The available managed systems and managed systems lists are displayed.
Select the systems and lists to which you want to distribute the situation, and then click the left arrow to assign the situations to the systems or system lists.
Click Apply to save and implement the change and continue editing; click OK to apply and save the change and close the Situation editor.

Starting situations

You might want to run some situations for a limited time or only under specific conditions. Start and stop these situations manually. You might want other situations to run continuously. Set these situations to run at Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server startup, so they run across Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server restarts.

Initially, you might want to start situations manually to evaluate the impact of the monitoring and monitoring interval on system performance, adjust them accordingly, and then decide if you want the situation to run indefinitely, across Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server restarts.

To start a situation, right-click the situation name in the Situation editor tree and select Start from the popup menu.

To set a situation to start automatically when the Tivoli Enterprise Monitoring Server starts, perform the following steps:

Click the name of the situation in the Situation editor tree. The settings for the situation are displayed in the right frame of the editor.
On the Conditions tab, select Run at startup.
Click Apply to save and implement the change and continue editing; click OK to apply and save the change and close the Situation editor.

Modifying situations

Before activating any predefined situations, examine the conditions and values they monitor and, if necessary, adjust the values to a situation better suited to your environment.

Use these steps to modify a situation:

Open the Situation editor from the toolbar, or right-click a Navigator entry and select Situations from the popup menu.
Note: If you open the Situation editor by right-clicking a Navigator item, the situation you create is automatically associated with that item. If you open the editor from the toolbar, you must manually associate the new situation with a Navigator item to see an alert indicator when the situation evaluates as True.
Use the Set Situation filter criteria to view the situations.
If necessary, mark Associated with Monitored Application to see all situations that were written for this type of agent, regardless of where they are distributed.
To create a copy, right-click the situation and select Create Another from the popup menu.
Type a name for the new situation and click OK.
Modify the situation properties as required and click OK to save the new situation and close the Situation editor.