Warning conditions

The comparison establishes a warning condition when the measurement either exceeds a maximum threshold or is less than a minimum threshold. When the monitor service detects an exception, it automatically sends a message to the PAS journal and to the system console upon user request. The message text contains the following elements:

• unique message ID
• title of the service
• measured value
• sampling interval (if applicable)
• defined threshold

The monitor service sends an exception-cleared message with the service title to the PAS journal when the service no longer detects a warning condition.

When you start a monitor service, you can specify the following options:

• a user-defined threshold value

  Each new measurement of the system variable made at the expiration of an interval is compared to the threshold value.

  When the measurement either exceeds a maximum threshold or is less than a minimum threshold, a warning condition exists, and warning messages are sent automatically to the PAS journal log.

• whether to send warning messages to the operating system console through the write-to-operator (WTO) facility in addition to the PAS journal
• the number of warnings to be sent for one exception condition, the number of times the exception is detected before the first message, and the number of times the exception is detected between messages

You can specify these options to prevent situations in which a condition often varies just above and below the threshold, triggering many messages. For example, you could use options to request the following behaviors:

• Check a condition every 30 seconds.
• Trigger a warning only if that condition persists for 3 minutes.
• Trigger a repeated warning after an additional 5 minutes.
• Limit the number of warnings to 10.

For example, a condition could be checked every 30 seconds with a warning only if that condition persists for 3 minutes, a repeated warning only after another 5 minutes, and a limit of 10 warnings.