Configure Technical Monitoring to react on Work Modes

After setting up the SAP Solution Manager 7.1 Monitoring and Alerting Infrastructure, you might decide to disable monitoring or switch off alerts during certain time intervals such as planned downtime or regular system maintenance. Technical Monitoring can react to the following types of Work Modes that are scheduled within the Work Mode Management or SAP IT Calendar application.

1. Planned Downtime
2. Maintenance
3. Peak Business Hour
4. Non-Peak Business Hours
5. Non- Business Hours

Work Modes can be set up for Technical Systems, Hosts, Databases and Technical Scenarios. The configuration is possible at various levels within the Technical Monitoring set up steps. You can decide if you want to switch off complete technical monitoring or modify single metric thresholds of specific systems.

Level 1: Global Work Mode Configuration

You can maintain Work Mode Specific settings for monitoring during the monitoring setup on global level (Step 2.6 Work Mode settings). For each work mode, it is possible to define whether monitoring is enabled or not. This acts as a “global switch” for Monitoring.

For example, If “Monitoring Enabled “ flag is unchecked for planned downtime then for all Managed Objects Types monitoring and alerting is disabled when a “Planned Downtime” Work Mode is scheduled on the managed object.

Level 2: Template Level Configuration

In case, you decide that only auto-notifications/incidents needs to be disabled for specific work modes and specific templates then template level configuration is relevant. You can define whether automatic creation of notification or incidents is active or not per work mode on template level (Setup step 4 Template Maintenance – valid for System Monitoring only). Template level settings take priority over global settings.

For example, if you decide that monitoring needs to be enabled during planned downtime of a Technical System but only email notification should be switched off then

1. In the setup step 2.6 global settings, ensure sure that “ Monitoring Enabled “ flag is checked for all work modes “
2. For the custom template (Expert Mode), set the Auto Notification to Inactive status for only Planned Downtime. Refer to the screen shot below. If you need to make the Work Mode settings specific to Managed Object then template settings has to be set at the specific Managed Object level.

Level 3: Alert / Metric Level Configuration

If you decide that only certain alerts / metrics needs to be disabled during a specific work mode then you could focus on metric / alert level work mode configuration. You can define whether the measurement of individual metrics is active or inactive per work mode on each custom template. Also, thresholds can be adapted to work modes. Alert level settings take priority over Template Level settings

For example, if you decide that the threshold value of “Average Dialog Response Time (last hour)“ metric needs to be changed only for “Peak Business Hour “ work mode then

1. In the setup step 2.6 global settings, ensure sure that “Monitoring Enabled “flag is checked for all work modes.
2. For the custom template ( Expert Mode ) – go to the tab Metrics and select the Metric “Average Dialog Response Time (last hour)“ and click on Change settings
3. In the details for the Metric, go to the tab Thresholds.
4. In the Work mode specific threshold settings, select the work mode from the drop down list and configure the threshold settings.
5. After you have changed metric settings, save the custom template.
6. Assign the custom template to a system as needed.

Related links:

EEM and Workmodes

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/EEM/Workmodes+of+managed+systems

http://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/EEM/Workmodes+for+EEM+Scripts