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What a Rule is

A Rule is basically a two-part conditional statement: when the conditions of the first part of the statement are met, the actions of the second part of the statement are performed. The two parts of the statement are called

  • Selection criteria
  • Action specifications

Selection criteria

Selection criteria are user-specified event attributes the Rule uses to recognize an event that will be automated.

When you create a Rule, you choose specific attributes of the event that the Rule will try to match to incoming events. When the specified selection criteria match that of an incoming event, the Rule fires and the automation action will be taken.

Each event type has its own selection criteria panel that contains the applicable attributes for that event. For more information. see Step-1-Using-Selection-Criteria-fields.

Action specifications

The second part of a Rule is a set of user-specified automation actions, also called action specifications.

When a Rule’s selection criteria matches an incoming event and the Rule fires, the user-specified automation actions are performed. This action is also called handling the event.

Some examples of automation actions are suppressing a message from appearing on the console or issuing an ALERT that notifies an operator of an exceptional situation that requires operator intervention.

Each event type has its own action specification panels that contain the applicable actions for the event. For more information. see Step-3-Specifying-a-Rule-s-actions-with-the-Action-Specification-fields. 

In summary, a Rule screens incoming events for matches to user-specified selection criteria and, when the attributes of an event match the selection criteria, the Rule fires and performs the user-specified automation actions.

Tip

When specifying action specifications for a Rule, you should ensure that the action specification does not create events that re-trigger the original Rule. This type of error results in a loop and the Rules might fire endlessly.

To prevent this situation from happening, it is recommended that you set a limit for how many times a Rule fires. Criteria-match-rate-thresholds describes how you can limit the number of times a Rule fires and therefore, prevent such loops.

Related topic

Automating with Rules


 

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