IBM IBM Alert Notification BETA DRAFT

IBM Alert Notification
BETA DRAFT
IBM Alert Notification
IBM
IBM Alert Notification
IBM Alert Notification is an easy to use, simple notification system that meets the
increasing demand for agility and efficient collaboration among IT operations team
members that use multiple monitoring tools. It gives IT staff instant notification of
alerts for any issues in your IT operations environment, optimizing your business
performance, increasing customer satisfaction, and protecting revenue.
Because IBM Alert Notification is provided as a service, the required server
infrastructure is installed and managed by IBM®, reducing your time-to-value and
offering low-maintenance ownership. IBM Alert Notification is offered with IBM
Performance Management on Cloud.
Easy integrations
IBM Alert Notification is integrated with IBM Performance Management on Cloud.
The data from the on-premise monitoring agents is the source for the alert data.
IBM Performance Management on Cloud can also be integrated with an existing
on-premise installation of Tivoli® Netcool/OMNIbus. You can integrate IBM Alert
Notification with any on-premise monitoring tool that can implement and invoke
an HTTP API. Supported tools include Netcool/OMNIbus and Netcool/Impact,
which are part of the Netcool Operations Insight solution. A default notification
policy is provided that generates notifications for all alerts.
Custom IT environment monitoring
IBM Alert Notification offers easy-to-implement filtering of alerts, for example on
the severity of problems, so that you can focus on the real problems and disregard
the “noise” in your IT environment. You can create custom groups of contacts to
reflect the structure of your organization, so that the right notifications reach the
right staff, streamlining and simplifying the process of determining who to contact
when specific problems occur and how to contact them.
Notification channels
Define the IT subject matter experts who can respond to problems in your
environment and store their contact details in IBM Alert Notification so that they
can be automatically notified of problems that affect them. Users can be organized
into groups and you can send notifications to several users at once. Notifications
can be sent by email, SMS, and voice.
Alert management
IBM Alert Notification has the following features for managing alerts and
notifications:
Policy-based notifications
Define which alerts you want IBM Alert Notification to notify you about.
Create filters based on the alerts that occur in your IT environment,
customize the filters to account for alert frequencies and “x-in-y” type
scenarios, and assign users and groups who are notified when matching
problems occur. Unacknowledged alerts can be escalated after a set time
period to the appropriate contact. Filters can be created for your IT
monitoring requirements, such as the severity and status of alerts.
© Copyright IBM Corp. 2016
1
Alert Viewer
Monitor the status of alerts and notifications online, perform actions on
alerts and track them in realtime. Alert severities enable you to prioritize
easily. The notification state allows you to track alerts from their receipt by
the system through acknowledgment to resolution. You can track changes
in the Alert History. You can use predefined and real-time filters to change
which alerts you want to see.
Mobile app
Receive notifications and work with alerts via the mobile app on iOS and
Android devices.
Data flow for alerts and notifications
How alerts and notifications are processed by IBM Alert Notification.
1. Alerts are received from the alert source. Alerts can be received from IBM
Performance Management on Cloud.
2. If an alert matches the rules that are set in a notification policy, a notification is
triggered. The notification is sent to the recipients that are specified in the
policy. Recipients can be users, groups, or both. Examples of rules include
severities and string matches.
3. Acknowledge the alert. This indicates to other users that someone is working
on that alert.
v By email: click a link in the notification email to acknowledge the alert.
v By SMS: copy and past the short ID from the received SMS and reply to the
message.
4. Users can log in to Alert Notification and action the alert in the Alert Viewer.
An Alert History of information is available for each alert. Mistakenly
acknowledged alerts can be unacknowledged.
Notification statuses
IBM Alert Notification transitions alerts through the following states. You can
configure notification policies to trigger notifications in response to alerts being put
into the acknowledged or unacknowledged states.
Unnotified
Alert Notification has received the alert but no notification was generated.
Indicates that an alert does not match any existing notification policy.
Notified
Alert Notification has matched the alert to a notification policy and
triggered a notification, which was sent to the users or groups defined in
the notification policy. No contact has yet acknowledged the alert. Indicates
that no one is working on an alert.
Escalated
A time period specified in the notification policy has passed without the
alert being acknowledged. An escalation notification has been sent to the
users or groups defined in the notification policy.
