Alarm definitions

Data elements are the data components of a data collector record, displayed as fields in a view. Alarm information is stored in Alarm Management as alarm definitions.

Each alarm definition describes alarm reports for a single combination of view, product, and context. You can specify the following alarm definition attributes:

• Threshold conditions (BMC AMI Ops data elements) and persistence of the conditions to be met before an alert is issued

  Threshold conditions for an alarm definition include the element name, an operator, and the threshold values for Informational, Warning, Minor, Major, and Critical severities. Each condition is for a particular element in the view that you are monitoring. An alarm definition requires at least one condition, but you can set as many conditions as you like, up to the number of elements in the view that you are monitoring.

• How multiple threshold conditions are combined when determining whether an alarm report is issued

  By default, if multiple conditions exist, the conditions are separated by AND, which means that both conditions must be present for Alarm Management to issue an alarm report.

• Message ID and the message text contained in the alarm report
• Actions (such as hyperlinks to specific BMC AMI Ops product views)
• Frequency that Alarm Management checks to see if an alert should be generated (evaluation schedule)
• Time period during which an alarm definition is active
• Distribution of the alarm reports
• Hyperlinks to views, extended help, data passed to BMC AMI OpsA, and data passed to BMC Event Manager and BMC Service Impact Manager

Alarm definitions are always contained in an alarm group and stored in a parameter library member that is read by Alarm Management during initialization and whenever administrative functions are performed.