Hey, that could come in handy if you want to **** your data center support staff around... LOL... :)
Seems like the only way this would be useful is if the server was physically located within earshot. This doesn't seem like it would often be the case.
Is there any way to get audio alarms to play through the browser?
There are new features now that allow sounds from the webpage.
To enable audible web alerts:
1. Log in to the Orion Web Console as an administrator.
2. Click Admin in the Views toolbar.
3. Click Account Manager in the Accounts grouping of the Orion Website Administration page.
4. Select the account that you want to configure, and then click Edit.
5. Scroll down to Alert Sound (just above account limitations). Select the sound file you want to play when new alerts arrive from the Alert Sound list, and then click Submit.
By default, sounds are stored in the Sounds directory, located at C:\Inetpub\SolarWinds\NetPerfMon\Sounds.
When you login to the Orion Web Console, you will receive an audible alert if an alert is displayed on the page (either in an alert resource or Alerts view).
You will not receive audible alerts if the Alerts view or the alert resource you are viewing is empty.
You will need to Add an alerts resource (suc as Active Alerts) to this page and the alerts will be played.
To do this, click Admin -> Manage Views. Highlight the view you wish to add to the resource and click Edit. Click the green + sign to a add a resource to a column and then, under alerts, tick the check box for All Triggered Alerts. Click Submit to save and this resource will be added to the view.
Mark,
While the method you describe works, it seems pretty limited. I can (and probably will) create some "custom" WAV files, but there's no method to associate them with a specific alert unless I create an Advanced Alert with a Trigger Action.
If I do that...Advanced Alert with a Trigger Action of "Play A Sound", where does the sound actually play? If it's on the VMWare Server my NPM is installed on, that's worthless. No one will hear it in the Computer Room. If it's on through the local browser the user has up, that's a little better.
Having the ability to create a text-to-speech Trigger Action that uses the system variables; ie, Node ${NodeName} is ${Status} would be VERY useful. In our network, Node Names are actual store locations. So the variable phrase would (should) say "Store 209 is down" in this instance. Our VoIP site network nodes have city names, so an alert on a bad call path, site down, etc. would actually say something useful.
We are installing a pair of 50 inch LCD TVs with PC and audio input connections in the Help Desk area to display our custom maps with our 400+ US stores overlaid on them. I will probably do the custom WAV thing for a node down, but I won't be able to anything really slick without being able to use variables in the audio stream.
Is there any thought to extending the capabilities in Advanced Alerts to be able to something like I describe?
NinjaNerd56-
I'd like to better understand your request. Are you asking for the ability to tie specific sound files to specific alerts?
-Craig
Craig,
The short answer is yes. That would be useful.
Being able to route text-to-speech outputs to the web console would be even better. Right now, our Trigger Actions for some critical applications in APM send e-mail and/or pages, for instance. We use the "Insert Variables" to place specific data in the mail or page. That works fine.
In the case of the Help Desk / Support use (and a dog and pony show for visitors Management wants to do), being able to create a Text-To-Speech Trigger Action that used Insert Variables would be pretty cool.
We had an event this morning that illustrates this, perhaps.
The e-mail sent from the Advanced Alert reads like this: (Actual names replaced with items in "")
Subject: "AppName" Database Monitor: DOWN
The "AppName" Server is experiencing issues, please be advised the following services or applications may be effected:
"This One"
"That One"
Databases:
"DB A"
"DB B"
"DB C"
"DB D"
"DB E"
More Info: Down
If we could tie a specific pre-recorded sound file to that event OR have a text-to-speech say all that in the Help Desk area, that would be great. This may not be a big deal for most people and in actual practice, turn out to be annoying. Do other users ever ask for things like this?
Thanks!
This is the first request for this type of functionality I've seen. If there are others, please speak up.
I have logged this as a feature request. Thanks for the feedback, NinjaNerd56.
I think it would be great to hear "Excuse me sir, Exchange1's CPU is over 90% at this time" (with a British accent of course), in my network control center. Haha.
Actually, I came up with a cheesy way for this to work. (but no British accent)
If your server has a functional audio chipset and the sound drivers installed, you can trap the Speaker Out or Line Out to a wireless transmitter, then attach the receiver to the audio in of the display with your Alert or Event View on it.
The drawbacks are significant...limited range (50-150 feet is realistic), an RF source in your server room, noise in the signal itself, and so on. But, it....could....work!
I may lash this up with a wireless speaker set I use at home just to see if it's worth it.
:o)
pillitiere - maybe we can get an animated gecko to pop up on the NOC screeen and say the alerts?
;)
Actually, a little animated SolarWinds "fire guy" built off your logo would be pretty cool. Give him a name and personality like Geico has with their Gecko but uniquely suited to SolarWinds and you'd have a winner.
Sell it to your Marketing guys and get them to offset part of the development costs for text-to-speech > local browser and let them re-use the "character" in their ads, etc.
:o)
Just wanted to check if the functionality of text to speech using variable has been added.
Also the feature of playing sound in a NOC web browser instead of the local server located in a noisy IDC would be lot better. Can we have sounds playing on a web browser. We may have to copy the sound file on the system which runs the browser, but thats a one off and is more helpful than playing it on the server.
Any update?
This is the first request for this type of functionality I've seen. If there are others, please speak up.
I have logged this as a feature request. Thanks for the feedback, NinjaNerd56.
Our organization tried this several versions ago. We wanted to have a vox alert if a tagged critical server or infrastructure device was unavailable. This would be heard on a operations display. We even went so far as getting external speakers.
Since the local vox notification would not work, we were interested in a firealarm sound that could be heard across the datacenter; but were afaraid of a medical mis-adventure so that failed to be realized also.
We end using a cut down version of WUG for critical devices for vox alerts. Joys of mulitple NMS.
Guys need your expertise here. We're having problem on how to play the alert sound on the several desktops on our data center by just accessing the Orion thru Web. Is there already solution to this aside from adding a hardware component? Is someone here already tried to create a program maybe using VB (or other language) just to play the sound utilizing the logs generated by Orion?
