Subscribing to Notifications

The Subscriptions page (Settings icon > Notifications > Subscriptions) lists defined notifications and provides features for editing and creating new ones. Users with the appropriate privileges can add and edit notifications.
For each email notification subscription, NetMRI sends one email that contains all the events specified in that notification subscription to each of the specified addresses.

One syslog entry or SNMP trap appears for each event specified in the notification subscription. Notifications can also summarize a larger number of related events in the period of time covered by the notification.
Summarization is the default for all new notifications.

To create a notification subscription, do the following:

1. Click the Settings icon > Notifications > Subscriptions.

2. Click the Add Notification button.
   The Add Notification dialog appears. Here, you select the various elements that comprise a notification, including the notification Category; a Time Window; and other more specific information for each notification type.
   Note: Four Category types determine the notification type to be sent out for the subscription. Choosing Issue, Change, Job, or System Alert determines the type of notification to be attached to the subscription.

3. Choose from the Time Window dropdown to specify when notifications are sent. Notifications are sent in response to events within a time range. You may choose one time window for any notification. Choices include the following: 24/7, Work Hours, Off Hours, First Shift, Second Shift, Third Shift, and Weekends.

4. Select the Category of notification to be sent (Change, Issue, Job, or System Alert).

5. Specify notification details depending on the category selected, based on one of the four procedures Defining an Issue Notification, Defining a Change Notification, Defining a Job Notification, or Defining a System Alert Subscription.
   NetMRI offers three methods of notification delivery: Email, Syslog, and SNMP trap. All types of notifications support any of the three delivery methods.
   Note: In many fields, you can click a single item, or CTRL+click or SHIFT+click to select multiple items.

6. After defining the category and the specifics for the notification type (New Issue, Change, Job, or System Alert), select the notification Method: Email, SNMP Trap, or Syslog. You then define the content for the subscriber's notification.

   • If you choose Email, click Advanced Settings and follow the steps in the topic Defining Global Notification Email Settings.

   • If you choose SNMP Trap, enter one or more IP addresses for trap servers into the Server(s) field or accept the configured default. Use commas between each entry if entering more than one destination IP. Save your changes when finished. Also, see Defining Global Notification SNMP Trap Settings.

   • If you choose Syslog, enter one or more IP addresses for Syslog servers into the Server(s) field or accept the configured default. Use commas between each entry if entering more than one destination IP. For more information, see Defining Global Notification Syslog Settings.
     Note: You can define a default Server value for SNMP Trap notifications and Syslog notifications. You specify the server by an IP address or a DNS host name, or more than one, separated by commas. Do so under the Settings icon > Notifications > System Settings and click the Syslog System Setting tab or the SNMP System Settings tab. The values defined here will auto-populate the subscription's Server field. In both cases, the server value is concatenated with the TCP port value.

7. If necessary, edit the To Email Addresses: field, by entering one or more delivery email addresses, who should be the personnel for whom receiving these messages is a priority. (The To User(s) field is not editable by default.)

8. By default, NetMRI enables the Summarize: checkbox to allow the recipients to obtain a summary of all related events within the notification time period. This summarization is based upon the Schedule over which the notifications are sent. Click EditSchedule to change the frequency: Once, Hourly, Daily, Weekly or Monthly, and choose the timing settings for the desired time period.

9. Click Save.

10. Click Save to complete the notification. The Subscriptions table refreshes to show the new entry. To edit any notification: Click the Action icon and choose Edit.
    To test any notification: Click the Action icon and choose Test.
    To delete any notification: Click the Action icon and choose Delete.

By default, NetMRI assigns New Issues notifications to All Device Groups and All Interface Groups. When you define New Issues notifications, you can choose the Device Groups and Interface Groups to which the notification applies.

You apply Change and Job notifications to one or more individual device groups. This allows for more granularity in how notifications are sent–a particular notification may only apply to Ethernet switched networks, and thus only be applied to the Switching device group.

When being generated and sent to recipients, Notifications can occupy significant system and network resources. For example, creating a new Subscription under the New Issues category with the setting All Issues without paying attention to scheduling or summarization, or a System Alert notification subscription with a large number of selected alert types, may create a substantial stream of notifications to the recipients in the subscription, and needlessly occupy processing and network resources in NetMRI. Avoid creating subscriptions that apply too broadly to various network phenomena or that are sent too frequently to too many recipients. Check for such issues on the System Messages page (Settings icon > Notifications > System Messages). For more information, see System Messages.

The following topics describe the four notification types in greater detail.