Creating service monitoring policies

If a cloud administrator has enabled service monitoring policies for a service, you can create rules that initiate BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management actions based on service performance breaching defined threshold clauses.

This topic includes the following sections:

• • Threshold clauses
  • Rule types
  • Precedence
  • Waiting periods
  • Recommendations
  • To view service monitoring rules
  • To create a service monitoring notification rule
  • To create a service monitoring remediation rule
  • To edit a service monitoring rule
  • To view activities for a service monitoring rule
  • Related topics

Threshold clauses

Each rule contains one or more threshold clauses, which include the following pieces of information:

• A performance criteria threshold, such as memory utilization above 80%
• The duration the threshold is continually breached, measured in minutes

Rule types

Each rule defines an action to take (either notification or remediation) when the threshold clauses are breached. A notification rule sends an email. A remediation rule makes a change to the service to help resolve a potential problem. For example, you could create a notification rule that sends you an email alert whenever the memory utilization of a resource set is above 90% for 5 minutes. You could create a remediation rule that adds a server to a resource set whenever system CPU utilization is above 80% for 15 minutes. You can define both a notification action and a remediation action in the same rule.

Precedence

If you have multiple rules defined of a particular type (notification or remediation), rules higher in the list take precedence over rules lower in the list. For example, you might create two rules to improve the performance of a server when CPU utilization is high. One rule might add CPU to the server group when utilization is above 70% for 10 minutes. Another rule might add servers to the server group when utilization is above 90% for 10 minutes. If the second rule has a higher precedence, should CPU utilization jump from 50% to 95% for 10 minutes the second rule would be triggered instead of the first rule, even though the conditions for both rules were met. Similarly, should CPU utilization jump from 50% to 85% for 10 minutes the first rule would be triggered instead of the second rule, because although the second rule has a higher precedence, its conditions were not met. You could also create two notifications rules that notify different people or groups of people based on different conditions, and give one notification rule a higher precedence.

You can adjust the precedence of your rules by dragging and dropping them in the list.

Waiting periods

As part of the definition of a rule you define a waiting period that prevents actions from being repeated for a defined length of time. This ensures that you allow enough time for the requested action to be completed without initiation other potentially conflicting changes. The default waiting period is 15 minutes.

After a remediation rule affecting a target server is triggered, other remediation rules that would affect that server are disabled until the waiting period has elapsed. For example, if you have two remediation rules with different threshold clauses, once one rule is triggered, both rules will be disabled until the waiting period of the triggered rule has elapsed. It might be that your defined waiting period is not long enough to allow an action to be completed. In these cases, BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management attempts to keep other rules inactive beyond the defined waiting period, until the action has completed. A notification rule triggered while a remediation is in progress will begin as soon as it is triggered.

Recommendations

To minimize the impact of your rules on system performance, create only those rules that you are certain to need.

If you need remediation and notification actions for a service, consider combining those actions in a single rule rather than creating 2 separate rules. For example in a single rule you might define a remediation action that adds a server when CPU utilization is high, and a notification action that alerts you that a server was added to your service instance.

To view service monitoring rules

1. On the Services link bar of the My Services tab, select a row in the Services table.
   If the service has service monitoring policies enabled, the Manage Policies icon appears in the toolbar.

2. Click the Manage Policies icon.
   The Policies display opens, showing the existing policies for the selected service. By default, the Policies display is empty.
   
   Policies display for service monitoring

   

To create a service monitoring notification rule

1. In the Policies display, click New Rule.
   The Add a new rule dialog box opens.
2. In the Rule Name field, enter a name for the rule.
3. In the When section, define one or more conditions that must be met to trigger an action:
   
   1. Select a type of metric.
   2. Select a comparative symbol (>, >=, <, <=, or =).
   3. Enter a number for the threshold that triggers an action.
   4. Enter the number of minutes the threshold must be reached to trigger an action.
   5. If you want to add another condition, click Add Clause, specify whether the new condition is additional (AND) or optional (OR), and then repeat steps a through d.
4. In the Do this section, select Send notification email.
   
5. In the To field, enter one or more email addresses (separated by commas) for the primary recipients of the notification.
6. (Optional) In the CC field, enter one or more email addresses (separated by commas) for the non-critical recipients of the notification.
7. (Optional) In the BCC field, enter one or more email addresses for any recipients (separated by commas) whose email addresses should be hidden from other recipients.
8. In the Subject field, enter text to appear on the Subject line of the email.
9. In the Body field, enter text to appear in the body of the email.
10. In the Do not repeat action again for at least field, enter the number of minutes the action waits after sending the notification to check whether a new notification should be sent.
11. Click OK.
    The new rule appears at the bottom of the list of rules.
12. If necessary, change the precedence of the rule:
    1. Drag and drop the rule to a new place in the list of rules.
    2. Click Apply Precedence.
13. When you are ready for the rule to go into effect, click Activate.

