Configuring and managing Optimizer rules

About Optimizer rules

Every alert or recommendation is generated based on the conditions and configurations that are defined in an Optimizer rule. For example, you can define a rule for VMware vSphere virtual machines (VM) that generates an alert when a VM has been idle for over 45 days, or has snapshots that are older than 60 days. An Optimizer rule is primarily composed of the following items:

• A set of conditions on one or more resources. For example, identify a VM that has been inactive for more than 45 days as idle VM.
• A set of actions that are run if at least one condition is met. For example, send an email when a VM is detected to be idle.

Optimizer rules are defined per system type. You can specify the entities to which the rule applies and define its scope. For example, you can define a rule that applies to all entities of a specific domain or to specific entities only. A rule can contain multiple conditions. Each condition corresponds to an alert or a recommendation. You can modify the configurations in a rule to exclude certain entities or modify the parameters in a condition. 

The Optimizer task, a backend system task, evaluates the conditions in the Optimizer rule and threshold violations on the collected data and enables automatic alerting. Each condition is evaluated separately from other conditions of the same rule. The Optimizer task can be scheduled to run to re-evaluate alerts and recommendations. Each time the task runs, the rules are processed and the generated results overwrite the previous recommendation results. 

If you reconfigured a rule or modified a metric threshold that is used in the rule, and want to generate recommendations immediately, you can manually run the rule. Also, if you modified an indicator parameter or threshold that impacts multiple Optimizer rules, you can manually run the Optimizer task that is associated with these rules. On running the task, all the associated rules are triggered to run. For more information about configuring an Optimizer task, see Configuring-the-Optimizer-task.

Some Optimizer rules are available out-of-the-box. These are based on predefined templates. The out-of-the-box Optimizer rules are available for the following environments:

• Virtualization technologies
  • AIX
  • Hyper-V
  • Solaris
  • VMware
• Cloud technologies
  • AWS
  • Azure
• Systems for self-monitoring diagnostics and future saturation alerts
• OpenStack

You can modify the out-of-the-box rules or create new ones by using these templates. For example, for vSphere VMs that are hosting business-critical applications, you can define one rule that runs daily and sends you an alert email when the VM is detected to have resources that will soon saturate. For vSphere VMs that are hosting not-so-critical applications, you can define another rule that sends you a similar alert but runs on a weekly basis.  

If the predefined templates do not meet your requirements, you can define custom rules with custom conditions. 

To add, modify, enable or disable, and run an Optimizer rule, ensure that the role assigned to your user group has the Optimizer - Edit activity associated with it.

To add an Optimizer rule

1. Access the Rules page.
2. Click Add rule.
3. To add a rule by using the out-of-the-box templates, see Adding-a-template-based-Optimizer-rule. To add a custom rule, see Adding-a-custom-Optimizer-rule.

To modify an Optimizer rule

1. Access the Rules page.
2. Click the name of the rule that you want to modify.
3. In the <Rule name> page, click Edit.
   If the rule is based on the out-of-the-box templates (Rule type field value is based on template), see Adding-a-template-based-Optimizer-rule for configuration options. Else, for a custom rule (Rule type field value is custom rule), see Adding-a-custom-Optimizer-rule.
   When the associated Optimizer task runs, the reconfigured Optimizer rule is used to generate recommendations.

To delete an Optimizer rule

1. Access the Rules page.
2. Click the name of the rule that you want to delete.
3. In the <Rule name> page, click Delete.

To enable or disable an Optimizer rule

1. Access the Rules page.
2. Click the name of the rule that you want to enable or disable.
3. Click Enable or Disable depending on the current status of the rule.

To manually run an Optimizer rule

1. Access the Rules page.
2. Click the name of the rule that you want to run.
3. In the <Rule name> page, click Run. The Optimizer rule is initiated to run immediately. It generates recommendations that override the existing recommendations.

To view results of an Optimizer rule

1. Access the Rules page.
2. Click the name of the rule that you want to view details for.
3. In the <Rule name> page, click the Generated alerts/recommendations link. The Generated alerts/recommendations table lists all the recommendations that the rule generated in the last run. For each recommendation, you can see the entity for which it was generated, a short description, the recommendation type, and the recommended actions.
   You can click the entity name in the table to view the entity details in the Workspace.