Documenting an Alarm

This section explains how to add documentation (notes) to an alarm and what should be covered in that documentation.

How to Create Notes for an Alarm

You can add notes to an alarm by following the procedure outlined in this subsection.

To add notes to an alarm:

From the client's Admin menu, choose Alarm Definition List.
The Alarm Definition List window is displayed.
Alarm Definition List Window

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Select an alarm to which you want to add a note.
Make sure that your alarm is not enabled.
Select the Open button.
The Alarm Definition window is displayed.
Alarm Definition Window

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In the Alarm Definition window, select the Notes button.
The Alarm Notes and Associations dialog is displayed.
Alarm Definition Notes and Associations Dialog

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Enter your documentation for the alarm by typing in this dialog. See the section What to Include in Notes for an Alarm for information on what type of information you should enter here.
Select the OK button at the bottom of the Alarm Notes and Associations dialog.
The Alarm Notes and Associations dialog is dismissed.
Select the Save button in the Alarm Definition window.
Your notes are saved to the NerveCenter database. They can now be read by anyone who opens the definition for your alarm and selects the Notes button.

We recommend that you include the following information in the notes for your alarm:

Purpose of the alarm
Brief description of the alarm's states
Brief description of the alarm's transitions
List of the objects (polls, masks, and alarms) that fire triggers that affect this alarm
Description of the actions specified for transitions, especially Fire Trigger and Perl Subroutine actions
Documentation for any program or script called from a Command action
Names of any reports run against data logged by the alarm
Information about other alarms that are part of the same behavior model

For example, let's consider the alarm definition shown in the figure below.

IfData_LogToFile Alarm

The notes for this alarm should look something like this:

Purpose: Logs interface data to the log file ifdata.log.

States: Ground (Normal), Logging (Normal)

Transitions: ifData (Ground to Logging), ifData (Logging to 
Logging)

Associated poll: IfData fires the ifData trigger if it is able to 
retrieve information about an interface from a node's interface 
table.

Actions: ifData (Ground to Logging) - Log to File ifdata.log 
Enabled Verbose

ifData (Logging to Logging) - Log to File ifdata.log Enabled 
Verbose

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Please send comments or corrections to Information Development	This file was last updated on 10 October © 2002