Service Assurance notifications are generated when abnormal conditions occur in your underlying managed domains. The underlying domains, such as VMware Smart Assurance IP Availability Manager and VMware Smart Assurance IP Performance Manager, pass the notifications and any relevant event or topological information to the Service Assurance Global Manager. The Global Manager, in turn, consolidates, abstracts, and passes the notifications to clients such as the Global Console or adapters.
Notifications are objects in the Global Manager or Adapter Platform. Notifications represent the events received from Domain Managers, adapters, or other underlying sources or notifications received from Global Managers or Adapter Platforms. Each notification consists of a set of attributes that describe properties of the notification, such as the severity of the notification and a textual description of the event. (“Notification Log columns” on page 59 contains a list of visible attributes.)
A notification list configured by your administrator determines which notifications appear in your console and are reflected in a map. Your administrator can use special filters to organize notifications by some useful criteria and then associate the filtered list with your user profile. As a result, your console may display all or a subset of possible notifications. As an operator, you can further refine your display by setting additional filters provided as console options.
The severity of notifications is reflected in severity icons, color-coded rows and indicator bars underneath map icons. “About notifications” on page 56 and “Displaying notification properties” on page 62 contains a description of notifications, severity icons, their color coding, and how to display their properties. “Representing notifications in maps” on page 88 includes a description of map icons and their color coding.
If a notification list does not include an event, notifications for the event will not appear in your console or be reflected in the map icons. For example, if a notification list excludes all events from a specific router, the router always appears with a normal state in the map. (If your console does not accurately reflect observed conditions, contact your administrator.)
Service Assurance information is archived at time intervals specified by the administrator and can be viewed later using a text editor. The archives include notifications that are acknowledged and their related audit logs. Once notifications are archived, they no longer display in the Global Console. The VMware Smart Assurance Service Assurance Manager Configuration Guide includes information about archival parameters and the archived files.
