Adding health indicators

When you define health indicators, you associate thresholds with them. When these thresholds are breached, the service health score reflects that the service is no longer completely healthy. For example, you can add the Network Utilization (%) metric as a health indicator for a network service and create a policy to generate an alarm event as soon as the network utilization is above 80%. When the network utilization is above the defined threshold, an alarm is generated, which affects the health score of the service.

You can add health indicators for each CI individually or use dynamic configuration to add health indicators for multiple CIs simultaneously. Prediction events are not supported for the health indicators that are added by using dynamic configuration. Therefore, predictions for a service are based on only those health indicators that are added manually.  

Health score computation

Health score computation for a service depends on whether you have defined only health indicators or both the health indicators and event rules: 

• Only the health indicators are defined: When thresholds are breached for these metrics, events are generated. The service health score is computed based on the impact score assigned to the severity of the health indicator event as defined in the health score configuration.
• Both the health indicators and event rules are defined: When thresholds are breached for these metrics, events are generated. However, the events generated that match the criteria defined in the event rules are considered for computing the health score. The service health score is computed based on the impact score assigned to the severity of the health indicator event as defined in the health score configuration.

For more information about health score configuration, see Service health score and health timeline.

To add health indicators to a service manually

You can add health indicators either while creating a service or while editing it.

1. Click Services and then click Create New Service.
2. Provide the service definition.
   For more information, see Defining-a-service. 
3. Click Health Indicators.
4. Click the service (for example, Network) for which you want to add Network Utilization (%) as the health indicator.
5. In the Define Health Indicators pane, click Add Health Indicator.
6. Perform one of the following actions:
   • If you have added dynamic or static content for CIs that has metrics to select and you want to view only those metrics, select Metrics Applicable for this Service Content.
   • To view the list of all metrics, select All Available Metrics.
7. Select a CI Category (for example, Hosts & Hosts Containers) and CI Kind (for example, Host).

8. From the list of CI names displayed, expand a CI name, metric type, metric name, and then select the monitored host name and the associated entity.
   For example, for the Network service, expand Network Interface and then expand Network Utilization (%) and then select the required CI as Monitored Hostname and Entity. 

   Click here to see the list of metrics that can be added as health indicators:

   • Metrics collected by BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations from a third-party product. For the list of supported third-party products, see Sources supported by BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations.

   • Metrics monitored by the following PATROL KMs: 
     • PATROL for Amazon Web Services
     • PATROL for AIX
     • PATROL for Docker
     • PATROL for Elasticsearch
     • PATROL for IBM iSeries
     • PATROL for JBoss Application Server
     • PATROL for Kubernetes
     • PATROL for Linux
     • PATROL for Microsoft SQL Server
     • PATROL for OpenShift
     • PATROL for Oracle Enterprise Database
     • PATROL for Oracle WebLogic
     • PATROL for PostgreSQL Database
     • PATROL for Scripting
     • PATROL for Apache Tomcat 
     • PATROL for VMware vSphere
     • PATROL for Microsoft Windows Servers
9. Click Add Metric.
   The metric you added is displayed in the Added Metrics section.

10. (Optional) In the Added Metrics section, click Create Alarm Policy or Edit Alarm Policy to add or update the alarm policy for the listed metric in BMC Helix Operations Management. 
    For example, create a policy to generate an alarm event as soon as the network utilization is above 80%.

    Alarm Generation Condition added by default

    The Create Alarm Policy and Update Alarm Policy pages include the metric name as the instance name and the monitored CI Kind as the device host name in the Alarm Generation Condition section by default.

    For more information about creating or editing an alarm policy in BMC Helix Operations Management, see Configuring alarm policies.

11. Click Save and Close.
    The metrics you have added appear in the Define Health Indicators pane as part of first health indicator group. You can add a maximum of two such health indicator groups. During service health computation, all the health indicators that are added in these groups are considered.
12. Click Save and Close.
    The count of health indicator groups is shown as part of the Network service. The details of the health indicators you have added here are displayed in the View Health Indicators section on the service details page. For more information, see Monitoring-service-health-indicators.
    
     

To add health indicators to a service dynamically

You can add health indicators to a service dynamically, while creating a service or while editing it. When the Dynamic Configuration option is enabled, you can define health indicators for multiple CIs simultaneously. The selected health indicator can be applied to multiple CIs by using regular expressions. 

1. Click Services and then click Create New Service. 
2. Provide the service definition.
   For more information, see Defining-a-service. 
3. Click Health Indicators and then select the service for which you want to add the health indicator.
4. In the Define Health Indicators pane, click Add Health Indicator.
5. Select Metrics Applicable for this Service Content.
   This option indicates that you have added dynamic or static content for CIs that have metrics to select, and you want to view only those metrics.
6. Select the Dynamic Configuration check box which is available only if you have selected the Metrics Applicable for this Service Content option.
7. Select a CI Category (for example, Hosts & Hosts Containers) and CI Kind (for example, Host).
8. From the list of metric types, expand a metric type and then select the metric name.
   For example, expand the Network metric type and select the Percentage bandwidth utilization (%) metric.
9. In Monitored Hostname regEx, enter a regular expression to configure multiple hosts simultaneously.
   For example, if you want to set the Percentage bandwidth utilization (%) metric as the health indicator for all CIs that start with clm-pun, enter clm-pun.* as the regular expression in this field.
10. In Entity regEx, enter the regular expression to include all or specific entity types.  
    For example, for the Percentage bandwidth utilization (%) metric to include all the entity types, enter .* as the regular expression.

11. Click Add Metric.
    The metric you added is displayed in the Added Metrics section.

    Important

     The Create Alarm Policy and Edit Alarm Policy options are not available.

12. Click Save and Close.
    The metrics you have added appear in the Define Health Indicators pane as part of the first health indicator group. You can add a maximum of two such health indicator groups. During service health computation, all the health indicators that are added to these groups are considered.
13. Click Save and Close.
    The count of health indicator groups is shown as part of the service.
    The details of the health indicators you have added here are displayed in the View Health Indicators section on the service details page. The section can display a maximum of 50 health indicators that are added dynamically. For more information, see Monitoring-service-health-indicators.

To edit health indicators for a service

1. From the Services page, search and select a service for which you want to edit health indicators. 
2. From the actionmenu, select Edit Service.
3. Click Health Indicators and then click the service.
4. In the Define Health Indicators pane, expand the Health Indicators list.
5. From the Action menu for a health indicator group, select Edit.
6. Edit the health indicators as required.
7. Click Save and Close.

To delete health indicators for a service

When you delete a health indicator, it is no longer considered for computing the health score for a service.

1. From the Services page, search and select a service for which you want to delete health indicators.
2. From the actionmenu, select Edit Service.
3. On the Edit Service page, click Health Indicators and then click the service.
   The Define Service Indicators pane shows the list of health indicators created for the service.
4. In the Define Health Indicators pane, expand the Health Indicators list.
5. From the Action menu for a health indicator group, select Delete.
6. Click Save and Close.

Where to go from here

Based on what you want to configure for your services, perform the following optional tasks:

• Add event rules
• Add balancing profiles
• Customize health score and health status