HP Storage Essentials V5.1 User Guide First Edition (T4283-96026, August 2006)

Viewing Element Topology and Properties278
Assigning a Business Cost to an Application
The management server lets you assign a business cost to an application, including virtual
applications. This information is used in Event Manager for ranking events from elements. Event
Manager determines the rank of an event by taking into account the business cost of the
application and the severity of the event. You can sort events by rank in Event Manager by clicking
the Rank column.
For example, assume you assigned a business cost of $40 to one application and a business cost
of $30 to another application. If an event occurs with the same severity level occurs from both
applications. The $40 application has a higher rank because it has a higher "business cost."
The events from the elements in the path of the applications also inherit a business cost from the
applications that use it. For example, assume a host has an application assigned a cost of $30.
The host would have a business cost of $30. If the host has two applications (both valued at $30),
the host would be valued at $60 because the two applications are using it. Likewise the switch
connected to the host would also have a value of $60 because the two $30 applications use it. If a
switch has a $40 application on one host and two $30 applications on another host, the switch
has a value of $100, see the following figure.
The cost of the storage system is determined by the applications in its path. Two storage systems
connected to a switch can have different business costs based on the applications in their path. For
Table 36 Show Impact Results
If you select "Show Impact"
for
Highlighted Elements
An Application (virtual or
real)
Elements required by the application, such as its host and a switch.
A Host • Elements dependent on the host, such as its applications.
• Elements required by the host, such as switches.
A Switch Elements dependent on the switch, such as hosts and storage
systems
Storage System Elements dependent on the storage system, such as hosts.