Acknowledged
Indicates to Alert Notification that the alert is being worked on. A contact
has acknowledged the alert, either from the notification or in the Alert
2
IBM Alert Notification - BETA DRAFT
Viewer. Alerts can switch between the acknowledged and unacknowledged
states, for example, if an alert was mistakenly acknowledged.
Archived
The alert is currently archived.
Severity levels
Alert Notification has the following severity levels, which are depicted as follows
in the Alert Viewer:
Fatal
A service-terminating condition has occurred. Immediate action is required.
Critical
A service-affecting condition has occurred, and corrective action is
immediately required. For example, a device has gone out of service and
needs to be restored.
Major
A service-affecting problem occurred. Corrective action is urgently
required. For example, a severe degradation occurred in the capability of a
device and full capability must be restored.
Minor
A non-service affecting problem occurred; take corrective action to prevent
alerts of higher severity. For example, a problem occurred on a device but
it does not impair the capacity or performance of the device.
Warning
Potential or impending problems were detected. Further investigation is
needed to prevent alerts of higher severity.
Indeterminate
The severity level cannot be determined from the device.
Getting started
After you activate IBM Alert Notification, you receive a welcome email that
contains the URL to access your service. You can use your IBM ID and password
to log in. Once logged in, you will find the Getting Started page has some helpful
links to basic tasks for using Alert Notification.
API key management
An API key is required to log in to your instance of IBM Alert Notification from an
HTTP requester, or an IBM or external monitoring system, to post alerts to Alert
Notification.
Procedure
v Click Manage API Keys on the navigation menu. A table of existing API keys is
displayed.
v To create a new API key:
1. Click + Create API Key.
2. Enter a description of what the key will be used for (optional).
Overview
3
3. Click Generate.
4. The name and password for the API key are displayed. Make a note of both
of these values.
Note: For security purposes the password cannot be retrieved later. If you
lose the password you must delete the API key and generate a new one.
v To delete an API key, click
Delete next to the key.
Logging in and accessing IBM Alert Notification
After your service is activated, log in to IBM Alert Notification from your browser.
Procedure
v To access your Alert Notification service, in the email alerting you that your
service is ready click the Launch Service link and enter your IBM ID and
password.
v In My Products and Services, click Launch.
1. A stand alone subscription will go directly to Alert Notification.
2. For a IBM Performance Management on Cloud subscription, go to the
Resource Group Editor to access Alert Notification. Click System
Configuration > Resource Group Manager. In the Resource Group Editor,
click Configure email notification, which is at the bottom of the Resource
Group Manager window.
What to do next
Familiarize yourself with the functions of IBM Alert Notification. You can access
the functions by clicking through the navigation menus:
In Getting Started page there are helpful links to some basic tasks for using Alert
Notification.
In Manage Notification Policies: Define which alerts you want IBM Alert
Notification to notify you about. Create filters based on the alerts that occur in
your IT environment, customize the filters to account for alert frequencies and
“x-in-y” type scenarios, and assign users and groups who are notified when
matching problems occur. Unacknowledged alerts can be escalated after a set time
period to the appropriate contact. Filters can be created for your IT monitoring
requirements, such as the severity and status of alerts. See “Creating notification
policies” on page 7.
In Alert Viewer: Monitor the status of alerts and notifications online, perform
actions on alerts and track them in realtime. See “Monitoring and managing alerts”
on page 8.
In Manage API Keys: Create API keys and generate passwords.
In
Manage Users and Groups: Define the IT subject matter experts who can
respond to problems in your environment and store their contact details in IBM
Alert Notification so that they can be automatically notified of problems that affect
them. Users can be organized into groups and you can send notifications to several
users at once. See “Managing users and groups” on page 5.
4
IBM Alert Notification - BETA DRAFT
Managing users and groups
Define the IT subject matter experts who can respond to problems in your
environment and store their contact details in IBM Alert Notification so that they
can be automatically notified of problems that affect them. Users can be organized
into groups to reflect the structure of your organization and send notifications to
multiple contacts at once. For example, UNIX support groups, payroll application
experts, customer support teams, and so on.
Procedure
v Login to IBM Alert Notification with your subscription at https://notifydev.mybluemix.net/ui/login.
v For Users, click
Manage Users and Groups > Manage Users.
