Defining alert definitions for general attributes and capacity changes

You can define alerts that are triggered when the attributes or capacity of a resource changes. Attributes represent the key properties and configuration of a resource, such as status, versions, removals, discoveries, and data collection status. Capacity represents storage statistics such as available capacity, used capacity, drive capacity, reserved capacity, and more.

1. To define alerts for resources, choose one of the following options:

   Option	Steps
   Define alerts for a policy	Go to Configuration > Alert Policies. Attention: Default alert policy cannot be edited. To create the editable alert policy, right-click the default alert policy and select Copy Policy. The copied policy can be edited as needed. Double-click the policy. Click Edit Alert Definitions on the Alert Definitions tab.
   Define alerts for a resource that is not managed by a policy	Go to the resource list page for the resource. For example, to define alerts for a block storage system, go to Resources > Block Storage Systems. To define alerts for a switch, go to Resources > Switches. Right-click the resource for which you want to define alerts, then click View Alert Definitions. Click Edit Alert Definitions.

2. Click the type of resource that you want to alert on. For example, click Storage System.
3. Click the category of the attributes that you want to alert on.

   Category	Description
   General	Attributes for the key properties of a resource, such as status, version changes, removals, discoveries, state, data collection status, and warranty or maintenance expiry.
   Capacity	Attributes for capacity statistics of a resource, such as available capacity, used capacity, drive capacity, reserved capacity, and more.

   Restriction: Not all categories are available for some resources.
4. To enable the alert for an attribute, click the check mark for the attribute.
   The advanced options for the alert, such as notification frequency, are displayed.
5. Specify the conditions for generating an alert for an attribute.
   Conditions can include operators such as >=, <=, or Changes. Conditions can also include values such as compression ratios and compression ratio change percentages.
   For example, for a capacity attribute such as Used Capacity, you can specify that an alert is generated when the percentage of used capacity is greater than or equal to 70% in next 90 days.

   

   Note:

   With the help of AI-enabled capacity planning of IBM Storage Insights, capacity alerting help you identify where your storage system used capacity is heading. Following enhancements were now available while setting up a capacity alert for used capacity metric.

   2 new fields Capacity and Span were added while setting up alert definitions for used capacity.

   • The Capacity field is provided with 2 drop down values. Custom for providing desired value in the Value field, and Capacity Limit to default set Value to 80%.
   • The Span field is provided to specify the desired duration in days or dates. None value is also provided for Span field.

   To improve the reliability, alerts for capacity forecasting are triggered only if at least 60 days of historical capacity data is available for a storage system. This enhancement helps avoid premature or misleading alerts caused by rapid data migration shortly after a system is added to IBM Storage Insights.

   For example, when a new storage system with no data is added to IBM Storage Insights, used capacity may increase from 0% to 30% or 40% within a short time due to data migration. The AI-based forecast algorithm might interpret this trend as a sustained one and project that the system will breach the 75–80% threshold within 90 days. By requiring a minimum of 60 days of historical data before triggering the alerts, IBM Storage Insights helps ensure more accurate and stable capacity forecasts.

   IBM Storage Insights uses existing AI capability to calculate the growth trends and hence all alert policies for growth trends adhere to same limitations of AI-based capacity forecasting.

   Tips:

   • Not all attributes require conditions to generate an alert. For example, you can enable an alert for the Deleted Volume attribute, but you don't need to specify any conditions.
   • Some attributes use operators such as is, is not, contains, and changes. For example, for the Firmware attribute for a DS8000® you can select the operator Contains and enter R5 in the value field. An alert is triggered if the firmware is at the R5 level rather than at a later version such as R6.1, R6.2, or R6.3. You can use this alert definition if you want to be notified when the firmware for a storage system is reverted to a previous version.
6. Optional: Click View History to view a chart of the capacity of the resource. Use the chart to evaluate the current and historical capacity trend of a resource to help determine the threshold value for an alert.
   The chart uses colored lines to represent the different threshold values and severities that can be defined for an alert:

   • Critical alert: red
   • Warning alert: orange
   • Information alert: blue

   To customize the chart, click Top 10 or Bottom 10 to show resources according to their capacity, click a time period, and change the start and end dates for the data that is displayed.
7. Assign a severity to an alert.
   Assigning a severity can help you more quickly identify and address the critical conditions that are detected on resources. The severity that you assign depends on the guidelines and procedures within your organization. Default assignments are provided for each alert.

   Option	Description
   Critical	Alert is critical and needs to be resolved. For example, alerts that notify you when the amount of available capacity on a file system falls below a specified threshold.
   Warning	Alerts that are not critical, but represent potential problems. For example, alerts that notify you when the status of a data collection job is not normal.
   Informational	Alerts that might not require any action to resolve and are primarily for informational purposes. For example, alerts that are generated when a new pool is added to a storage system.

8. Optional: If you want to send email notifications of alert violations to contacts other than the policy contacts or global alert notification addresses, enter the email addresses in the Email Override field.
   Tip: If you enter an email address in the Email Override field, only that email address receives notifications for the alert. The following contacts do not receive notifications:

   • Any email addresses that are specified as policy contacts, if the alert is in an alert policy.
   • Any global email addresses that are specified for alert notifications. To view the global alert notification addresses, go to Configuration > Settings.
9. Optional: Click View Additional Options to specify how frequently you are notified of alerts.
   Use these settings to avoid triggering too many alerts for some conditions.
10. Optional: To send the alert to the selected webhooks, and override the configuration set in the Settings > Integrations page, check the box under the Webhook Override field and select the webhooks.
11. Optional: Duplicate an alert.
    Use this action when you want to define another alert for the same attribute but with different conditions and settings.
    Duplicating alerts can be helpful in the following situations:

    • When you want to generate separate warning alerts and critical alerts for different conditions on the same attribute.
      For example, for a capacity attribute such as Available Capacity, you might want to define the following alerts:

      • Define a warning alert to be generated when the amount of available capacity on a resource's pools is less than or equal to 50 GiB.
      • Duplicate the alert, but this time, specify a critical severity when the amount of available capacity on a resource's pools is less than or equal to 10 GiB.
    • When you want to send, alert notifications to different people based on the severity of an alert.

      In the previous example for the Available Pool Space attribute, you can configure the notification settings so that warning alerts are sent to junior administrators, while critical alerts are sent to more senior administrators.

12. Click Save Changes.