2.1.2 Alarm function
The alarm function sends a notification to the user if the value of a monitored item (field) exceeds a value that has been set as a threshold. For example, you can set the alarm function to send a warning whenever the CPU usage exceeds 80%. A monitored item whose value has exceeded its threshold is indicated by a change in an icon on the monitoring console.
Approach to the alarm function
Performance Management uses the alarm function to provide monitoring capabilities on the basis of definition information consisting of alarms and alarm tables.
- Alarms
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An alarm is a definition of monitoring conditions specified for a field, such as the value of the monitored item that is to trigger a notification.
Monitoring conditions can be specified at two levels, an abnormal condition and a warning condition. For example, you might want to issue a warning whenever the CPU usage exceeds 80% and detect an error whenever the CPU usage reaches 90%. For this, you would define the conditional expressions CPU %>80 and CPU %>=90 as the warning condition and the abnormal condition, respectively.
- Note
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You can specify actions, such as sending the notification as an email, execution of a command, issuance of a JP1 event, or transmission of an SNMP trap. For details about the actions, see the topic Setting the actions in the JP1/Performance Management User's Guide.
- Alarm table
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An alarm table contains information about a set of several alarms. Multiple alarms of a similar nature are grouped together in one alarm table.
- Binding
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Associating alarm tables with monitoring agents is called binding. When an alarm table is bound, Performance Management starts monitoring the system on the basis of the definitions in the alarm table.
- Note
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If you bind the same alarm table to multiple monitoring agents, all those monitoring agents can be monitored under the same conditions.
The following figure shows the relationships among alarms, alarm tables, and monitoring agents:
![[Figure]](GRAPHICS/ZU030002.GIF)
Methods for defining alarms and alarm tables
The following methods are provided for defining alarms and alarms tables:
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Using a monitoring template (an alarm table in which required items have been predefined)
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Customizing a monitoring template by copying and editing it
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Defining alarms and alarm tables
This manual explains the method that uses a monitoring template as is. For details about the other methods, see the topic Setting up and operating alarms in the JP1/Performance Management User's Guide.
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