1. Click + Create a User and enter the user's details in the fields provided:
– Full Name
– IBM ID
– Email
– Mobile phone (optional)
– Add a group (optional)
– Add a role (optional)
You can change the notification methods for a user. The default notification
method is Email.
2. Click Save.
v For Groups, click
Manage Users and Groups > Manage Groups.
1. Click + Create a Group.
2. Enter a name for the new group.
3. Select the users to be included in the group.
4. Click Save.
v To remove a user or group them from the list, click
Delete.
Note: You can only delete users that were created in Alert Notification. If the
user was created in IBM Service Engage and then subscribed to an instance of
Alert Notification, you cannot delete that user from Alert Notification. In those
cases, the Delete icon is greyed out.
What to do next
Create the notification policies that cause the notifications to be sent to the contacts
and groups. See “Creating notification policies” on page 7.
Selecting notification methods
Notifications methods are individual to a user and can be sent by email, SMS, and
voice.
About this task
Complete the following steps to set your preferred alert notification method.
Overview
5
Procedure
1. Click
User > Edit Profile > Notifications.
2. Select your preferred notification method. You can select more than one option:
v Email
v SMS
v Voice
3. Click Save.
Testing the Alert Notification service
You can test your Alert Notification service is working by using the default
notification policy and an HTTP requester. As the subscriber, you can have a
notification sent to the email address that you provided when setting up the
subscription. The default notification method is email and the default enabled
notification policy captures all alerts.
Procedure
1. Create an API key as described in “API key management” on page 3. Make a
note of the generated API name and password.
2. Provide the HTTP requester with the URL that you are posting the request to:
https://ibmnotifybm.mybluemix.net/docs/alerts/v1/.
3. Provide the API name and password for authentication.
4. Use the POST method to send an alert to Alert Notification. For example:
{
"Identifier": "String",
"What": "Test for AN",
"Where": "example-server.mylab.com",
"Severity": "Major",
"Type": "Problem",
"Source": "Test",
"ApplicationsOrServices": [
"string"
],
"URLs": [
{
"Description": "string",
"URL": "string"
}
],
"Details": [
{
"Name": "string",
"Value": "string"
}
]
}
The response status of the HTTP requester indicates whether the alert was
successfully posted to IBM Alert Notification. A notification email is sent to the
subscriber email address.
Results
Log in to Alert Notification and check the Alert Viewer. It now contains a row that
matches the alert that you posted. If you used the same information as in the
example above, the What Happened column should display “Test for AN” and the
6
IBM Alert Notification - BETA DRAFT
Where column should display “example-server.mylab.com”. The same information
is displayed in the notification.
What to do next
Disable the default policy if you do not want receive notifications for all alerts.
Related reference:
“REST Alert API” on page 10
The REST Alert API can receive alert requests from any event source to the IBM
Alert Notification service to support hybrid cloud deployments.
Creating notification policies
Not all alerts are of interest. Notification policies define which alerts you are
interested in by filtering for the alerts that, for example, are of critical severity, and
sending a notification to contacts. You can refine the filters as much as you need
and also specify frequencies of occurrence to match patterns in your IT
environment.
Before you begin
Depending on your setup before you subscribed to IBM Alert Notification, you
might already have some notification policies in your system. If you have IBM
Alert Notification integrated with IBM Performance Management on Cloud, a
default notification policy is provided that generates notifications for all alerts. The
recipient is the user who set up the subscription. It is enabled by default.
Procedure
You can open the Notifications Editor from within IBM Alert Notification by
clicking Manage Notification Policies on the navigation menu.
You can also access IBM Alert Notification through IBM Performance Management
on Cloud, when you create or edit resource groups. Click System Configuration >
Resource Group Manager. In the Resource Group Editor, click Configure email
notification, which is at the bottom of the Resource Group Manager window. The
Notifications Editor is automatically provisioned with a new notification policy.
The name and filter are derived from the resource group. If you are satisfied with
the name and filter, you can skip steps 1 - 3 of this task.
Complete the following steps to create new notifications policies:
1. Click + Create a Notification Policy.
2. Type a name and an optional description. The policy is disabled by default.
3. Click + Add Rule. Create a rule that identifies the conditions in your
environment that you want to monitor and triggers a notification when the
conditions are met. A rule can be composed of one or more conditions, which
you add in separate rows. You can select from the options of pre-defined rules.
You can also click Add Rule where the fields allow you to specify attributes,
operators, and values.
