Dell SupportAssist: Alert Policy This Dell Technical FAQ provides details on how SupportAssist processes alerts and automatically creates support cases with SupportAssist for OpenManage Essentials or Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) Dell Engineering August 2014
Revisions Date Description August 2014 Initial release THIS TECHNICAL DOCUMENT IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. © 2014 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell.
Table of contents Revisions ..................................................................................................................................................................................................2 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 What is SupportAssist? ..............................................................
Introduction Dell SupportAssist is a service capability that enables automated support from Dell by identifying potential hardware issues in your IT environment remotely. Dell’s robust and easy to use proactive support technology allows us to identify, diagnose, and resolve hardware issues faster and more precisely with less of your involvement – eliminating or reducing downtime and letting you get back to business.
• On Dell PowerEdge servers, SupportAssist can monitor approximately 100 hardware fault events. These faults include memory, disk, power supply, controller, and other component issues. • On Dell Storage such as PowerVault and EqualLogic storage devices, SupportAssist can monitor faults such as disks, controllers, power supplies, cache, batteries, and other component issues.
What is the response time? A Service Request to open a support case with Dell is created by SupportAssist at the time a given alert goes beyond the predefined threshold. These Service Requests are then automatically sent and assigned to a Dell Technical Support agent. The agent accepts the Service Request and starts the resolution process. The response time for a support case created by SupportAssist is generally the same as that of a support case created by contacting Dell Technical Support over phone.
If you have minimal or no IT proficiency with systems management software, or if you do not have sufficient time, it is best to utilze RCS to implement SupportAssist properly. RCS includes deployment and setup by a Dell Support Engineer over phone using a secure Internet connection.
FirstMatch() policies The FirstMatch() policies represent all hardware- related events.
Valid duration values of the Occurs threshold are as follows: • Days: 0 to 365 • Hours: 0 to 23 • Minutes: 0 to 59 • Seconds: 0 to 59 Polices which specify the Occurs() threshold instruct the SupportAssist server hosted by Dell to retain the timestamp of each alert. With each new alert occurrence, the SupportAssist server evaluates if the number of alerts within the duration exceeds the count, and if so, creates/appends the case.
Table 3 Example of severity 2 event Example Description TrapId 2 EventId Severity AutoCase True AlertThreshold Occurs(10,0- 01:00:00) DeltaSeverity 3 AlertDescription The agent generates this notification to denote the change in InterConnect Link Status. The notification contains information on the new ICL status. The possible states are as follows: 1. NotEstablishted 2. LinkUp 3. LinkDown 4.
Conclusion Dell SupportAssist is designed for customers that want to benefit from automation and acceleration of opening support cases and troubleshooting with Dell Technical Support, when potential hardware issues arise. It is not a replacement for customer staff which has responsibility for systems management and hardware uptime. Rather, it is a complementary resource to augment customers capabilities, especially for customers that have choosen ProSupport or ProSupport Plus.
