Using Alerts
The program allows you to detect connection problems of monitored hosts using alerts. You can configure custom alerts according to your needs to detect different types of problems. In alert configuration you can specify a condition that is evaluated for each monitored host separately. Once this condition is satisfied, the program reports an alert for the host, so you can see the alert in the program and this alert shows the host for which it is reported. The alert ended once the condition isn’t satisfied.
You can see current alerts in the system reported in Alerts Summary. Each alert there displays the name or the alert, a host name for which the alert is reported, alert state, severity and duration Pic 1. The alerts list displays all current alerts for all hosts. If you click a host name, you can navigate to the host level where current alerts for the selected host are reported only.
The total number of current alerts is displayed in the Alerts section of Overview. Alerts means the current problems, is there are no alerts, it means that you don’t need any monitoring problems at the current moment. If there are alerts reported, you can review them in Alerts Summary and start to resolve the problems with hosts. Once the problem has been discovered, you can acknowledge it while working on the solution. To acknowledge the problem select the corresponding action in the context menu or on the toolbar. The alert can be acknowledged for a selected period of time or indefinitely. Acknowledged alerts are reported with the corresponding state, so you can see which alerts are active and acknowledged. If the problem isn’t resolved during the acknowledge time period, the alert becomes active again.
The program can send notifications and execute custom actions when an alert is started and ended. It is described in the Notifications of Alerts and Events chapter. You can configure alerts and their conditions on the Alerts and Notifications page of the program preferences. By default the program provides two preconfigured alerts, but you can change them or create custom alerts in preferences. It is possible to use any real-time monitoring characteristics in the alert condition, including host state, quality characteristics, packet loss, latency, jitter and other metrics Pic 2.
When you configure an alert condition you can use logical operators to create condition of any complexity. Alternatively you can create a few separate alerts where each alert includes a simple condition. Use the approach that works the best in every particular case.