You can Delay notifications for alerts. For example, until 2 identical alerts
occur within 60 seconds.
4. Click + Add User or Group. To search for a particular user or group, begin
typing in the name you want then select the search result from the list.
5. Click + Add Escalation to specify in minutes or hours any escalation rules that
you want to apply to the alert. Click + Add Contact and search for a user or
group to be notified after the specified time period.
Overview
7
6. Click Save to save the notification policy.
7. To enable the policy, click
.
Results
When alerts are generated that match the conditions in the policy, notifications are
sent to the contacts you specified. Further notifications are sent in response to any
escalation rules that you specified.
What to do next
v To modify an existing policy, click
Modify this policy in the appropriate
row and make the changes as described in the preceding steps. To enable a
disabled policy, select Enabled in the appropriate row.
v To delete a policy, click
Delete this policy in the appropriate row.
Example: Creating a notification policy to notify a user of all
critical issues
This example shows how to create a notification policy that will notify a user of all
critical issues.
Procedure
1. On the Getting Started page, click Create a notification policy.
2. In the Notification Policy Editor, type a name and optional description for the
policy.
3. Click Add Rule.
a. Select the predefined rule Severity of the alert is critical or above.
b. Click Add.
4. Click Add User or Group to specify who will receive the notifications.
a. Select Users for individuals, or Groups to add user groups.
b. Start typing to search for users or groups by name, or select them from the
list.
c. Click Add to add them to the policy.
5. Click Save to save the notification policy.
6. Click
to enable the policy.
Monitoring and managing alerts
Select your preferred notification method and monitor and manage alerts in the
Alert Viewer.
The Alert Viewer shows useful information in the following columns:
8
Column
Description
State
The state of the notification in the Alert
Notification system; that is, unnotified,
notified, acknowledged, escalated, and
archived.
ID
A unique serial number for the row in the
Alert Viewer.
IBM Alert Notification - BETA DRAFT
Column
Description
What Happened
Contains text which describes the nature of
the alert and the affected node.
Severity
The severity level of the alert, as received
from the device. The severity indicates how
badly affected the device is.
Where
Identifies where the alert originated.
When
Identifies when the alert originated.
Alert Source
Identifies the source from which the alert
originated. This could be a device name or
host name, service name, or other entity.
Actions
Contains options for responding to an alert,
as well as additional information about the
alert, such as alert details or URLs.
Monitoring and managing alerts in the Alert Viewer
The Alert Viewer gives you a real-time view of the alerts in your IT environment.
The Alert Viewer screen is comprised of two parts: the list of alerts, and the Alert
History section. Because of deduplication, each row in the list of alerts is a unique
alert. When you select an alert, it shows changes that were made by you and other
operators against the alert.
Procedure
v Click the Alert Viewer navigation menu.
v Select All Alerts or select My Alerts to see only Alerts for which you have been
defined as a recipient.
v IBM Alert Notification supplies default filters for the most common monitoring
scenarios. Click
Filter and use the check boxes to apply the following
filters:
– Unnotified
– Notified
– Escalated
– Acknowledged
– Archived
– Fatal
– Critical
– Major
– Minor
– Warning
– Indeterminate
v Click anywhere in an alert row to see the journal details for that alert displayed
in Alert History.
v To sort a column, click the arrow in the column header. You can sort the column
into ascending or descending order or remove the sort. An arrow next to the
column text indicates the sort order.
The following icons depict the status of alerts in the Alert Viewer:
Overview
9
Status icons in the Alert Viewer
: Notified alert. The users or groups defined in the notification policy were notified of
the alert.
: Acknowledged alert. The notified user has acknowledged the alert.
: Unnotified alert. The alert does not match the conditions in any notification policies,
so no notification was generated.
: Escalated alert. The alert has been escalated to the next contact as defined in the
policy.
: Archived alert. The alert is currently archived.
Use the icons in the Actions column to action an alert:
Action icons in the Alert Viewer
: Click to change the status of the alert to Acknowledged.
: Click to change the status of the alert to Unacknowledged.
: Click to open a link such as a runbook. Any links that are included in an alert are
defined in the alert payload.
: Click to display the alert details.
Each time you take an action, the Alert History section of the Alert Viewer is
updated.
REST Alert API
The REST Alert API can receive alert requests from any event source to the IBM
Alert Notification service to support hybrid cloud deployments.
You can configure the Alert Notification service programmatically through the
Alert Notification API: https://ibmnotifybm.mybluemix.net/docs/alerts/v1/.
Integrating Alert Notification with other IBM products
Events can be forwarded to Alert Notification through a Netcool/OMNIbus trigger
or a Netcool/Impact policy.
Use these best practice guidelines to configure Alert Notification with other IBM
products:
v Associate an event to an application or a service. When creating a filter it will
make it easier to create notifications based on an application or a service.
v Include the associated application or service in the alert. Use the information to
route the alert to the right group. For example, if database administrators need
to be notified of all critical database alerts, include the relevant component in
the application or services field of the alert. Use that information when you
create the notification policy to route the alert to the right group.
v Always add the event fields that are helpful in the alert details field.
10
IBM Alert Notification - BETA DRAFT
v Apply all of the analysis and event filtering in the Netcool Operations Insight
solution.
Sending Events with Netcool/OMNIbus
Files are provided for download from IBM developerWorks that you can use to
create a trigger in Netcool/OMNIbus that will forward events to Alert Notification.
You can configure this trigger to select the events that you want to be notified of.
Before you begin
v The ObjectServer must be running under the Process Agent and be configured to
execute external automations. For more information, see Using process control to
manage processes and external procedures.
v The system must have the CURL command line utility installed.
v The system must have an internet connection. In particular to
notify-prodtest.mybluemix.net.
v Decide which events to capture in the trigger if you do not want the default
(Major or Critical alarms that occurred in the last 60 seconds).
Procedure
v Download and untar an-omnibus.tar from: https://www.ibm.com/
developerworks/community/wikis/form/anonymous/api/wiki/95c47b5c-6a774ab2-8497-c4092a745635/page/93f7e444-eecd-486e-a11d-2e89996dc560/
attachment/582e2626-de07-44cf-8e67-d6f744a8c2df/media/an-omnibus.tar.
1. Copy the nco_curl wrapper script to $OMNIHOME/bin. Ensure it is executable
by the user running the Process agent.
2. Use the nco_sql command to apply the sendalert.sql file to the
ObjectServer:
nco_sql -username <username> -password <password> -server <servername> < <path to sendalert
v Configure IBM Alert Notification:
1. Log in to Alert Notification at notify-prodtest.mybluemix.net
2. Click Manage API Keys.
3. Click Create API Key and enter a description of what the key will be used
for.
4. Click Generate. The name and password for the API key are displayed.
Make a note of both of these values. You will add this information to the
OMNIbus trigger.
5. Create or modify a notification policy so that you will be informed when an
alert is received. See “Creating notification policies” on page 7.
v Example Netcool/OMNIbus configuration:
1. Use the nco_config command to edit the send_alert_to_an trigger.
2. The trigger selects the events that are of interest. By default, this is any Major
or Critical alarm that occurred in the last 60 seconds, excluding the
OMNIbus self monitoring alarms (Class = 99999). The where clause is:
alert.LastOccurrence >= ( getdate() - 60 ) and alert.Class != 99999 and alert.Severity >= 4
You can change the condition to match the alerts that you want to notify on.
3. Set the API key username and password that you created. Replace the
following strings in the trigger with the new credentials:
’api key name’,’api key password’
Overview
11
4. Edit the send_res_to_an trigger to set the API key username and password,
as described in the previous steps.
5. Test the automation. Insert a test event into the ObjectServer that matches the
criteria of the trigger. If you are using the trigger as supplied, the following
insert will create an alert that is forwarded to the Alert Notification service
and be visible in the Alert Viewer:
insert into alerts.status (Identifier, Severity, Node, Summary, Manager, Type) values (’an-test
“Managing users and groups” on page 5
Define the IT subject matter experts who can respond to problems in your
environment and store their contact details in IBM Alert Notification so that
they can be automatically notified of problems that affect them. Users can be
organized into groups to reflect the structure of your organization and send
notifications to multiple contacts at once. For example, UNIX support groups,
payroll application experts, customer support teams, and so on.
“Creating notification policies” on page 7
Not all alerts are of interest. Notification policies define which alerts you are
interested in by filtering for the alerts that, for example, are of critical severity,
and sending a notification to contacts. You can refine the filters as much as you
need and also specify frequencies of occurrence to match patterns in your IT
environment.
