User Scenario: Create a VMware Aria Operations Email Alert Notification

As a virtual infrastructure administrator, you need VMware Aria Operations to send email notifications to your advanced network engineers when critical alerts are generated for mmbhost object, the host for many virtual machines that run transactional applications, where no one has yet taken ownership of the alert.

Prerequisites

• Ensure that you have at least one alert definition for which you are sending a notification. For an example of an alert definition, see Create an Alert Definition for Department Objects.
• Ensure that at least one instance of the Standard Email Plug-In is configured and running. See Add a Standard Email Plug-In for VMware Aria Operations Outbound Alerts.

Procedure

1. From the left menu, click Configure > Alerts, and then in the right pane, click Notifications.
2. Click Add to add a notification rule.
3. In the Name text box, enter a name similar to Unclaimed Critical Alerts for mmbhost.
4. Set the Notification Status, you can either activate or deactivate a notification setting. Disabling a notification stops the alert notification for that setting and enabling it activates it again.
5. In the Define Criteria tab, select the objects and alerts for which you want to receive notifications.
   1. From the Criteria drop-down menu, select Object.
   2. Locate and select the object from the list.
6. Configure the Alert Scope.
   1. From the Category drop-down menu, select Alert Impact, and from the adjacent drop-down menu, select Health.
   2. From the Criticality drop-down menu, select Critical.
7. In the Notify On section, select Open from the Status drop-down menu.
   The Open state indicates that no engineer or administrator has taken ownership of the alert.
8. In the Set Outbound Method tab, select Standard Email Plug-In from the Outbound method drop-down menu, and then select the configured instance of the email plug-in.
9. In the Select Payload Template tab, configure the email options.
   1. In the Recipients text box, enter the email addresses of the members of your advance engineering team, separating the addresses with a semi-colon (;).
   2. To send a second notification if the alert is still active after a specified amount of time, enter the number of minutes in the Notify again text box.
   3. Type number of notifications that are sent to users in the Max Notifications text box.
10. Click Create.

Results

You created a notification rule that sends an email message to the members of your advance network engineering team when any critical alerts are generated for the mmbhost object and the alert is not claimed by an engineer. This email reminds them to look at the alert, take ownership of it, and work to resolve the triggering symptoms.

What to do next

Respond to alert email notifications. For details, refer to the topic 'Respond to an Alert in Your Email' in the VMware Aria Operations User Guide.