Customizing Event Actions
Each IT organization sets its own standards for severity and remedy. NNM supports changing event categories, severities, and programmed actions with a GUI. Figure 8-3 depicts the main event configuration browser. The OpenView enterprise MIB is of interest because all of NNM’s own events are listed here. Many of the default severity and logging codes may differ from local custom.
Figure 8-3. Main event configuration GUI.
To locate an NNM event, scroll through the enterprise names and select OpenView from the list. The lower scrollable area displays all the NNM events. Note the enterprise-specific trap number in the middle column. Double-click an event name to bring up the customization GUI.
Double-click on an event you want to customize and a GUI (see Figure 8-4) will appear to let you change most parameters, including:
Figure 8-4. The event configuration customization GUI.
Events may be customized by changing their logging level. Some events are preferably not seen and may be set to log-only so they don’t appear in the alarm browser. Other events that default to log-only may be considered important so they can be changed to log and assigned a category and severity.
the alarm category
the alarm severity
ignore the event in the browser
customize the alarm message (add more meaning)
define an automatic action (send e-mail to a pager)
The automatic actions available vary from sublime to ridiculous. The power, which comes from flexibility, is fueled by the NNM administrator’s ingenuity. A list of some obvious examples of automatic actions are as follows:
send an e-mail to a pager service
deliver a prerecorded voice mail message
escalate the event to a manager’s voice mail
synthesize an audible message using the Telemon package
display a customized window on the screen
execute a command that actually fixes the problem
print a trouble ticket
send control-G characters and beep the console
flash an icon’s color