In Lithium, Triggers are thresholds defined to indicate when an undesirable condition is present within the Device being monitored -- i.e a problem or fault. Triggers are used to raise Incidents based on the latest recorded or calculated value of the Metric to which it is defined under. Each device added to Lithium Core has a default set of triggers added to it's Metrics. In some circumstances these triggers may need to be adjusted to suit your network deployment.
Lithium Console provides three interfaces for dealing with Triggers. To quickly disable unwanted Triggers that are currently active, i.e reporting an Incident, you can use the "Review Active Triggers" sheet to selectively disable some or all currently active Triggers. To perform more in-depth adjustment including changing the actual threshold values you would use the "Adjust Triggers" sheet. And finally, to reset any Trigger adjustments done via either of the above methods -- or any other method -- you can use the "Reset Trigger Rules" feature to reset trigger rules for a specific Device, Container or Object.
When you first add a device to Lithium you may notice that a number of warning or fault indicators (Incidents) are immediately raised. This is due to the standard Triggers (thresholds) that are applied by Lithium out-of-the-box. These Triggers can be adjusted to better suit the operation of the device or disabled to prevent an alert being raised.
To quickly disable some or all of the Triggers that are currently Active (i.e reporting an Incident) on a given Device you can use the "Review Active Triggers" feature of Console.
Select a Device in a Console Window and click on "Review Active Triggers" under the "Device" item in the menu bar. This same option can also be accessed from the Device's context menu.
A sheet will be displayed, as shown above, listing all Triggers that are currently active (i.e in a Non-Normal state).
Use the check boxes beside each row to selectively include or exclude Triggers from the Disable operation you are about to perform.
It's best not to disable Triggers here if you intend to then Adjust their Trigger value via the Adjust Triggers interface described below. That is to say, if you want to permanently disable the Trigger and not be alerted to this condition again, Disable it through this interface. If you do still want to be alerted to the condition but not at it's current value, use the Adjust Triggers interface instead.
With all the Triggers that you want to disable checked, click on "Disable" to have Lithium Console add the relevant Trigger Set Application Rules to Lithium Core to prevent those conditions from being reported in future.
The Adjust Triggers interface is the most thorough way to adjust the value and application of individual Triggers and groups of Triggers referred to as Trigger Sets.
To open the Adjust Triggers sheet, locate the Object you wish to adjust (for example a storage Volume) and click on the "Adjust Triggers" item under the "Monitored Entity" toolbar item or select "Adjust Triggers" from the Object's context menu as shown above.
The Adjust Triggers sheet consists of four key components:
Object Info
This displays all information about the Object for which the Triggers are being adjusted.
Trigger Sets
The table in the middle of the sheet displays a list of all the Trigger Sets applied to this Object. Trigger Sets are a group of Triggers that are all applied to a single Metric. For example, a Network Interface will have an Operational State Trigger Set which defines various conditions to raise depending on the value of the Operational State Metric.
Selecting a Trigger Set in this table allows for the adjustment of each individual Trigger in the set through the tabs below.
Edit Triggers, Application Rules and Value Rules Tabs
These three tabs at the bottom of the sheet allow for the adjustment of Trigger values and conditions as well as controlling how wide-reaching those changes are to be and whether or not to apply individual Triggers in the selected Trigger set.
Edit Triggers Tab
In this tab is a lists all of the Triggers in the selected Trigger Set. Whether or not a particular Trigger is to be applied or enabled can be changed by checking or un-checking the checkbox at the start of each row.
The actual threshold value and condition for each trigger can be edited directly by simply double-clicking on the Trigger's X or Y values or duration and/or changing the Trigger's Condition drop-down menu.
The condition set for the Trigger will control whether just an X or both an X and Y value are required. Both an X and Y value is only required for a "Range" Trigger condition where the threshold is "Between X and Y"
The duration value is the length of time in second Lithium should wait before raising an Incident when this condition is encountered
Application Rules Tab
Trigger Set Application Rules define whether or not an entire Trigger Set is to be applied to a given Object. For example, a Trigger Set rule can define that the "Operational State" group of Triggers should NOT be applied to Network Interface "FastEthernet0/1".
The Application Rules shown in this tab apply to the Trigger Set selected in the mid-sheet Trigger Set table.
You can edit the affect of a given Application Rule directly by changing it's drop-down menu options.
Additional Application Rules can be added manually using the "Add Rule" button. Clicking on the checkbox on the far-left of the mid-sheet Trigger Set table will automatically add an appropriate Application Rule to that Trigger Set to confirm or prevent that group of Triggers being applied to the represented Object.
If, for example, you use the check-box on the Trigger Set table to disable a particular Trigger Set for this Object but then wanted that same behaviour applied to ALL Objects on this device, you would do this via this Application Rules Tab.
Find the newly-added rule (after altering the value of the Trigger Set checkox) and use the Application Rule's drop-downs for the Site, Device and Object values to control whether that Application Rule is applied to a specific Site or all Sites, a specific Device or all Devices and/or a specific Object and/or all Objects or any combination there-of.
The Application Rules are processed on a first-most-specific-rule basis. Lithium Core will look for the most specific rule (i.e pertaining directly to a specific Site, Device or Object in that order or preference) and apply that rule to whether or not this particular Trigger Set should be applied to any given Object.
NOTE: Making wide-reaching changes can necessitate restarting the monitoring process for Devices affected by the rule changes to ensure the proper processing of the Application Rules
Value Rules Tab
Trigger Value Rules control the actual Value, Condition and Duration for each individual Trigger in a Trigger Set when they are applied to a given Object.
For example, when the "Input Utilisation" Trigger Set is being applied to a Network Interface Object, the list of Value Rules is queried to find any relevant rules that dictate the actual Values, Condition and Duration properties to be applied to the trigger
Typically, you would edit the Value, Duration and Condition of a given Trigger directly using the "Edit Triggers" Tab for a selected Trigger Set
However, if you want to expand the scope of a given change to a Trigger's Value, Condition or Duration -- i.e have those same values set for Triggers as they are applied to other Objects or Devices -- you can do this through the Value Rules Tab.
To edit a Trigger Value Rule, first select the relevant Trigger from the top table in the Value Rule Tab. This will populate the list of Value Rules for that selected Trigger in the lower table. You can then directly edit that Value Rule by changing the drop-down menu items and/or double clicking on a value to change it.
Similar to Application Rules, Value Rules are processed on a first-most-specific-rule basis. Lithium Core will look for the most specific rule (i.e pertaining directly to a specific Site, Device or Object in that order or preference) and apply that rule to set the Values, Duration and Condition of a given Trigger.
NOTE: Making wide-reaching changes can necessitate restarting the monitoring process for Devices affected by the rule changes to ensure the proper processing of the Value Rules
You can manually add Trigger Value rules using the "Add" button and the Trigger Value Rule editing sheet shown in the image below.
To remove a Value Rule, Select the rule and click the "Delete Rule" button.
