Configuring alarm policies

You can create, edit, view, and delete alarm policies. You can also view a list of alarm policy conflicts and an audit trail of all updates made to all alarm policies.

To create an alarm policy

1. Navigate to the Configuration > Alarm Policies page and click Create.
2. Specify a unique name and an optional description.
3. Add a unique precedence number to the policy.
   You can add a custom value in this field, or use the arrows to increase or decrease the value. For more information, see Alarm-policies.

4. Create the conditions based on which the alarm will be generated.

   Constructing the alarm generation conditions

   You can define the alarm generation conditions for multiple or all instances.

   Start adding a condition by specifying these details:

   

   
   

   1. Metric details: Select metrics from one of the following monitor types:
      • BMC Monitor Types
      • BMC Dynamic Monitor Types
        You must first enable the dynamic monitor types for metric selection. For more information, see Dynamic-monitor-type-registration-management-endpoints-in-the-REST-API.
      • Third Party Monitor Types

   2. Instance details: The metric and the number of instances for which you want to add this policy.
      Select one of the following options:

      Instance name

      • The instance name is case sensitive. Ensure that you use the instance name as displayed in the Device Details page while defining the selection criteria.
      • The instance name that you enter in the alarm policy is displayed in the object slot for an alarm event and not in the instancename slot on the Events page.

      • All Instances
      • Multiple Instances: When you select multiple instances, you can define multiple conditions using parameters such as agent tag name, hostname, instance name, port, etc. You can also use regular expressions while defining multiple instances by using the Matches operator.

      You cannot create multiple alarm polices with the same metrics and conditions. You can create policies with the same metrics and conditions only if the instance type is different. The instance type can be All or Multiple.
      If you create multiple alarm polices with the same metrics, same conditions, and different instance types, the policy with the Multiple instance type takes precedence.
      You can also copy the criteria by clicking Copy . The copied criteria can be reused in subsequent policies by pressing Ctrl+V in the selection criteria field.
      
      

      Preview button

      • The Preview button is disabled if you specify the Device Host Name and Instance Name in the selection criteria.
      • The Preview button displays only those devices that satisfy the selection criteria.
   3. Threshold details and post trigger actions: The threshold value, violation duration, and details about when the generated alarm must be closed eventually.
      Specify if the event must be closed immediately after the metric reaches a normal state and a duration after the violation time period has lapsed. You can also specify that the event must not be closed. Alarm events that are not closed remain open until they are closed manually, the policy is deleted, or the PATROL Agent associated with the alarm is deleted. To change any of the values, click them.
   4. Baseline: Specifies whether after the static threshold is breached and the baseline calculation for a metric is violated, only then the alarm is generated.

   Example 1: As per the condition defined in the following image (Monitoring solution: Linux; Monitor type: CPU; Metric: Utilization), when the CPU Utilization of all Linux computers whose instance name starts with 'CPU1' crosses the threshold of 75% for a period of 15 minutes, a Major alarm will be generated. After the Utilization returns to a normal state of below 75% and a 15 minutes lapse, the generated alarm is automatically closed.

   

   You can add multiple conditions per metric. To add additional conditions, click Add Condition. Click Duplicate Condition to create another condition with the same details that you can modify later. To add conditions for a different metric, click Add Instance Policy.

   If you have multiple conditions with varying threshold values and severity levels, an alarm is generated when the first condition is breached. When the next condition is breached, a new alarm is not generated. Instead, the severity of the first alarm changes.

   Suppose you added these conditions:

   • If CPU utilization crosses 75% for a period of 15 minutes, generate a Major alarm.
   • If CPU utilization crosses 85% for a period of 15 minutes, generate a Critical alarm.

   In this scenario, when the CPU utilization of a computer crosses 75% for a period of 15 minutes, a Major alarm is generated. When the CPU utilization of the same computer crosses 85%, the earlier alarm severity changes from Major to Critical. If the CPU utilization returns to 75%, the alarm severity changes from Critical to Major.

   
   

   Example 2: As per the condition defined in the following image (Monitoring solution: Linux; Monitor type: CPU; Metric: Utilization), when the CPU Utilization of all Linux computers whose agent tag name is production and agent host name begins with clm crosses the threshold of 75% for a period of 15 minutes, a Major alarm will be generated. After the Utilization returns to a normal state of below 75% and a 15 minutes lapse, the generated alarm is automatically closed.

