Data Domain: How to Manage Alerts

Alerts are messages from system services and subsystems that report system events. The Health > Alerts Panel Displays tab allows you to view the following:

• Current and non-current alerts
• The configured alert notification groups
• The configuration for those who want to receive daily alert summary reports

Viewing and clearing current alerts

The Current Alerts tab displays a list of all the current alerts and can display detailed information for a selected alert.

An alert is automatically removed from the Current Alerts list when the underlying situation is corrected or when manually cleared.
Steps:

1. To view all the current alerts, select Health > Alerts > Current Alerts.
2. To limit the number of entries in the current alert list, do the following:
   1. In the Filter By area, select a Severity and Class to expose only alerts that pertain to those choices.
   2. Click Update.

All alerts not matching the Severity and Class are removed from the list.

3. To display additional information for a specific alert in the Details area, click the alert in the list.
4. To clear an alert, select the alert checkbox in the list and click Clear.

A cleared alert no longer appears in the current alerts list, but it can be found in the alerts history list.

5. To remove filtering and return to the full listing of current alerts, click Reset.

Viewing the alerts history

The Alerts History tab displays a list of all the cleared alerts and displays detailed information for a selected alert.
Steps:

1. To view all the alerts history, select Health > Alerts > Alerts History.
2. To limit the number of entries in the current alert list, do the following.
   1. In the Filter By area, select a Severity and Class to expose only alerts that pertain to those choices.
   2. Click Update.

All alerts not matching the Severity and Class are removed from the list.

3. To display additional information for a specific alert in the Details area, click the alert in the list.
4. To remove filtering and return to the full listing of cleared alerts, click Reset.

Managing alert notifications

The alert feature generates event and summary reports that can be distributed to configurable email lists and to Dell.

Event reports are sent immediately and provide detailed information about a system event. The distribution lists for event alerts are called notification groups.

You can configure a notification group to include one or more email addresses, and you can configure the types and severity level of the event reports sent to those addresses. For example, you might configure one notification group for individuals who must know about critical events and another group for those who monitor less critical events.

Another option is to configure groups for different technologies. For example, you might configure one notification group to receive email messages about all network events and another group to receive messages about storage issues.

Summary reports are sent daily and provide a summary of the events that occurred during the last 24 hours. Summary reports do not include all the information that is provided in event reports.

The default generation time for the daily report is 08.00 a.m, and it can be changed.

Summary reports are sent using a dedicated email list that is separate from the event notification groups. You can enable or disable alert distribution to Dell. When sending reports to Dell, you may select the legacy unsecure method or Secure Connect Gateway for secure transmissions.

HA system alert notification management

The alert feature on an HA system generates event and summary reports like a non-HA system but how the HA system manages these alerts is different due to the two node system set-up.

Initial alert configuration is completed on the active node and mirrored to the stand-by (i.e, same configuration on both nodes).

Local and AM-Alerts are emailed according to the notification settings and include information indicating that they are from an HA system and from which node, the active or standby, that generated the alerts. If there are active alerts on the file system, replication, or protocols when a failover occurs, these active alerts continue to show on the new active node after failover if the alert conditions have not cleared up.

Historical alerts on the file system, replication, and protocols stay with the node where they originated rather than failing over together with the file system on a failover. This means the CLIs on the active node do not present a complete and continuous view of historical alerts for file system, replication, and protocols.

During a failover, local historical alerts stay with the node from which they were generated; however, the historical alerts for the file system, replication, and protocols (called "logical alerts") fail over together with the file system.

Viewing the notification group list

A notification group defines a set of alert types (classes) and a group of email addresses (for subscribers).
Whenever the system generates an alert type selected in a notification list, that alert is sent to the list subscribers.
Steps:

1. Select Health > Alerts > Notification.

CLI equivalent

# alerts notify-list show

2. To limit (filter) the entries in the Group Name list, type a group name in the Group Name box or a subscriber email in the Alert Email box, and click Update.

3. To display detailed information for a group, select the group in the Group Name list.

Creating a notification group

1. Select Health > Alerts > Notification.
2. Click Add.

3. Type the group name in the Group Name box.
4. Select the checkbox of one or more alert classes of which to be notified.
5. To change the default severity level (Warning) for a class, select another level in the associated list box.

6. Click OK.

# alerts notify-list create eng_grp class hardwareFailure

Modifying a notification group

Use the Notification table to modify the attribute classes in an existing group.
Steps

1. Select Health > Alerts > Notification.
2. Select the checkbox of the group to modify in the group list.
3. To modify the class attributes for a group, do the following.
   1. Click Configure in the Class Attributes area.

2. Select (or clear) the checkbox of one or more class attributes.
3. To change the severity level for a class attribute, select a level from the corresponding list box.
4. Click OK.

CLI equivalent

# alerts notify-list add eng_lab class cloud severity warning
# alerts notify-list del eng_lab class cloud severity notice

4. To modify the subscriber list for a group, do the following.
   1. Click Configure in the Subscribers area.

The Edit Subscribers dialog box appears.

2. To delete subscribers from the group list, select the checkboxes of subscribers to delete and click the Delete icon (X).
3. To add a subscriber, click the Add icon (+), type a subscriber email address, and click OK.
4. Click OK.

CLI equivalent

# alerts notify-list add eng_lab emails mlee@urcompany.com,bob@urcompany.com
# alerts notify-list del eng_lab emails bob@urcompany.com

5. Click OK.

Deleting a notification group

Use the Notification tab to delete one or more existing notification groups.
Steps

1. Select Health > Alerts > Notification.
2. Select one or more checkboxes of groups in the Notifications group list, and click Delete.
3. Verify the deletion and click OK.

CLI equivalent 

# alerts notify-list destroy eng_grp

Resetting the notification group configuration

Use the Notification tab to remove all notification groups added and to remove any changes made to the Default group.
Steps

1. Select Health > Alerts > Notification.
2. Select More Tasks > Reset Notification Groups.
3. In the Reset Notification Groups dialog box, click Yes in the verification dialog.

CLI equivalent

# alerts notify-list reset

Configuring the daily summary schedule and distribution list

Every day, each managed system sends a Daily Alert Summary email to the subscribers configured for the alerts summary.list email group. The Daily Alert Summary email contains current and historical alerts showing messages about non-critical hardware situations and disk space usage numbers that you might want to address soon.

About this task
A fan failure is an example of a noncritical issue that you may want to address when it is reasonably possible. When Support receives the failure notification, they contact you to arrange for component replacement.
Steps:

1. Select Maintenance > Support > Telemetry.
2. Click Configure.
3. Specify the alert summary configuration:
   1. Select Enable.
   2. Select Daily or Weekly.
   3. Use the list boxes to select the hour, minute, and either AM or PM for the summary report.
   4. Select Text or HTML.
   5. Click Next.

CLI equivalent

# autosupport set schedule alert-summary daily 1400
# autosupport set alert-summary-format {text | html}

4. Click through the rest of the Telemetry configuration screen.
5. Click Close.
6. To edit the configuration, click Configure and repeat steps 3-5.
7. To configure the daily alert subscriber list:
   1. In the Alert Summary Subscribers panel, click Add.
   2. Specify an email address.
   3. Click Add.

CLI equivalent

# autosupport add alert-summary emails djones@company.com

8. To delete an email address, click Remove next to the email address.

CLI equivalent

# autosupport del alert-summary emails djones@company.com