Sending Events with Netcool/Impact
Files are provided for download from IBM developerWorks that you can use to
create a trigger in Netcool/Impact that will forward events to Alert Notification.
You can configure this trigger to select the events that you want to be notified of.
Before you begin
v Run the following commands to start the Netcool/Impact server:
startImpactServer.sh / startGUIServer.sh
v Decide which events to capture in the trigger if you do not want the default.
Procedure
v Download and untar anexport2.tar from: https://www.ibm.com/
developerworks/community/wikis/form/anonymous/api/wiki/95c47b5c-6a774ab2-8497-c4092a745635/page/b9bcfea0-3541-4bfb-89af-ce3724083ebf/
attachment/f6351ac1-e351-4a4d-9efa-88864699b4ae/media/anexport2.tar.
Use the following command to import the contents of the extracted package into
Netcool/Impact:
$IMPACT_HOME/bin/nci_import NCI /package_contents
Where NCI is your Netcool/Impact instance name and package_contents is the
location of the extracted package.
If a message regarding locks is displayed, you can run the following command
to clear locks:
./nci_version_control NCI uncoall ""
v Import the CA certificates into the Netcool/Impact truststore:
1. Download add_common_certificates.zip from: https://www.ibm.com/
developerworks/community/files/form/anonymous/api/library/eb3c5ef751e0-49bd-b0f4-4ec44de1d7e9/document/e184e2fe-f1ef-4cb4-97dedddd4bc7519c/media/add_common_certificates.zip.
2. On the CLI for your Netcool/Impact system, extract the package contents to
a temporary directory.
12
IBM Alert Notification - BETA DRAFT
3. Edit the extracted add_common_certificates.sh script file and provide the
correct values for the variables names at the top IMPACT_HOME,
IMPACT_PASS, and NCI server. Save and close the file.
4. Ensure the script has the correct file permissions (chmod u+x
add_common_certificates.sh).
5. Run the following command to import the CA certificates into your
Netcool/Impact truststore:
add_common_certificates.sh
6. Stop and restart the Netcool/Impact servers.
v Configure IBM Alert Notification:
1. Log in to Alert Notification at
2. Click Manage API Keys.
3. Click Create API Key and enter a description of what the key will be used
for.
4. Click Generate. The name and password for the API key are displayed.
Make a note of both of these values. You will use this API Key and password
in your Netcool/Impact policy.
5. Create or modify a notification policy so that you will be informed when an
alert is received. See “Creating notification policies” on page 7.
v Configure Netcool/Impact:
1. On the Netcool/Impact toolbar, select Alert Notification from the project
drop-down list.
2. On the Policy tab, open the SendAlertsToAlertNotification Javascript
policy.
3. Set the API key username and password that you created. Update the
following lines with the new credentials:
10. /* Update your apikey and password */
11. var an_apikey = ’’;
12. var an_apikeypass = ’’;
4. On line 23 (an_host), ensure the correct Alert Notification URL is set:
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
// Environment Configuration
var an_protocol = ’https’;
var an_host = ’ibmnotify.mybluemix.net’;
var an_port = 443;
var an_path = ’/api/alerts/v1’;
5. Note lines 1-8. These lines map the event fields to the Alert Notification
Alert API:
1. // Event to Alert field mapping
2. var mapping = {
3.
Summary: ’What’,
4.
Node: ’Where’,
5.
Severity: ’Severity’,
6.
Identifier: ’Identifier’ ,
7.
Manager : ’Source’
};
Save the SendAlertsToAlertNotification Javascript policy.
On the Services tab, open the AlertNotificationService event reader.
Select Starts automatically when server starts.
Click the Event Mapping tab. Here you can customize which events are
sent to Alert Notification. In the table at the bottom, select New.
10. Create a filter based on your criteria. In the Policy to Run field, select
SendAlertsToAlertNotification. Click Active > OK.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Overview
13
11. Save the AlertNotificationService event reader. Then right-click on it and
select Start.
Results
When the service is started and running, new events that match the criteria you
specified will be sent into Alert Notification.
“Managing users and groups” on page 5
Define the IT subject matter experts who can respond to problems in your
environment and store their contact details in IBM Alert Notification so that
they can be automatically notified of problems that affect them. Users can be
organized into groups to reflect the structure of your organization and send
notifications to multiple contacts at once. For example, UNIX support groups,
payroll application experts, customer support teams, and so on.
