Fabric Watch Administrator's Guide v7.0.0 (53-1002153-01, April 2011)

4 Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide

53-1002153-01

Reasons to customize Fabric Watch settings

Event behavior configuration

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.

Time base configuration

The time base specifies the time interval between two samples to be compared. The

fwSetToCustom command allows you to switch from default to custom settings. Valid intervals are

day, hour, or minute. See “Setting Fabric Watch custom and default values” on page 33 for more

information.

Alert configuration

When Fabric Watch is improperly configured, a large number of error messages can be sent over a

short period of time, making it difficult to find those messages that are actually meaningful. If this

happens, there are a few simple ways to improve the configuration.

When large numbers of unimportant messages are received, examining the source can identify

those classes that need to be reconfigured. To reduce the number of unimportant messages,

consider the following reconfiguration options:

• Recheck the threshold settings. If the current thresholds are not realistic for the class and

area, messages may be sent frequently without need. For example, a high threshold for

temperature monitoring set to less than room temperature is probably incorrectly configured.

• ese messages could cause other important messages to be missed.

• Examine the notification settings. If you are not interested in receiving messages under certain

conditions, ensure that the notification setting for that event is set to zero.

Brocade recommends using either SNMP trap alerting to your system management console or

event log entry in conjunction with syslog forwarding configured on your switches.

Post-processing of messages

After you have configured thresholds and alerts, determine to where the messages will be sent.

Then, monitor the messages frequently and take the appropriate actions.