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Custom alert action

We have multiple devices on the network that we wish to monitor only when they are on. These items are production systems that, when running, require traffic data, but when not running we do not care about. They don't go up and down with any regularity, so we can't schedule them. With this in mind, here's my question:

Instead of sending an email, can an alert have an action of 'unmanage' for a fixed time (say 15 minutes)? If so, how do I make that work please?

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HolyGuacamole

Why would you want to unmanage for 15 minutes?

It sounds like the trigger condition for the traffic alert can also include the node status condition so that you get alerts only when the node is up.

phillipscc

I'm actually looking for any good idea for this, and yours sounds like it could work. I've not done anything with custom alerts, so I'm certainly open to all suggestions. The main point is to not alert on certain items, only to collect information when it's up.

jhandberg

We have something similar going on. There are remote access routers at some people's homes. They connect with a site-to-site VPN, so they are discover-able in our network discovery tasks. Technicians don't want to get pager calls on these when they go offline, especially in the middle of the night. Some of the users often just turn them off when not in use. But they do want them monitored and to be able to see them in SolarWinds. We are trying to figure out if alerts are wanted or necessary and whether to restrict the times they can kick off.

phillipscc

After thinking it over and looking at the alert manager, the reason for "unmanaging" the item would be so that the yellow and red alert icons are not seen. This helps visually identify what items are really down and which are not in use.

phillipscc

I did see how to create an alert that does what you want. Create a custom property and attach a value to it - for example the property could be "RemoteRouter" with a yes/no value. Copy the alert you are getting and make two new ones while disabling the original. In one, you can set the alert to happen if the RR value is yes and remove the email/pager alert. In the other, when the RR value is no, leave all the alerts just as they are in the original. You will see the red/yellow/green icons that the unit is down, but no longer get an email/pager alert. Likewise, you can set a schedule in the modified alert. ~Just one way, I'm sure there are others.

mesverrum

In simple, there is not a built in alert action that does an unmanage, but there are other solutions.

When these systems come online is there some kind of trigger? Does a technician boot them up or are they spinning up and down automatically via some sort of scripted automation? There are several ways to approach this based on how much work you want to do and what skills you have in house. At the simple end I would say set up a custom property on all these nodes and add a filter to your dashboard that is something like customproperty not like 'offandonsystem' so they just never show up on that view, likewise i would exclude them from any node down type alerts. Its kind of brute force but is easy to implement. On the more complex side of things you can hook in whatever you are using to spin these things up to the Orion SDK and tell it to remanage those nodes as part of the startup processes and when it is done unmanage them for like a year, that way they stay unmanaged until the next time you need them.

Discussion on how to invoke bulk unmanagement via powershell for example is in this thread:

Orion SDK with PowerShell - manage/unmanage multiple nodes

-Marc Netterfield

Loop1 Systems: SolarWinds Training and Professional Services

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Twitter: @Loop1Systems

bobmarley

I was able to get this done as an alert action using the thread below.

Unmanage/remanage or mute/resume an item or all items in a group