“Creating notification policies” on page 7
Not all alerts are of interest. Notification policies define which alerts you are
interested in by filtering for the alerts that, for example, are of critical severity,
and sending a notification to contacts. You can refine the filters as much as you
need and also specify frequencies of occurrence to match patterns in your IT
environment.
IBM Alert Notification Mobile App
The mobile app offers a subset of Alert Notification functions on iOS and Android
devices. You can receive notifications and work with alerts via the app.
Configuration tasks, such as requesting API keys and creating and editing
notification policies, can be performed only from the desktop version of Alert
Notification.
Introduction
The IBM Alert Notification mobile app synchronizes with an instance of Alert
Notification that you are subscribed to. You can tab between My Alerts and All
Alerts, filter alerts by notification status, and tap any alert to view the Alert
Details.
Logging in for the first time
Complete the following steps to authenticate your subscription on the mobile app.
1. Download the mobile app onto your device. You can download it from the
2.
3.
4.
5.
Apple App Store or Google Play
.
Log in to IBM Alert Notification in your mobile browser by following the
instructions at “Logging in and accessing IBM Alert Notification” on page 4.
Click Add subscription to mobile app. This will launch the mobile app.
Add a name for the subscription in the field provided. The name will be used
in future for this subscription on your device.
Click Save. The subscription is available for login under Available
subscriptions.
Alerts Overview
v The Alerts Overview screen has two tabs, one for My Alerts and one for All
Alerts.
14
IBM Alert Notification - BETA DRAFT
v Alerts are categorized by the following notification states:
Notified
Alert Notification has matched the alert to a notification policy and
triggered a notification, which was sent to the users or groups defined in
the notification policy. No contact has yet acknowledged the alert.
Indicates that no one is working on an alert.
Escalated
A time period specified in the notification policy has passed without the
alert being acknowledged. An escalation notification has been sent to the
users or groups defined in the notification policy.
Acknowledged
Indicates to Alert Notification that the alert is being worked on. A
contact has acknowledged the alert, either from the notification or in the
Alert Viewer. Alerts can switch between the acknowledged and
unacknowledged states, for example, if an alert was mistakenly
acknowledged.
Tap the menu to show only alerts with a particular notification status.
v Swipe left on an alert to acknowledge or unacknowledge, depending on the
notification state of the alert.
v Alert severity levels are depicted with the following icons:
Fatal
A service-terminating condition has occurred. Immediate action is
required.
Critical
A service-affecting condition has occurred, and corrective action is
immediately required. For example, a device has gone out of service and
needs to be restored.
Major
A service-affecting problem occurred. Corrective action is urgently
required. For example, a severe degradation occurred in the capability of
a device and full capability must be restored.
Minor
A non-service affecting problem occurred; take corrective action to
prevent alerts of higher severity. For example, a problem occurred on a
device but it does not impair the capacity or performance of the device.
Warning
Potential or impending problems were detected. Further investigation is
needed to prevent alerts of higher severity.
Indeterminate
The severity level cannot be determined from the device.
Alert Details
You can tap an alert to open the Alert Details screen to display more information
for an alert. Here you can acknowledge or unacknowledge the alert. You can also
Overview
15
see the alert history and any links that are defined in the alert payload. Tap the
back button to return to the Alerts Overview.
Troubleshooting scenarios
Use this information to troubleshoot integration and other issues.
Integrating a Netcool Operations Insight ObjectServer with Alert
Notification on AIX
If you are integrating a Netcool Operations Insight ObjectServer with Alert
Notification on AIX you must complete these additional steps:
1. Download a cURL executable for your system.
2. Download a set of CA certificates in PEM format.
3. Edit nco_curl to use the cURL utility and CA certificates.
The following example assumes curl is located in /opt/freeware/bin, that the certs
have been downloaded into /home, and the bundle is called ca-bundle.pem.
Changes to the default syntax are in italics.
LIBPATH=/opt/freeware/lib:${LIBPATH}
exec /opt/freeware/bin/curl -X POST --capath /home/ --cacert /home/ca-bundle.pem
’Content-Type:application/json’ -d "${DATA}" \
-u ${OMNIUSERNAME}:${OMNIPASSWORD} ${URI}
16
IBM Alert Notification - BETA DRAFT
--header