Defining a blackout policy

You can define a blackout policy to restrict the PATROL Agent so that it does not send data, events, or recovery actions to TrueSight Operations Management for the predefined time frame. You can also define a blackout policy that is permanently active for specific PATROL Agents.

Ensure that you have the required permissions to define and manage blackout policies. For details, see Configuring-Infrastructure-Management-to-monitor-and-manage-your-infrastructure-systems.

Blackout policy properties

General

Property	Description
Name	Name for the policy. The policy names must be unique. In an environment with tenants, the policy names must be unique for a single tenant. It is a mandatory field. For more information, see Policy naming guidelines.
Description	(Optional) A brief description about the policy
Associated User Group	Name of the user group that is associated with the PATROL Agents as defined in the Authorization Profile or in the PATROL Agent ACLs. The policy is applicable to these PATROL Agents. Note: The list of user groups that is displayed includes the user groups that the logged on user belongs to. For monitoring and blackout policies, this property determines the monitoring solutions and configuration options that you have. For more information about granting or restricting access, see Specifying objects in an authorization profile This property can be viewed in READ-ONLY mode by other users of the user group. Only the owner of the policy can modify this property.
Share with User Group	Specify whether this policy is to be shared with the users across the associated user group or not. This property can be viewed in READ-ONLY mode by other users of the associated user group. Only the owner of the policy can modify this property.
Precedence	This setting is not applicable for blackout policies.
Enable Policy	Indicates whether the policy is enabled or disabled. By default, the policy is enabled. If you disable a policy when you create it, the policy configurations are not applied to the PATROL Agents and the Infrastructure Management Servers. If you disable any existing policy, the policy configurations are removed from the PATROL Agents and the Infrastructure Management servers, where the policy was applied.

Agent Selection Criteria

Configure the conditions to select PATROL Agents based on the following properties, and the policy is applied on the selected agents.

Property	Description
Agent Host Name	Host name of the computer on which the PATROL Agent is installed. Note: The value for the matches property must be a strict regular expression. Some examples of regular expressions that can be used: virtual_machine -- To select Agents that match the exact string "virtual_machine" .?virtual_machine. -- To select Agents that match the sub-string "virtual_machine" *^((?!clm-pun).)$ -- To select Agents that do not match the sub-string "clm-pun**"
Agent Port	Port number through which the PATROL Agent listens for incoming connections from the PATROL console. Use port numbers from 1025 to 65535.
Agent Version	Version of the PATROL Agent.
Agent Operating System	Operating system of the computer on which the PATROL Agent is installed.
Agent IP Address	IP address of the computer on which the PATROL Agent is installed. If you select the Agent IP Address in the range condition, only IPv4 range is supported.
Agent Tag	Tag applied on the PATROL Agent.
Integration Service	PATROL Agents connected to the selected Integration Service.
Infrastructure Management Server	PATROL Agents connected to the selected Infrastructure Management Server.
Monitoring Solution Name¹	PATROL Agents on which the selected monitoring solution is installed.
Monitoring Solution Version¹	PATROL Agents on which monitoring solutions of the specified version are installed.
Tenant Name	Name of the tenant to which the PATROL Agent are associated via the Integration Service.

¹ - The Monitoring Solution Name property is only applicable to PATROL Agent version 10.0 and later.

You can set multiple conditions and also group the conditions to identify the agents.

Note: The values that you enter for the properties are not case-sensitive.

Scope

Option	Description
Apply Blackout To:	Displays the following options: Complete Agents - Indicates that the blackout configuration is applicable to all the monitor instances on the selected PATROL Agents. Monitor Types and Instances - Indicates that the blackout configuration is applicable to the monitor instances of the specific monitor types on the selected PATROL Agents. If you select this option, you must add the monitor types and instances.
For Agent Output	Displays the following options: Data (TYPE_COLLECTION) - The Infrastructure Management server stops receiving data, which includes events and recovery actions, from PATROL Agents. Events (TYPE_EVENT) - The Infrastructure Management server stops receiving events and recovery actions from the PATROL Agents. Recovery Actions (TYPE_RECOVERY) - The Infrastructure Management server stops receiving recovery actions from the PATROL Agents. Note: After the Recovery Actions option is selected, you cannot remove the option. The scope of a blackout policy is always applicable for recovery actions.
Do Not Send Blackout Start/Stop Events (TYPE_APPLICATION_BO_EVENT)	If you select this option, PATROL Agents do not send blackout start and stop events for the blacked out monitor instances. When you black out an Agent, all the monitor instances are automatically blacked out, and this option enables you to stop the Agent from sending start and stop events for each monitor instance.

To create a blackout policy

The following video (5:36) explains how to create and implement a blackout policy.

Log on to the TrueSight console.
In the navigation pane, expand Configuration and select Policies.
Click the Blackout tab and then, click Create Policy.
In the Create Blackout Policy page, specify the blackout policy properties:
1. Specify the basic properties. For more information, see General properties.
2. Configure the conditions to select the PATROL Agents on which you want to apply the policy. For more information, see Agent Selection Criteria properties.
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To associate time frames with the policy: In the Time Frames tab, select the time frames from the Available list and move them to the Selected list.
Notes
- The Available list includes all the time frames that you have created. For more information about creating time frames, see Defining-a-time-frame-for-blackout-policies
- The time specified in the time frame is applied according to the PATROL Agent local time. For example, a blackout policy that is set for 3 A.M.– 6 A.M. and applied to four Agents (2 PDT, 2 EDT) makes the PATROL Agents in US Eastern Daylight Savings Time (EDT) go into blackout 3 hours before the two PATROL Agents in the US Pacific Daylight Saving Time (PDT).
To specify the scope of blackout:
1. Click the Scope tab.
2. Configure the scope of blackout. For more information, see Scope properties.
Click Save.

After you save the blackout policy, the configuration is pushed to the selected PATROL Agents.

Notes

If you remove a monitoring policy that has Agent threshold configured during a blackout period, events generated by the PATROL Agent do not get closed and continue to be displayed in the TrueSight console.

Where to go from here

Monitoring-devices-from-the-TrueSight-console