Create Alarms and Actions

Prerequisite: Make sure your account has Monitoring privileges enabled in the user group.‌

Creating an Alarm

1. Select the Management option in the main menu bar of the DCD.‌

2. Select Monitoring in the drop-down menu. The Monitoring Manager panel displays.‌

3. Select the Create button in the Alarms tab.‌

4. In the Create panel, create an alarm by performing the following substeps:‌

• Name: choose an appropriate name.

• Server: select a virtual instance.

• Metric: select the relevant metric.

• Unit:

  • select Total for absolute numbers (example: CPU utilization).

  • Total is unsupported for other metrics except if you’re using “delta” aggregation.

  • select a per-time rate in all other cases.

• Threshold Type: define equality of value.

• Threshold: enter the threshold value.

• Range: define the time range for the threshold to hit before trigger.

• Range Aggregation: time range aggregation types are Average or Delta.

• Alarm Delay: define the duration between two alarms.

• Actions: select one or multiple actions upon alarm trigger.

• Select Create to save the alarm.

Once an alarm has been created, you can either edit the alarm configuration or delete it if it is no longer needed.‌

The details view provides an option to list the status and history of an alarm.‌

Upon alarm trigger, the alarm icon will blink to indicate that the configured threshold has been triggered. The blinking will stop automatically once the system is back within the threshold. This is monitored within the defined duration.

Range Aggregation is provided so that the service does not spam users with emails. Instead, the system will wait between two alarms for a period of time before sending another notice. This will only happen when the criteria for the alarm are still fulfilled. If the criteria do not hit the threshold, no alarm is sent anymore.‌

Configuring Alarms

The examples below show possible configurations for the expression property of an Alarm.

Current CPU Load for all Cores

Setting a trigger when the average load of all cores over the last hour exceeds 90%.

"expression": {
  "metric": 
    "instance_cpu_utilization_average",
  "source": {
    "uuid": "279565bf-...-e9572e185144"
  },
  "range": "1h",
  "comparisonThreshold": "90"
}

Default Values
"unit": "total"
"rangeAggregation": "average"
"comparisonOperator": "greater_than_or_equal_to_threshold

Increase in Received Bytes

Setting a trigger when more than 1MB is incoming within the last ten minutes.

"expression": {
  "metric": "instance_network_in_bytes",
  "source": {
    "uuid": "e17f01e9-...-40968fbbb559"
  },
  "range": "10m",
  "rangeAggregation": "delta",
  "comparisonThreshold": "1000000"
}

Default Values
"unit": "total"
"comparisonOperator": "greater_than_or_equal_to_threshold

Sent Packets per Second (lower bound)

Set a trigger when there is less than one outgoing packet per second. ****

"expression": {
  "metric": 
    "instance_network_out_packets",
  "source": {
    "uuid": "e17f01e9-...-40968fbbb559"
  },
  "unit": "per_second",
  "comparisonThreshold": "1",
  "comparisonOperator": 
    "less_than_threshold"
}

Default Values
"range": "4m"
"rangeAggregation": "average"

Storage Writes per Second

Set a trigger when there are more than 100 write operations per second.

"expression": {
  "metric": 
    "instance_volumes_write_ops",
  "source": {
    "uuid": "e17f01e9-...-40968fbbb559"
  },
  "unit": "per_second",
  "comparisonThreshold": "100"
}

Default Values
"unit": "total"
"rangeAggregation": "average"
"comparisonOperator": "greater_than_or_equal_to_threshold"

Creating an Action

In the Actions section, you can configure an action that will be executed when an alarm is activated. Currently, MaaS supports email notifications.

Prerequisite: Make sure your account has Monitoring privileges enabled in the user group.‌

1. Open the Monitoring Manager and select the Actions tab. The Actions tab displays.

2. Create an Action by performing the following sub-steps:

• Define a name for the action.

• Select the action type (send email only at the moment).

• Provide an Email address.

• Select Create.

After creation, you can edit the action configuration or delete it if not needed anymore.

The details view of a created action contains an option to list the execution history of an alarm.

You can only delete an action when it is not in use by an alarm.