Alarm Metrics And Thresholds
Spotlight Basics describes how Spotlight applications work. It contains these sections:
| Section |
Description |
|---|---|
| Spotlight Connections |
Create / Modify / Delete connections to systems, and monitor those systems. |
| Monitor Spotlight Connections | Monitor connections, detect alarms, investigate the cause of alarms. |
| Alarms |
Alarms are the warnings that Spotlight raises when a metric falls outside its "normal" range of values. |
| Charts, Grids and Home Page Components | Spotlight displays provide detailed statistics of the monitored system, relevant to diagnosing the cause of alarms. Make the best use of them. |
| View | Options | Customize Spotlight. |
| Troubleshooting | Solve problems using Spotlight. |
About Alarms, Metrics, Thresholds And Severities
| Terms | Definitions | Customizations and Actions |
|---|---|---|
| alarm |
Alarms are the warnings that Spotlight raises when a metric falls outside its "normal" range of values. |
A new alarm is raised whenever the severity for a metric changes. When the severity returns to normal, the alarm is canceled. You can see this behavior clearly in the Alarm log. Alarm log |
|
metric |
A metric is a piece of information that Spotlight collects about the performance of a system. The information may be a numeric value (a number or percentage), a string of text, or some other piece of data. Every time the Spotlight window is refreshed, Spotlight retrieves the latest value of the metric, which can then be displayed on the home page. |
Use the Metrics Dialog to:
|
|
threshold |
For each numeric metric, you can set thresholds — ranges of values — that indicate levels of severity for that metric. |
Use the Thresholds Dialog to:
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severity |
A severity can be used to specify whether the information returned in the metric represents normal or abnormal behavior for the system. Within Spotlight, there can be at most the following types of severity:
"Normal" indicates that the system is performing within acceptable limits. If a metric returns a value with any other severity, Spotlight raises an alarm that indicates the system is behaving outside acceptable limits. A "Disabled" status means the system is not responding, and no information is being returned. |
When an alarm is raised Spotlight performs one or more of the following actions:
You can control how that notification is issued. Alarm actions |
Disabled
Normal
Information
Low
Medium
High
Metrics Dialog
View the alarms defined for a Spotlight connection or component of the Spotlight home page.
Note: These are not the alarms raised for a connection / component. To see the alarms raised for a connection open the Alarm log.
To open the Metrics dialog
| View all metrics for the connection | View all metrics for the Spotlight home page component |
|---|---|
|
Open the Spotlight home page for the connection. Select View |Show All Alarms… |
Right click the component on the Spotlight home page and select Metrics… |
About the Metrics dialog
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| List of metrics |
All metrics associated with the component / connection are listed. Data is collected for selected metrics. Clear the selection to stop collecting data for the metric. Highlight the metric to display its details in the Metric page. You can sort the list.
|
| Metric Name | This is the metric highlighted in the list of metrics. |
| Averaging |
Set Averaging for the highlighted metric.
Averaging - is a technique that Spotlight uses to smooth out the anomalies and spikes that may appear momentarily in the metric values for a component. The purpose of averaging is to prevent Spotlight from reporting alarms for such spikes if they do not persist. Notes:
|
ascending or 
descending name order.
.
Set the rate at which data is collected
Thresholds Dialog
Define the acceptable range of values for a Spotlight metric. Metrics that exceed the Normal threshold raise an alarm.
To open the Thresholds Dialog
| View all metrics for the connection | View all metrics for the Spotlight home page component |
|---|---|
|
Open the Spotlight home page for the connection. Select View |Show All Alarms… | Thresholds |
Right click the component on the Spotlight home page and select Metrics… | Thresholds |
About the Thresholds Dialog
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| List of metrics |
All metrics associated with the component / connection are listed. Data is collected for selected metrics. Clear the selection to stop collecting data for the metric. Highlight the metric to display its details in the Thresholds page. You can sort the list.
|
| Name | This is the name of the metric highlighted in the list of metrics. |
|
Severity table |
Define severities for the highlighted metric.
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Threshold bar |
Severity Start and End values can be defined in the Severity table or the Threshold bar. On the Threshold bar:
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