   

   
   

   Example 3: The following example uses a regular expression while defining multiple instances. As per the condition defined in the following image (Monitoring solution: Linux; Monitor type: CPU; Metric: Utilization), when the CPU Utilization of all Linux computers whose agent host name matches the regular expression AM-.* and instance name matches the regular expression ^0.*, crosses the threshold of 75% for 15 minutes, a Major alarm will be generated. After the Utilization returns to a normal state of below 75% and a 15 minutes lapse, the generated alarm is automatically closed. The following example explains how the regular expressions defined in the following image helps you to filter the instances based on agent host names and instance names.

   • Agent host names

     • hostAM-34TEST1
     • devAM-PRODSETtest
     • M-PSRTESTserver

     As per the agent host name regular expression AM-.*, only 2 host names (hostAM-34TEST1 and devAM-PRODSETtest) are selected from the preceding list.

   • Instance names

     • 04578
     • 0prodtest
     • qa0test

     As per the instance name regular expression ^0.*, only 2 instance names (04578 and 0prodtest) are selected from the preceding list.

   

   Example 4: As per the condition defined in the following image (Monitoring solution: Linux; Monitor type: CPU; Metric: Utilization), when the CPU Utilization of all Linux computers whose instance name starts with 'CPU1' crosses the threshold of 75% for a period of 15 minutes, and it violates the baseline determined for that event, a Major alarm will be generated. After the Utilization returns to a normal state of below 75% and a 15 minutes lapse, the generated alarm is automatically closed.

   

5. (Optional) Select Enable Policy.
   You can enable or disable the policy any time from the Alarm Policies page.

1. Save the policy.

   Can I create a new policy using an existing policy?

   You can create a new policy quickly by copying an existing policy and editing the configurations. For more information, see copying an alarm policy.

To edit an alarm policy

1. Navigate to the Configuration > Alarm Policies page and do one of the following:
   • Select the policy and click Edit.
   • From the Actions menu of a policy, select Edit.
2. Change the configuration details provided while creating the policy and click Save.

When you edit an alarm policy, the system incrementally loads 25 threshold values at once on a page scroll to improve usability.

If you update the precedence of existing policies, the system automatically closes open alarms associated with the policy and generates new alarms for any subsequent metric threshold violations for that policy.

You cannot search thresholds that are not yet loaded on the page.

To view conflicting alarm policies

To view a list of the alarm policies that have the same severity defined for the same metric, go to Configuration > Alarm Policies and click Check policy conflicts. A PDF file with the list of conflicting alarm policies is downloaded.

To copy an alarm policy

1. Navigate to the Configuration > Alarm Policies.
2. Click the action menu of the policy that you want to copy and select Copy. 
   The Create Alarm Policy page is displayed with the configurations of the copied policy. 
3. Modify the configurations according to your requirements to create a new policy quickly. 
4. (Optional) Select Enable Policy.
   You can enable or disable the policy any time from the Alarm Policies page.

1. Save the policy.

To view the list of alarm policies

On the Configuration > Alarm Policies page, view the list of alarm policies.

By default, the policies are sorted by Name. To sort on a different column, click the column heading.

To enable or disable an alarm policy

On the Configuration > Alarm Policies page, do one of the following:

• Select the policy and click Enable or Disable.
• From the Actions menu of a policy, select Enable or Disable.
• Edit the policy and select or clear the Enable Policy check box.

To delete an alarm policy

On the Configuration > Alarm Policies page, do one of the following:

• Select one or more policies and click Delete.
• From the Actions menu of a policy, select Delete, and click Yes.

In the policy post-trigger actions, if you have specified that the alarm must not be closed, such alarm events are automatically closed if they are not updated for more than the period specified in the retention policy. All closed events are automatically deleted from the system as per the retention policy. However, if you delete such a policy or the PATROL Agent associated with such an alarm is deleted, the alarm is automatically closed.

For more information about the retention policy, seeBMC Helix Operations Management service.

To view the audit trail of alarm policies

As a tenant administrator, you can use the BMC Helix Audit dashboard in BMC Helix Dashboards, to view the trail of all changes that were made to alarm policies. The BMC Helix Audit Dashboard provides the audit trail of alarm policies. 

For more information, see Auditing user activities in BMC Helix Dashboards.

The following image displays the audit trail of alarm policies in the BMC Helix Portal Audit dashboard. Note that the selected resource type is Alarm Policy.