5.8.5

Table 7‑5. <rule> Element Attributes
Attribute Description
tag Specifies a text string. vCenter Operations Manager adds this text to the information string of
alerts that the rule triggers.
alert Specifies the resource kind on which the alert is defined. vCenter Operations Manager checks all
resources of the specified resource kind if the resource or its parents satisfy the rule. For example,
the rule VirtualMachine cpu_usage > 50 AND HostSystem cpu_usage 50 defines an alert
on VirtualMachine.
attributeKey The attribute key of an attribute. You can obtain attribute keys from the
vCenter Operations Manager database. See “Retrieve Keys from the vCenter Operations Manager
Database,” on page 103.
criticality Criticality level of the alert. Valid values are critical, immediate, info, none, and warning.
<cond> Element
The <rule> element can contain one or more <cond> elements. Each <cond> element defines a condition. You
can nest <cond> elements.
The <cond> element contains several attributes.
Table 7‑6. <cond> Element Attributes
Attribute Description
operator Arithmetic operator. Valid values are and and or. You can nest operators.
type Threshold type. Valid values are ht for hard threshold and dt for dynamic threshold.
Operators for ht are >, >=, <=, =, and !=. You must escape operators, for example, < is &lt.
Operators for dt are above, below, and abnormal.
Add a Multilevel Alert Rule
To add a multilevel alert rule, you define a rule in the multi-level-alert-rules.xml file.
Leaving the multi-level-alert-rules.xml file empty disables the multilevel alert rule feature.
Prerequisites
Become familiar with the syntax of the multi-level-alert-rules.xml file. See “Multilevel Alert Rules XML
File Format,” on page 97.
Procedure
1 Open the multi-level-alert-rules.xml file in the vcenter-ops\user\conf\analytics directory.
In a vApp installation, the multi-level-alert-rules.xml file is in the Analytics virtual machine.
2 Add the rule to the multi-level-alert-rules.xml file.
3 Save your changes and close the multi-level-alert-rules.xml file.
Your changes take effect the next time vCenter Operations Manager reads the multi-level-alert-rules.xml
file. By default, vCenter Operations Manager reads the multi-level-alert-rules.xml every 30 minutes. You
can change this interval by modifying the multiLevelAlertRulesUpdateInterval property in the vcenter-
ops\user\conf\analytics\advanced.properties file.
Each time vCenter Operations Manager parses the multi-level-alert-rules.xml file, it cancels alerts that
do not have corresponding rules.
VMware vCenter Operations Manager Administration Guide
98 VMware, Inc.