Learning How to Create Behavior Models - How to Define Conditional Actions with Action Router - How to use Action Router -
What is Action Router?      Review and Summary

How to use Action Router

In this scenario, you keep getting paged for non-critical nodes. You want to reserve paging for times when specific nodes go down and use email for other nodes.

You will use Action Router to achieve this objective.

This scenario includes three activities:

1. Defining a Rule Condition in Action Router
2. Defining a Rule Action in Action Router
3. Using Action Router in an Alarm

Defining a Rule Condition in Action Router

This first activity will step you through the process of defining a set of conditions under which the Action Router rule will perform the paging action.

 
  To define a rule condition in Action Router:

1. From the Admin menu, choose Action Router Rule List.

   

   NerveCenter displays the Action Router Rule List window.

   

2. In the Action Router Rule List window, select New.

   NerveCenter displays the Action Router Rule Definition window.

   

   The Action Router Rule Definition window allows you to examine, change, and create a rule's conditions and actions.

3. In the Name field, type PagingTest.

   This rule will determine by the property group of the node if NerveCenter should page an administrator or send an email.

4. Type if ( in the Rule Condition window.
5. Right-click in the Rule Condition window. From the pop-up menu, select Node variables. From the secondary pop-up menu, select $NodePropertyGrp.

   $NodePropertyGrp appears in the Rule Condition text field.

6. In the Rule Condition text field, type eq after $NodePropertyGrp.
7. Select More to expand the Rule Condition page.

   

   The expanded Rule Condition page provides a list of all the available objects in the NerveCenter database, so that you do not need to worry about correctly typing the names.

8. In the Condition Type list, select PropertyGroup.

   A list of available property groups appears in the PropertyGroups text box.

9. In the PropertyGroups list, double-click CriticalDevices.

   CriticalDevices appears in the expression in the Rule Condition text box.

10. Complete the Rule Condition to look like the following:
       if( $NodePropertyGrp eq `CriticalDevices') {
   return TRUE;
   }
   else {return FALSE;
   }

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       As with building the poll condition expression, you can type all of this manually. This activity demonstrates some of the tools available to help you build a correct Rule Condition expression.

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    The Completed Rule Condition of PagingTest

    

You have just completed building a Rule Condition that tells the Action Router to perform the Rule Action when the node does not belong to the property group CriticalDevices. The next activity will explain how you tell Action Router which actions to perform.

Defining a Rule Action in Action Router

In the last activity you defined the conditions under which the Action Router would perform the actions of the PagingTest rule. You specified that it should carry out the rule actions if the node in question has the CriticalDevices property group.

This activity will step you through the process of defining the action that this rule will carry out should the rule conditions equal true.

 
  To define a rule action in Action Router:

1. In the Action Router Rule Definition window, select the Rule Action tab.

   NerveCenter displays the Rule Action page.

   

2. In the Action Router Rule Definition window, select New Action. From the list of actions, select Paging.

   The Paging Action window appears.

   

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      Before you can use the Paging action, someone must have configured NerveCenter to handle paging actions correctly. If this has not been done, or you do not use a pager, substitute an alarm action of your choice.

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3. In the Pager Number field, type your pager's phone number.

   The pager number is the sequence of digits and special Hayes AT commands the Paging action needs to reach the pager. For a list of valid commands, see your modem manual.

4. In the Alarm Code field, either type a number that identifies the network situation being reported or leave it set to the default.

   The alarm code is a sequence of digits displayed on the pager. The maximum number of digits varies from pager to pager. If you don't supply an alarm code, a default value of 911 is used.

5. In the Terminate field, type the character that terminates the paging connection on your pager.

   This character is a key used by the paging system to terminate the connection and send the page. If differs from system to system, but is usually # (pound sign) or * (asterisk). Consult your paging system manual to determine the correct key for your system. If you don't specify a key, the Paging action uses the default value #.

6. In the Paging Action window, select OK.

   The Paging action appears in the Rule Action action list.

7. In the Action Router Rule Definition window, select Save. Select Cancel to close.

   The PagingTest rule now appears in the Rule Definition list.

   The Action Router is now available to be used as an alarm action. The next activity will step you through the process of modifying an alarm to include this action.

Using Action Router in an Alarm

In the previous activity you defined a rule in Action Router that would page you only when the node in question is part of the CriticalDevices property group.

This activity will step you through the process of modifying the 1BusyNode alarm to include the Action Router action.

 
  To use Action Router in an alarm:

1. From the Admin menu, choose Alarm Definition List.

   

   NerveCenter displays the Alarm Definition List window.

2. Open the 1BusyNode alarm.

   The Alarm Definition window for 1BusyNode appears.

3. In the state diagram, double-click on the portTooBusy transition between the 3PortsBusy state and the 4PortsBusy state.

   The Transition Definition window appears.

4. In the Transition Definition window, select New Action. From the alarm action list select Action Router.

   The Action Router action is added to the Actions list.

5. In the Transition Definition window, select OK.
6. In the Alarm Definition window, select Save.

   Now, any time one of the devices in the CriticalDevices property group becomes overwhelmed, in addition to sending the trigger nodeTooBusy to the alarm 1BusyEnterprise, it will also have the Action Router perform its actions.

You have just used Action Router to define a conditional action in your behavior model.

Chapter 9, How to Reset Your Environment will explain how to reset your network environment.