Page tree

Policy precedence controls the configuration applied to the PATROL Agents and Infrastructure Management servers when there are conflicting or overlapping configurations defined between two or more policies. The following sections in this topic describe how precedence is applied and best practices regarding usage of precedence values.

Policy precedence behavior

Precedence is the priority of a policy and ranges from 0 to 999. A lower number indicates a higher priority.

All policy configuration that is sent to a particular BMC PATROL Agent is combined and the result is then sent to the BMC PATROL Agent.

BehaviorProactiveNet 9.5

ProactiveNet  9.5 Service Pack 1 and later or Infrastructure Management 9.6 and later

Precedence evaluation and conflict resolutionApplied at the application class and monitor type level.Applied at the monitored instance level.
Same precedence number between two policiesAny conflicting configuration from the most recently created policy overrides conflicting configuration from the policies created earlier.Same behavior

Example:

Policy A with precedence number 115 includes configuration for monitoring the following Microsoft Windows services:

  • Windows Update Service
  • Windows Time
  • Windows Firewall

Policy B with precedence number 105 includes configuration for monitoring the following Windows services:

  • Windows Event Logs
  • Windows Event Collector
After the two policies are applied to an Agent, the Agent is configured according to policy B. The Windows services configured in policy A are not monitored. After the two policies are applied to an Agent, the Agent is configured according to the union of policy A and policy B. All the Windows services configured in policy A and policy B are monitored. 

Policy precedence values

It is very important to keep policies organized, otherwise it can be difficult to know the settings that are applied to agents and the order in which the precedence is applied. Therefore, BMC recommends that you keep policies organized according to the precedence number. You must define a precedence numbering system so that policies are grouped according to numeric ranges by the precedence number based on the monitored technology that the policies are related to. The following chart is an example.

Precedence range

Monitored technology

Additional details

1 - 10

Staging policies

Contains settings for data collection Integration Service nodes

11 - 99

Blackout policies

Contains settings for agent blackout periods based on specific time frames

100 - 199

Agent configuration

Contains settings such as agent user ID/password, agent tag, history retention, and so on

200 – 210

Windows Operating System Basic

Configuration for Microsoft Windows operating system monitoring that covers basic settings and applies as a standard to most or all Windows servers

211 – 219

Windows clusters

Configuration for Microsoft Windows Cluster monitoring

220 – 229

Active Directory

Configuration for monitoring Microsoft Active Directory

230 – 239

MS SQL Server

Configuration for monitoring Microsoft SQL Server

240 – 249

SharePoint

Configuration for monitoring Microsoft SharePoint

250 –259

Exchange

Configuration for monitoring Microsoft Exchange

260 – 269

Microsoft DNS

Configuration for monitoring Microsoft DNS servers

270 – 279

Microsoft DHCP

Configuration for monitoring Microsoft DHCP servers

280 – 289

IIS

Configuration for monitoring Microsoft IIS servers

290 – 299

Windows Operating System Nonstandard

Configuration for Microsoft Windows operating system monitoring that covers nonstandard configurations

300 – 329

Linux Operating System Basic

Configuration for Linux operating system monitoring that covers basic settings and applies as a standard to most or all Linux servers

330 – 349

Linux Operating System Nonstandard

Configuration for Linux operating system monitoring that covers nonstandard configurations

350 – 369

UNIX Operating System Basic

Configuration for Linux operating system monitoring that covers basic settings and applies as a standard to most or all Linux servers

370 – 389

UNIX Operating System Nonstandard

Configuration for Linux operating system monitoring that covers nonstandard configurations

390 – 399

Currently Not Used

 

400 – 449

Oracle databases

Configuration for monitoring the Oracle Databases

450 – 499

Oracle applications

Configuration for monitoring Oracle applications

500 – 549

Apache

Configuration for monitoring Apache web servers

Related topic

Defining general policy details