To create a service monitoring remediation rule

1. In the Policies display, click New Rule.
   The Add a new rule dialog box opens.
2. In the Rule Name field, enter a name for the rule.
3. In the When section, define one or more conditions that must be met to trigger an action:
   
   1. Select a type of metric.
   2. Select a comparative symbol (>, >=, <, <=, or =).
   3. Enter a number for the threshold that triggers an action.
   4. Enter the number of minutes the threshold must be reached to trigger an action.
   5. If you want to add another condition, click Add Clause, specify whether the new condition is additional (AND) or optional (OR), and then repeat steps a through d.
4. In the Do this section, select Perform an action.
   

5. In the drop-down list, select the action you want to perform.
   New fields appear depending on the action you want taken, as shown in the following table:

    

   Action	Additional fields	Notes
   Add Memory Without Server Restart	Amount of memory to add to each server at a time (in MB) Maximum amount of memory allowed per server (in MB)	This option is available only if it has been enabled by the cloud administrator.
   Add CPUs Without Server Restart	Number of CPUs to add to each server at a time Maximum number of CPUs allowed per server	This option is available only if it has been enabled by the cloud administrator.
   Add Memory With Server Restart	Amount of memory to add to each server at a time (in MB) Maximum amount of memory allowed per server (in MB)
   Remove Memory With Server Restart	Amount of memory to remove from each server at a time (in MB) Minimum amount of memory required per server (in MB)
   Add CPUs With Server Restart	Number of CPUs to add to each server at a time Maximum number of CPUs allowed per server
   Remove CPUs With Server Restart	Number of CPUs to remove from each server at a time Minimum number of CPUs required per server
   Add Servers	Number of servers to add at a time Maximum number of servers allowed Username Password Confirm Password Include script Type (Windows .bat file or Shell script) Script Input Parameters	For the Username and Passwords fields, enter authentication information for the server being added. If you are unsure about what to enter, contact your system administrator. The number of servers refers to the servers in this resource set. The Type, Script, and Input Parameters fields appear only if you select the Include script check box. Scripts are useful for post-provisioning actions. For example, if a Tomcat Web server is overloaded, and you use a policy to add another, you could use a script to deploy a Web application archive (WAR) file on the server before starting the server. Ensure that you test and validate the syntax of any script you include in the action. If you include parameters in your script, provide the input values for those parameters in the Input Parameters field.
   Remove Servers	Number of servers to remove at a time Minimum number of servers required Username Password Confirm Password Include script Type (Windows .bat file or Shell script) Script Input Parameters	For the Username and Passwords fields, enter authentication information for the server being added. If you are unsure about what to enter, contact your system administrator. The number of servers refers to the servers in this resource set. The Type, Script, and Input Parameters fields appear only if you select the Include script check box. Ensure that you test and validate the syntax of any script you include in the action. If you include parameters in your script, provide the input values for those parameters in the Input Parameters field.
   Custom	(Defined by the cloud administrator)	Custom actions are available only if they are defined and enabled by the cloud administrator.

6. In the Do not repeat action again for at least field, enter the number of minutes the action waits after sending the notification to check whether a new notification should be sent.
7. Click OK.
   The new rule appears at the bottom of the list of rules.
8. If necessary, change the precedence of the rule:
   1. Drag and drop the rule to a new place in the list of rules.
   2. Click Apply Precedence.
9. When you are ready for the rule to go into effect, click Activate.

To edit a service monitoring rule

1. In the Policies display, click the edit icon for the rule you want to change.
2. The Edit rule dialog box opens.
3. Make the necessary changes to your rule.
4. Click OK.
5. If necessary, change the precedence of the rule:
   1. Drag and drop the rule to a new place in the list of rules.
   2. Click Apply Precedence.

To view activities for a service monitoring rule

If you want to see all of the activities BMC Cloud Lifecycle Management has taken based on a specific service monitoring rule, click the Show Activity icon  for the rule. This opens the Activities display, with the list of activities filtered to show only the activities for the specific rule. See Viewing-service-monitoring-activities for more information.

Related topics

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Viewing-service-monitoring-activities
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