Brocade Fabric Watch Administrator's Guide (53-1000243-01, November 2006)

1-20 Fabric Watch Administrator’s Guide
Publication Number: 53-1000243-01
Port Persistence
1
Fabric Watch Alarm Behavior
Fabric Watch alarm behavior depends on the threshold states associated with the Above, Below and
Changed thresholds. Threshold states can be INFORMATIVE, IN_RANGE, and OUT_OF_RANGE.
Alarms are generated only for the following transitions:
IN_RANGE to OUT_OF_RANGE
An alarm is generated
OUT_OF_RANGE to IN_RANGE
An alarm is generated
No alarm is generated for INFORMATIVE to IN_RANGE (or IN_RANGE to INFORMATIVE)
See Appendix A, “Default Threshold Values” for more details about the threshold states for Above,
Below, and Changed.
Port Persistence
The data collected in port monitoring can vary a great deal over short time periods. Therefore, the port
can become a source of frequent event messages (the data can exceed the threshold range and return to a
value within the threshold range).
Fabric Watch uses port persistence for a port event that requires the transition of the port into a marginal
status. Fabric Watch does not record any event until the event persists for a length of time equal to the
port persistence time. If the port returns to normal boundaries before the port persistence time elapses,
Fabric Watch does not record any event.
The port persistence time is measured in seconds, and can be configured. Configuring the port
persistence time to zero disables this feature. The default value for port persistence is 18 seconds.
Notification Methods
There are five notification methods available through Fabric Watch, but not all notification methods can
be applied to all of the classes. Valid notification methods are represented through the valid alarm matrix.
Fabric Watch provides the following notification methods:
“Switch Event (Error) Log Entry,” next
“SNMP Trap” on page 1-21
“RAPI Trap” on page 1-21
“Port Log Lock” on page 1-21
“E-mail Alert” on page 1-22
To enable event settings, you must set the associated attribute to a nonzero value between 1 and 31. The
exact value you specify determines which event notification method Fabric Watch uses if the event
setting criteria is met.
For details about valid notification methods in the alarm matrix, see “Assigning Notification Methods”
on page 1-22.