avamar alerts template

Great question. Virtually every customer I interface with is set to receive the email home emails, from the time of implementation, are also conveying they find it a challenge to read these emails and are therefore subsequentally ignoring them.

Here is a spreadsheet and walkthrough I put together for our Best Practice based services (OAS, ACPS, etc). The attached spreadsheet contains alerts for the following 5 areas. Alerts pertaining specifically to "Data Domain, VMware, or Backup and Restores" are highlighted respectively. This list of alerts can also be monitored via SNMP traps as well by adding the IP address and community string on the SNMP tab:

1) Hardware Errors
2) Capacity
3) Application Errors
4) Maintenance Activities
5) Backup or Restore

(Virtually 100% of the time customer's wish to omit the Backup and Restore based alerts from this profile and prefer to monitor via a daily report instead)

** Note: Please go over the alerts, there are a couple duplicates I need to remove and some fine tuning of the spreadsheet. Please do not hesitate to include anything that is missing for a more "complete" monitoring viewpoint of the system. Please let me know any suggestions so that I can update mine as well (joe.cook@emc.com).

CONFIGURATION STEPS:

[1] First, remove customer from email home alerts

[2] Create a profile configured to send alerts "as they occur" with the attached set of alerts 

In the Avamar Administrator, go to Tools/manage profiles/
Highlight the Avamar server name at the top of the list and click new
Under Profile Name, type " Alerts"

If using email alerts ensure only the following is checked then click next:
- "Profile Enabled"
- "Email Enabled"
- Send data as events occur
** Only check SNMP or Syslog if using

Under Event codes, enable the events codes in the attached spreadsheet. You may desire to resize the window to it's maximum side for easier selection.

* Note: These alerts are a growing list so please communicate back to (joe.cook@emc.comjoe.cook@emc.com) if you receive any spam or can suggest a modification in this alert list template.

On the Parameters tab set the following then click next:
a) Check 22629 and add "90" (notifies in 90 days)
b) Check 22630 and add "85" (notifies at 85% capacity)
* These can be set to whatever the customer deems appropriate as well. 90days and 85% capacity seem generally preferred.

Under Email Subject Header, type " Alerts"
Enter the designated customer recipient and click the plus sign to add, repeat as desired for each designated recipient

Select "Inline attachments" then click next

If desiring to send events to a remote Syslog server fill in the following screen. If not click next.

If desiring to send events to an SNMP trap collector/ monitoring software fill in the following screen. If not click finish.
* Note: Some customers have the ability to integrate snmp alerts into their IT ticketing systems to automatically create IT Tickets from alerts received via SNMP. Others may also be able to leverage email for these as well. This is a great way to integrate Avamar more into a customer's existing support workflow.

[3] Create a secondary profile to send the backup reports to the customer

a) Create schedule that kicks off after backups complete, set to run daily (e.g. 8am or so)
b)  Include backup failure report and completed with exceptions reports
- Most customers end up requesting txt based, inline attachments however csv, xml, or txt external attachments or inline are available

This usually satisifies the basics for alerting. More robustness can readily be built in through many other avenues (e.g. DPA, SQL, MCCLI, DRAC, IPMITOOL, etc). These are often already in use in many environments and customer expertise can be leveraged for a tighter integration into the customer environment.

Please do not hesitate to contact with any questions, feedback, etc.

Joseph W. Cook
EMC² | Avamar
Senior Practice Consultant