Alert notifications and actions

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Specify how you are notified when alert conditions are detected on resources, and define actions to take as a result of those alerts. These settings are defined globally for all resources, and can be overridden for a specific alert definition, for all alert definitions that apply to a specific resource, or for an alert policy.

Notifications and override behavior

You can specify notification settings at the following levels:

Globally, for all alerts.
In alert policies, for groups of resources of the same type.
In individual alert definitions, which can be part of an alert policy, or can be specific to a resource.

Notification settings at the lower levels override the settings at the higher levels. For example, if you want to use email for alert notifications, you can specify email notification settings like this:

If you want all email notifications to go to a specific set of email addresses, specify email addresses for global alert notifications.
If you're using alert policies, you can also specify a list of email addresses to notify that are applicable to that policy. These addresses override the global setting.
For an alert definition, you can specify a set of email addresses to notify. This email addresses override the alert policy and global settings.

Scenarios for the different levels of alert notification

A small organization might specify only global email addresses if they want to send all alert notifications to one team.

A larger organization can have multiple storage environments that are managed by different teams. They can create alert policies for each environment and specify different email addresses for each alert policy. For example, they might create alert policies for their mainframe, VMware, and AIX® environments, and specify different email addresses for each of those policies. These email addresses override any global email addresses.

If you want to notify a specific person when a specific condition occurs, you set an email address in an individual alert definition. This email address overrides any alert policy or global email addresses. For example, an operations team might review all of the alerts, but might want to notify their storage architect if capacity in a pool exceeds 80%.

Specifying the frequency of alert notifications

You can use the Notification Frequency settings to avoid triggering too many alerts for some conditions. You can select one of the following options:

Option	Description
Send every time condition is violated	Receive alert notifications whenever an alert condition is violated.
Send once until problem clears	Receive one notification for a violation, even if the condition is violated multiple times. Exception: Alerts with this setting are sent again whenever the Alert server for IBM Spectrum Control is restarted.
Send every `time_period`	Receive one notification when an alert condition is initially violated. The alert is suppressed and no notifications are sent until both the specified time has passed and the alert is triggered again.

You can also select to only send notifications if the violation is not cleared for longer than a time period that you specify. Select Send after condition is violated for time_period, then specify the time period.

For example, you might want to be notified about an alert only after the condition has been violated for 20 minutes, and you only want to be notified about the alert once until the problem clears. In this case, you can set up an alert with the following notification frequency settings:

Alert notification frequency settings. Send once until problem clears and Send after condition is violated for 20 minutes.

Restrictions:

For some attributes, not all the notification frequency options are available. Specifically, you cannot change the notification frequency for the following attributes: New resource, Removed or Deleted resource, Last Successful Probe, and Last Successful Monitor.
For attributes that use the changes operator (for example, the Firmware attribute), only the Send every time condition is violated and Send every time_period notification frequency options are available.

Specifying alert actions and notification settings in the GUI

Table 1. Locations where you can specify alert actions and notification settings
Task	Location in GUI
Specify the global notification settings for all alerts	Global Alert Notifications To specify the global notification settings, go to Configuration > Notification Settings, and specify the details for email, SNMP, and Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus. These notification settings are applied globally to all alert definitions, unless overridden. Important: You must specify the global alert notifications settings for each type of alert notification that you want to enable.
Specify the notification settings for an alert policy	Alert policies page To specify the notification settings for an alert policy, go to Settings > Alert Policies. Double-click the policy whose notification settings you want to specify. Click Edit Policy Notifications. Specify the details for email, SNMP, and Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus. These notification settings are applied to all of the alert definitions for all resources in the policy, unless overridden.
Specify the notification settings for all the alert definitions that apply to a resource that is not managed by an alert policy	Resource details page For example, to specify the notification settings for a block storage system, go to Storage > Block Storage Systems. Double-click the resource for which you want to define alerts. In the General section of the resource details page, click Alerts. Then click Edit Notifications. These notification settings are applied to all the alert definitions that are specified for the selected storage system. You can override the global settings by specifying different settings for each alert definition.
Specify alert actions and notification settings for a specific alert definition	Alert definitions page, Resource details page For example, to specify the notification settings for an alert definition in an alert policy, go to Settings > Alert Policies. Double-click the policy whose notification settings you want to specify. Click Edit Alert Definitions. Alternatively, to specify the notification settings for an alert definition for a resource that is not managed by an alert policy, go to Storage > Block Storage Systems. Double-click the resource for which you want to define alerts. In the General section of the resource details page, click Alerts. Then click Edit Alert Definitions. Click on the alert definition to show advanced options. Specify the details for email, SNMP, and Tivoli Netcool/OMNIbus. The notification settings that you define override any global notification settings, any policy settings, and any settings for the resource.

Alert actions

You can specify that the following actions are taken when alert conditions are detected on monitored resources:

Run script: Run a script when an alert is triggered for the condition. Use a script to call external programs or run commands that take action as the result of an alert. By using a script, you can automatically address potential storage issues when they are detected to avoid unplanned downtime or performance bottlenecks. Learn more.
Email: Send emails to specific email addresses when an alert is detected on a monitored resource.
Netcool® or OMNIbus EIF Probe Server: Send alert notifications to a Netcool server or OMNIbus EIF probe server within your environment that was configured to receive IBM Spectrum Control alerts.
SNMP trap: Generate SNMP trap messages to any network management station (NMS), console, or terminal when an alert condition is detected. System administrators must set up their SNMP trap ringer with the provided management information base (MIB) files to receive SNMP traps from the product.
Windows event log or UNIX syslog: Write alert messages to the OS log. If you already have an administrator monitoring OS logs, this method is a way to centralize your priority messages for quick notification and viewing.