Alert generates inconsistencies

Question

I have the following automated action (send email) written as follows:

${Location}
   - ${Caption} is ${Status}
   - ${SQL:Select Nodes.Caption from Nodes where ((Site = '${Site}') and (Category = '8600'))} is ${SQL:Select Nodes.Status from Nodes where ((Site = '${Site}') and (Category = '8600'))}

This displays an email that looks like:

- Node1 is Down
   - Node2 is 2

=========================================

This email is to inform of a situation where 2 nodes exist side by side and the status of both. This message successfully generates an email limited to Node1 and it's relation Node2 and gives the status of Node2 when Node1 is down. Basically this message shows the status of Node2 when Node1 goes down. For some reason it only gives the raw value for the status of Node2 instead of saying Up or Down... does anyone know why this might be?

Also, does anyone know if it's possible to limit the triggering of this alert to a situation where Node1 is down and Node2 is up only? The alert is currently triggered every time Node1 goes down regardless of the status of Node2. It's obvious to see how the the SQL query in the message relates to a 1 to 1 relationship between the 2, but is that possible with the actual trigger mechnanism considering there are a whole bunch of 1 to 1 relationships...

Thanks,
Daniel

sedmo · Answer

I think I understand what you are trying to do :)   Unfortunately, the only way I can see to do this is to create an individual alert fo each pair of devices.

dhardy · Answer

I went through the a similar thought process. But from what I can tell, I'd have to make a seperate alert for each group of nodes wouldn't I? I'd say the number of these sets of nodes is greater than 40, and each group is unique. 40 x 2 rather. I can see how I'd be able to supress if I was able to pull specific information about the node that's down and reference it's "partner" node, but I don't see that there's anything to key on in the filter or for alert suppression that would uniquely idenitfy the specific 1 - 1 relationship here. In other words, node1 goes down, but there are more than 40 nodes like the node2 each related to it's own "node1". Make sense? Hopefully I'm not going aroudn in circles here.

sedmo · Answer

Yes, you should be able to do this based on the status of two sepcific nodes.  I would recommend using an alert suppression to do this.  So if you want an alert only when node1 is down and node2 is up, you would set up a trigger based on node1 being down and then configure an alert suppression based upon node2 status not equal to up.

A similar situation was talked about in this thread.