Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Siebel System Alerts

In Siebel Version 7.7 and later versions, there is a feature called System Alerts that allows a running Siebel component to alert the administrator to any problems that itself cannot handle. 
The alert is sent using the existing communication channels. Email is the default and is already preconfigured, just needs some specific information, like the SMTP server or the administrator email address.
You can configure the default communication channel, or create additional ones on the System Alerts view: Administration - Server Configuration > Enterprises > System Alerts.

In previous Siebel versions (before 7.7.), for the same purpose you would need to build scripts to check components and tasks, using Server Manager commands and parsing the output files.

The Siebel System Alert is based on the AdminNotify component:
  • Component name: Siebel Administrator Notification Component 
  • Component alias: AdminNotify 
  • Component run mode: batch 
  • Component Group name: Auxiliary System Management 
  • Component Group alias: SystemAux 

This component is enabled by default in every Siebel Server. 

Any other component that has been configured for alert notification can use this feature. The parameters that need to be set are:


Parameter Name
Parameter Alias
Description
Recommend Value
Disable Notification
DisableNotification
Enables or disables server component notification. The default value is “FALSE”.
FALSE
Notification Handler
NotifyHandler
The name of the system alert profile that is used to send the alert. The default is “AdminEmailAlert”
AdminEmailAlert
Time to Wait for
doing Notification
NotifyTimeOut
The amount of time to wait for the reply of the named pipe (one of the pieces used in the communication while sending the notification). If it does not reply within the amount of specified time, then the notification is aborted. The default value is “100” milliseconds (0,1 seconds)
100
Notification Action on Task Exit
NotifyOnTaskExit
Determines if notifications are sent in case of task errors. A value of “0” disables error notifications; a value of “1” enables error notifications. The default value is”0”.
Set this parameter to 1 to configure system alerts, but only if you want to receive an alert for each task that is exited with error (which can happen a lot!!!).
NOTE: This is an advanced parameter.
0

The system alert notification process starts when a server component (that has been configured for alert notification) encounters a problem. This component sends a request to the AdminNotify component with the details on the problem and the message to send to the administrator. The AdminNotify component then alerts the administrator using the communication channel identified in the NotifyHandler parameter of the component that has issued the notification.
A few notes you need to know about system alert notifications:

  • Alerts are triggered by a server component or task events. 
  • Alert notification are not triggered by the loss of database conectivity. 
  • When a Siebel Server is forced to shut down, the AdminNotify component also shuts down, which results in the loss of all alert notifications for components or tasks on that Siebel Server. 
  • A component or task cannot trigger an alert on an AdminNotify component that is not hosted in the same Siebel Server. 
  • Changes in the component state (e.g, from running to online) does not trigger an alert. 
  • An administrator shutting down a server component does not trigger an alert. 
  • The SystemAux component group and the AdminNotify component need to be enabled.


Troubleshooting System Alerts

To solve any problems related to System Alerts, you should check the communication channels configuration, and the logs of the AdminNotify component.

If needed, raise the event log level to 4 or 5, using the Server Manager command line.
Example:


change evtloglvl %=4 for comp AdminNotify






Document References: 

  • Siebel System Administration Guide > Configuring System Alert Notification
  • ID 579183.1 - How to configure Siebel Administrator Notification Component?
  • ID 476014.1 - Does Siebel provide any alert notification when a Server task fails?

No comments:

Post a Comment