Notifications
and Subscriptions
When alerts are generated
in the console, there is a wealth of information available about the
nature of the problem and how to troubleshoot and resolve it. However,
most administrators will not be watching the console at all times.
Operations Manager has a sophisticated notification mechanism that
allows alerts to be forwarded to email, SMS, IM, or even a command-line
interface. The most common method of alert notification is email.
However, Operations Manager
generates a lot of alerts. If each one of these alerts were forwarded,
this would overwhelm the average administrator’s Inbox and prove totally
useless. Operations Manager has two alert parameters to help categorize
the alerts. Each alert has two parameters that help guide the
notification process, severity and priority.
Alert Severity is the first
and main parameter. There are three severity levels:
Critical (2)— These alerts indicate that there is a problem that
needs to be fixed immediately and is directly actionable (that is,
there is something that can be done).
Warning (1)— These
alerts indicate that there is a problem, but that it might not be
immediately impacting the environment or might not be directly
actionable.
Information
(0)— These alerts indicate that there is
something that is good to know, but might not be a problem nor is
actionable.
By the nature of things, there
are a lot more warning alerts generated than critical alerts. In
general, notifications should only be sent out for critical alerts. That
is, there should never be an email sent for a warning or informational
alert.
Alert Priority is the second
parameter that qualifies the alert status. The priority allows
management pack authors to make some alerts more important than others.
There are three levels of priority as well:
In general, a high-priority,
critical severity alert is very important. This includes events like an
agent down or a security breach. A medium-priority, critical severity
alert is important. Both are generally actionable.
The best practice is to
create two SMTP channels to deliver the alert notification emails, which
are as follows:
Then, create two notification
subscriptions that use the Severity and the Priority to select the
emails to be sent:
This provides a
configuration that will deliver the very important alerts (high-priority
critical severity alerts) via high-priority email and important alerts
(medium-priority critical severity alerts) via regular email. All other
alerts will be available in the console and no emails will be sent to
notify of them.
The next sections will
set up the notification infrastructure described previously.
The first step is to set up a
channel, that is, how the emails will be sent. The steps are as follows:
1. | Launch
the Operations Manager 2007 R2 console.
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2. | Select the Administration space.
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3. | Select the Channels node.
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4. | Right-click the Channels node and select New Channel,
E-Mail (SMTP).
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5. | Enter SMTP
Channel (High Priority) for the channel name and click Next.
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6. | Click the Add button, enter the FQDN of the SMTP
server, and click OK.
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7. | Enter a return SMTP address and click Next.
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8. | Change the Importance to High and click Finish. Click
Close to close wizard.
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9. | Right-click the Channels node and select New Channel,
E-Mail (SMTP).
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10. | Enter SMTP
Channel (Normal Priority) for the channel name and click Next.
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11. | Click the Add button, enter the FQDN of the SMTP
server, and click OK.
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12. | Enter a return SMTP address and click Next.
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13. | Leave the Importance at Normal and click Finish. Click
Close to close wizard.
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The second step is to set up the
subscriber, that is, to whom the emails will be sent. The steps are as
follows:
1. | Launch
the Operations Manager 2007 R2 console.
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2. | Select the Administration space.
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3. | Select the Subscribers node.
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4. | Right-click the Subscribers node and select New
Subscriber.
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5. | Click the
“...” button and select a user or distribution group. Click OK.
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6. | Click Next.
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7. | Click Next to always send notifications.
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8. | Click the Add button.
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9. | Type Email for the address name and click
Next.
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10. | Select
the Channel Type as E-Mail (SMTP) and enter the delivery email address.
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11. | Click Finish.
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12. | Click Finish again to save the subscriber. Click Close
to exit the wizard.
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Note
It is a best
practice to use distribution lists rather than user email addresses for
subscribers.
The last step is to set up the
subscriptions, that is, what to notify on. The steps are as follows:
1. | Launch
the Operations Manager 2007 R2 console.
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2. | Select the Administration space.
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3. | Select the Subscriptions node.
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4. | Right-click the Subscriptions node and select New
Subscription.
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5. | Enter Notification
for All Critical Severity High Priority Alerts for the
subscription name and click Next.
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6. | Check the Of a Specific Severity and the Of a Specific
Priority check boxes.
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7. | In the Criteria Description pane, click the “Specific
Severity” link, check the Critical check box, and click OK.
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8. | In the Criteria Description pane, click the “Specific
Priority” link, check the High check box, and click OK.
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9. | Click Next.
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10. | Click the Add button, click Search, select the
subscriber, click the Add button, and click OK.
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11. | Click Next.
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12. | Click the Add button, click Search, select the SMTP
Channel (High Priority) channel, click the Add button, and click OK.
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13. | Click Next and then click Finish.
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14. | Right-click the Subscriptions node and select New
Subscription.
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15. | Enter Notification
for All Critical Severity Medium Priority Alerts for the
subscription name and click Next.
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16. | Check the Of a Specific Severity and the Of a Specific
Priority check boxes.
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17. | In the Criteria Description pane, click the “Specific
Severity” link, check the Critical check box, and click OK.
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18. | In the Criteria Description pane, click the “Specific
Priority” link, check the Medium check box, and click OK.
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19. | Click Next.
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20. | Click the Add button, click Search, select the
subscriber, click the Add button, and click OK.
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21. | Click Next.
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22. | Click the Add button, click Search, select the SMTP
Channel (Normal Priority) channel, click the Add button, and click OK.
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23. | Click Next and then click Finish.
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Now, the subscribers will get email notifications
for alerts based on the severity and priority. These severities and
priorities are based on the judgments of the authors of the management
packs, which might or might not be optimal for any given organization.
