Users Guide

Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide 9
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Fabric Watch notification types
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You must first use the fwSetToCustom command to switch from default to custom settings, and
then use the advanced configuration options provided with the portThConfig, thConfig, and
sysMonitor commands to configure event behavior, actions, and time bases at the port level.
Use the advanced configuration option provided with the portThConfig, thConfig, and sysMonitor
commands to view and modify custom and default values for specified classes and areas in Fabric
Watch. You can customize the information reported by Fabric Watch by configuring event behavior
types, threshold values, time bases, and event settings. These area attributes are used to define
and detect events in Fabric Watch.
Fabric Watch notification types
Fabric Watch provides event notifications in several different formats to ensure that event details
are accessible from all platforms and operating systems. In response to an event, Fabric Watch can
record event data as any (or all) of the following alarm options.
E-mail alert
An e-mail alert sends information about a switch event to a one or multiple specified e-mail
addresses. An e-mail alert can send information about any error from any element, area, and class
(only one e-mail recipient can be configured per class). The e-mail specifies the threshold and
describes the event, much like an error message. You can configure multiple e-mail recipients per
class using the fwMailCfg command. You must separate the e-mail addresses with a comma and
include the complete e-mail address. For example, [e-mail] is a valid e-mail address; abc@12
is not.
For a recipient to receive the e-mail alert, you must configure one of the following settings:
• Use the dnsConfig command to configure DNS settings to connect the switch to a DNS server.
• In case a DNS server is not available, e-mail alerts can be forwarded through a relay host. You
can configure the relay host IP address using the fwMailCfg command.
Enabling e-mail alerts for the Changed threshold state in several areas can quickly result in a
significant amount of e-mail. Fabric Watch discards e-mail alerts when more than 100 are
generated within a minute, which minimizes memory use.
SNMP traps
In environments where you have a high number of messages coming from a variety of switches, you
might want to receive them in a single location and view them using a graphical user interface
(GUI). In this type of scenario, the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) notifications
might be the most efficient notification method. You can avoid having to log in to each switch
individually as you would have to do for error log notifications.
SNMP performs an operation called a trap that notifies a management station using SNMP when
events occur. Log entries can also trigger SNMP traps if the SNMP agent is configured. When the
SNMP agent is configured to a specific error message level, error messages at that level trigger
SNMP traps.