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