Reference Guide

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Reference Guide
Overview of Rules
vFoglight allows you to create flexible rules that can be applied to complex, interrelated
data from multiple sources within your distributed system. You can associate several
different actions with a rule, configure a rule so that it does not fire repeatedly, and
associate a rule with schedules to define when it should and should not be evaluated.
Different types of data can be used in rules, including registry variables, raw metrics,
derived metrics, and topology object properties.
There are two types of rules in vFoglight: simple rules and multiple-severity rules. A
simple rule has a single condition, and can be in one of three states: Fire, Undefined, or
Normal. A multiple-severity rule can have up to five severity levels: Undefined, Fatal,
Critical, Warning, and Normal.
Rule conditions are regularly evaluated against monitoring data (metrics and topology
object properties collected from your monitored environment and transformed into a
standard format). Therefore, the state of the rule can change if the data changes. For
example, if a set of monitoring data matches a simple rule’s condition, the rule enters
the Fire state. If the next set does not match the condition, the rule exits the Fire state
and enters the Normal state.
A rule condition is a type of expression that can be true or false. When it evaluates to
true, the rule is said to fire, causing any actions that are associated with the rule or
severity level to be performed. You can configure a rule to perform one or more actions
upon entering or exiting each state. When a multiple-severity rule fires, an alarm also
appears in vFoglight.
See “Introduction to Rules” and “Creating and Editing Rules” in the vFoglight
Administration and Configuration Guide for more information.