Creating an Alert

Use the Add Alert wizard to create an alert instance for your resource.

Prerequisites

You must have administrative privileges (sccAdminRole) to perform this task.
Specify an e-mail server for SAP Control Center to use for alerts. You cannot create e-mail subscriptions to alerts without an e-mail server.
Schedule data collections. Alerts for each product module are based on one or more data collections. If the correct collection or collections are not scheduled to run, the alert system cannot function and no alerts are generated. See the data collections topic for your product module for information on which collections you need to schedule to enable alerts.
(Optional) If you want this alert to trigger the execution of a shell script, copy the script to a location on or accessible from the machine that hosts your SAP Control Center server. Set permissions to make the script executable.

Warning! Use caution in writing scripts. A poorly designed script can cause a blocking situation, creating a deadlock in your SAP Control Center server.

Task

In the Perspective Resources view, click the server or other resource and select Resource > Properties in the view’s menu bar.
Select Alerts in the left pane and click Add.
The Add Alert wizard opens. If the selected resource supports child alerts, the wizard opens to the Resource page. If the resource does not support child alerts, the wizard opens to the Type page—in that case, skip to step 5.
On the Resource page of the wizard, select the object on which to set the alert. Expand the folder representing the server or agent to select lower-level child objects.
Click Next.
On the Type page, select the alert type and click Next.
For this step and the next one, see the topic on key performance indicators for information on what this alert monitors and how it is triggered. (Each alert is based on a KPI.)
Based on the type of alert you selected, do one of the following:
- For a state-based alert – select a severity level for each alert state.
  Note: You can associate only one severity level with each state.
- For a threshold-based alert – review and if necessary adjust the range of values that defines each severity.
Click Next.
(Optional) Enter the storm suppression period. Storm suppression blocks redundant alert notifications and script executions resulting from the same condition for the specified period of time. Enter this value in seconds, minutes, or hours and click Next.
(Optional) To configure this alert to trigger the execution of a script:
1. Alert Severity specifies the severity level that triggers the script. Select Critical, Warning, or both.
  Critical is typically more serious than Warning.
2. Browse to the location of the script.
  
  Note: In UNIX, make sure the script is executable. You cannot select a script unless it has execute permission.
3. If the script requires parameter values, click Select Parameters to enter them in the Execution Parameters box.
  You can include a number of predefined substitution parameters, which are replaced by values from the alert. The parameter values are passed on the command line to the script. See the example and the substitution parameters topic (linked below) for more information.
  Note: When you test a script, SAP Control Center supplies test values for the %Severity% and %Source_Application% parameters (“Testing” and “TestScriptExecution,” respectively). Any test values you supply for these parameters are discarded. This prevents the test results from being confused with real script results after testing and in the SCC repository.
4. (Optional) Click Test to perform a test execution of your script.
  If your script takes parameters, the test may fail if parameter values are missing or incorrect.
5. Click Next.
If the selected resource has sibling resources (databases or devices of the same type, for example) that support this alert type, you see the Duplicates page. If the selected resource has no identical siblings, you see the Subscription page.
(Optional) On the Duplicates page, select any resources that should use this alert definition as a template for their own alerts. Click the box at the top of the list to select all the resources listed. Then click Next.
This step saves time when you need to configure similar alerts for several resources of the same type.

(Optional) On the Subscription page, specify e-mail addresses if you want this alert to issue e-mail notifications when it fires.

The e-mail addresses default to the address in your user profile, but you can override the defaults.

For both critical and warning alerts:

Alert subscription details
Option	Description
E-mail	To send an e-mail notification when this alert fires, click the E-mail Message box and enter the e-mail address of one user or list.
Escalation E-mail	To escalate this alert (by sending another e-mail notification if this alert has not been responded to after a specified period of time), click the Escalation E-mail box and enter the e-mail address of one user or list. You cannot enter an escalation address unless you enter an address for primary notification first.
Time Period	Specify how long to wait, following the initial alert notification, before SAP Control Center sends an e-mail notification to the escalation address. (The same notification is sent again to the original notification address.) Select a time unit (hours, minutes, or seconds) and enter a number.

Click Finish.
If you are creating duplicate or child alerts, the Cancel button is activated; click it to interrupt the creation of further alerts. (The primary alert, at a minimum, is always created before the operation can be cancelled.) If you do not want to keep the duplicate or child alerts (if any) created before you cancelled the operation, drop them manually.
Note: Click Cancel to stop the creation of duplicate alerts.