Using Notifications
Cisco netManager captures events that occur in the Unified Communications environment and the IP fabric. Cisco netManager can send e-mail notifications each time a new event is found. E-mail notifications can be filtered based on rules that specify the device type, event type, or event severity.
See the following topics for more information on notifications:
•Notification Filtering—Explains the concept of notification filtering.
•Configuring Notifications—Provides information on how to configure notification criteria.
•Managing Notifications, page 13-9—Provides system registry information on notification configuration options:
–Performance and E-Mail Details, page 13-9
–Configuring SMTP Load, page 13-9
–Configuring Socket Timeouts, page 13-10
–Notification Logging, page 13-10
Note Some antivirus programs automatically scan outgoing e-mail which can affect performance. See the appropriate antivirus product documentation to disable this option.
In addition to sending e-mail notifications, you can configure Cisco netManager to initiate actions (depending on the responses received from polling, or the types of messages received) to notify you of any change on your network. You can configure actions on a single device or monitor, or define an Action Policy to use across multiple devices or monitors. For more information on actions, see Chapter 6, "Using Actions."
Notification Filtering
You can set notification rules that dictate what type of events are sent and to whom they are sent. You can do the following with notifications:
•Create multiple rules based on:
–Devices
–Groups
–Event types
–Event severity
•Specify multiple SMPTP servers and multiple recipients
•Filter out duplicates of the same event
For each event, Cisco netManager compares the event type, device type, and severity against the user-configured notification rule and sends a notification when there is a match. The procedure for configuring notification criteria is described in Configuring Notifications.
What Are Notification Criteria?
Notification criteria define what you want to monitor for the purpose of sending notifications. A notification criterion is a user-defined, named set of devices or phones, and alerts and events of a particular severity. You must specify device-based notification criteria to configure a notification group.
–Devices—The devices or device groups that you want to monitor.
–Event groups—(Optional) One or more types of events that you want to monitor.
–Event severity—(Optional) One or more event severity levels.
Limiting Notifications to Those for Specific Events
In some cases, you might want to send notifications for only a subset of the events that Cisco netManager monitors. You can select a group of events and/or specify the severity of events for which you want to send notifications. You can define this criteria to:
•Limit the number of events that Cisco netManager notification monitors.
•Aggregate the notifications that you want to send to different destinations. For example, you can create separate event groups to limit the number of e-mail notifications sent to specific individuals or departments.
Configuring Notifications
From GO > Notification Settings, you can configure Cisco netManager to send e-mail notifications when specific events occur on specific device groups.
Note Some antivirus programs automatically scan outgoing e-mail which can affect performance. See the appropriate antivirus product documentation to disable this option.
From this page you have the following options:
•New—Creates a new notification group.
•Edit—Modifies the selected notification group.
•Copy—Copies a selected notification group that you can later edit. You can use existing notification groups as templates for creating new notification groups; for example, to create a new notification group with the same list of e-mail addresses of an existing notification group.
•Delete—Deletes the selected notification group.
•View—Displays the Notification Summary page, where the configuration information for a notification group is displayed.
These topics explain the activities you can perform from the Notifications page:
•Adding and Editing Device Notification Rules
•Cloning a Notification Rule
•Viewing Notification Rule Configuration Details
•Deleting Notification Rules
Adding and Editing Device Notification Rules
This topic describes the procedures for adding or editing a device notification group.
Note Some antivirus programs automatically scan outgoing e-mail which can affect performance. Please see the appropriate antivirus product documentation to disable this option.
Step 1 Select GO > Configure > Notifications Settings....
Step 2 Do one of the following:
•To add a new criterion, click New....
•To edit an existing criterion, select the notification group and click Edit....
Step 3 Edit the information on the page, described in the following table.
Table 7-1 Notification Criterion
|
|
Notification Name |
Descriptive name for the notification. |
IPv4 Address of SMTP Server |
Enter a fully qualified IP address for a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server. (The name of the default SMTP server might already be displayed.) |
Recipient E-Mail Address(es) separated by comma, semicolon, or space |
Enter one or more e-mail addresses that notifications should be sent to, separating multiple addresses with either a comma or a semicolon. If a recipient's e-mail service is hosted on the SMTP server specified, you need to enter only the username. You do not need to enter the domain name. |
Step 4 Click Next. The Add Notification — Device Group page appears.
Step 5 Check one of the following:
•Select all devices—Includes all devices in this notification.
•Select devices or device groups—Includes devices and device groups that you select to include in this notification. Expand device group folders and select check boxes for one or more devices or device groups.
Note•If you select a device group, the notification criterion will stay up-to-date when individual devices are added or deleted from the device group. However, if the device group is deleted, the group is removed from all notification rules. You will have to configure the notification criterion again even if the same device group is added back with the same name.
•If you select an individual device, and the device is deleted later, the notification criteria is also deleted.You will have to configure the notification criterion again even if the device is added back later.
•All events present in the devices you select can be included in this notification using the next wizard screen.
Step 6 Click Next.The Add Notification—Events page appears.
Step 7 Check one of the following:
•Select all events—Includes all events associated with the devices selected in the previous screen.
•Select group of events—Includes events that you select to include in this notification. Expand event group folders and select check boxes for one or more events or event groups.
•Select none, one, or more of the following:
–Critical.
–Warning.
–Informational.
Step 8 Click Next. The Notification Group Summary page appears, displaying all information entered on the previous page.
Step 9 Click Finish. The notification information is saved.
Note You can use existing notification groups as templates for creating new notification groups. For procedures, see Cloning a Notification Rule.
Cloning a Notification Rule
You can use existing notification rules as templates for creating new notification groups.
Step 1 Select GO > Configure > Notifications Settings....The Notification page appears.
Step 2 Select notification group that you want to use as the base for your new notification group.
Step 3 Click Close.
The rest of the procedures for cloning a notification rule are the same as for editing a notification group. For further instructions, see Adding and Editing Device Notification Rules.
Viewing Notification Rule Configuration Details
Step 1 Select GO > Configure > Notifications Settings....The Notification rules page appears.
Step 2 Select the notification group that you want to view.
Step 3 Click View. The Notification Group Summary page appears, displaying the following information:
•Notification Name.
•Notification Group Details—SMTP server, SMTP port, recipient e-mail addresses.
•Device Details—Selected devices for this notification.
•Event Details—Selected events and any applicable event severity types (critical, warning, or informational).
Deleting Notification Rules
Step 1 Select GO > Configure > Notifications Settings....The Notification Groups page appears.
Step 2 Select the notification group that you want to delete.
Step 3 Click Delete. A confirmation dialog box appears.
Step 4 Click Yes to confirm.