Rapid Recovery 6.1.3 - User Guide

Navigating between tasks, alerts, and the events journal

Events that the Core logs are visible from the Core Console, and fall into three categories: tasks, alerts, and a journal of all logged events.

Regardless of whether you are viewing events for the Core for a specified machine, the default view for events is the Tasks page. By clicking the drop-down menu to the right of the page title, you can select another view of events.

Perform the following steps to view events and navigate between tasks, important alerts, and a journal of all events.

You can view events that pertain to the Core by clicking (Events) from the icon bar.

If you first navigate to a protected or replicated machine, and then select Events from the menu at the top of the page, you can view events for the specified machine.

Regardless of whether you are viewing events for the Core for a specified machine, the default view for events is the Tasks page. By clicking the drop-down menu to the right of the page title, you can select another view of events.

1.	If you want to view all tasks for the Rapid Recovery Core, from the icon bar, click (Events).

3.	From the top left of the Tasks pane, click (the downward-facing arrow to the right of the Tasks title).

Understanding event notifications in Rapid Recovery

The Rapid Recovery Core tracks many events, and logs the information for diagnostic and operational purposes.

You can set up notification of specific events. Rapid Recovery lets you choose the method of notification, and the duration of time for which the system should retain a record of those events. With the repetition reduction feature, you can even adjust the frequency for notifying you about the same event.

Jobs and events tracked on the Core are saved by default for 30 days. To change the retention period for tracking events, see Configuring event retention

You can be notified of events through different methods, or choose only one method. The notification methods supported are listed in the following table:

Notification groups let you specify the types of events for which you want to be notified, and set the notification method.

Rapid Recovery Core requires at least one notification group, and ships with a default group which is automatically applied. You can use the default settings, or you can edit them.

Optionally, you can add and configure additional notification groups. For example, you can use the default group as is, and you can set up another group that uses email notifications.

As another example, you can set up a custom notification group for one type of event (for example, Microsoft Exchange), and send all related notifications to an Exchange administrator.

For more information, see Configuring notification groups.

Email notifications are disabled by default. To sent notifications by email, you must set up an email server, and edit or add a notification group with the Notify by email option enabled. This setting requires you to enter the email address to which the notifications are sent. For more information, see Configuring an email server.

If using an Exchange server, you must set up relay on the server. Otherwise, despite successful email tests, no email notifications are sent. For more information, see your Exchange Server administrator.

The Core uses an email notification template. The template includes a subject line and specific content for the message body. A default email notification template is included. The template identifies the Core and the server host, the date and time of the event, the nature of the event, and error details if relevant. Optionally, you can modify the default template, or revert any customization to restore the default. For more information, see Configuring an email notification template.

You can reduce the number of events of the same type and scope that are logged and visible from the Core Console by using the repetition reduction feature. This feature is enabled by default. You can disable this feature, or you can control the span of time for which events are combined into a single occurrence in the event log. For more information, see About repetition reduction.

Configuring notification groups

NOTE: You must first configure Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server settings if you want to send notifications as email messages, as described in this procedure. For more information on setting email server configuration settings, see Configuring an email server.

Notification groups let you define sets of specific events for which users are alerted, and the manner in which that notification takes place. You can configure alerts to be sent by the following methods:

Rapid Recovery Core ships with a default notification group for the Core. You can edit that group to suit your needs. Optionally, you can configure more than one notification group with different notification parameters.

Notification groups can be set at the Core level, or for each specific protected machine.

Complete the steps in this procedure to configure notification groups for alerts.

1.	To set notifications at the Core level, from the icon bar, click (More), and then select Notifications.

b.	In the Summary page of the protected machine, from the More drop-down menu, select Notifications.

3.	If you want to add a new notification group, click Add Group. Skip to step 5.

4.	If you want to edit the default notification group or an existing notification group, in the Notification Groups pane, click the drop-down menu for the appropriate notification group, and select Edit.

Option	Description
Name	Enter a name for the event notification group. This information is required.   CAUTION: The value you enter for the notification group name cannot be changed later.
Description	Enter a description that clarifies the purpose for the event notification group. This information is optional

Option	Description
All Alerts	To create alerts for all events, select
Errors	To create alerts for errors, from the Select Types menu, click Error. This is represented by a red X.
Warning	To create alerts for errors, from the Select Types menu, click Warning. This is represented by a yellow exclamation point icon.
Info	To create alerts for informational messages, from the Select Types menu, click Info. This is represented by a blue i.
Restore Default	or the default Core notification group, to restore the set of events to appear as alerts to the default, from the Select Types menu, click Reset to defaults.   NOTE: This option is available when editing the default Core notification group only. It is not available for new Core notification groups or for configuration notifications for a specific protected machine.

Option	Description
Notify by email	Designate the recipients of the email notification. You can choose to specify separate multiple email addresses as well as blind and carbon copies.   NOTE: If using Exchange Server, SMTP relay must be set up on the server. Otherwise event notifications will not be sent to the designated email address. For more information, consult your Exchange Server administrator.
Notify by Windows Event Log	Select this option if you want notifications to be reported through the Windows Event Log.
Notify by syslogd	Select this option if you want notifications to be reported through syslogd. Specify the details for the syslogd in the following text boxes: • Host: • Port:
Notify by Toast alerts	Select this option if you want notifications to appear as pop-up messages in the lower-right corner of your screen.
Notify by SNMP Trap	The Rapid Recovery Core serves as an SNMP agent, sending traps (notifications about specific events) to an SNMP manager. The result is the reporting of Core information such as alerts, repository status, and protected machines. Select this option if you want to notify Core events by SNMP trap. You must also specify a trap number, which is used by the SNMP manager.

Understanding email notifications

You can set up Rapid Recovery Core to notify you of specific events by sending an email message to an email address that you specify. The events which trigger alerts, and the notification methods, are defined in the notification group.

NOTE: Notification groups must be established regardless of whether you use email as a notification method. For more information, see Configuring notification groups.

Rapid Recovery uses an email notification template, which determines the information sent in each notification. The template defines the email subject line for each alert, and the content in the email message body. The template has default settings; you can use the default as-is, or you can test and make modifications to serve your needs. At any point after customizing the notification template, you can choose the Restore Defaults option to return to using the default template. For information on viewing and customizing the email template, see Configuring an email notification template.

If you choose email as one of your notification options, you must first configure an email SMTP server. The Rapid Recovery Core uses the server you define to send alerts based on the parameters in the notification group.

Additionally, to receive email notifications, you must enable the Notify by email option within the notification group. This notification option is disabled by default. The Notify by email setting requires a "To" address defined at minimum. (Optionally, you can add copy and blind copy addresses if desired.)

This section includes the following topics: