Problems
The Problems tab shows for a selected Realm, the active problems on the different elements monitored by WOCU (Hosts, Services and Business Processes). Likewise, it allows to obtain information about their status and to carry out the most common operation tasks.
From a single view and through two lists, it is possible to view all the Problems of a multitude of elements:
1. Hosts Problems List: collects Problems from Hosts and Business Process Hosts (BP Hosts).
2. Services Problems List: collects Service Problems and Business Process Services (BP Services).
In the Problems tab itself, a number appears on a red background indicating the total number of Problems generated.
If no alert is active, the tab will be disabled. WOCU will indicate this by changing the category text from blue to grey. Also the cursor will change to a prohibition sign when hovering over one of these categories without Problems.
Hosts Problems and Business Process Hosts (BP Hosts)
WOCU displays in the list of Hosts and BP Hosts, those elements whose status has changed from the normal operating state (UP) to any other operational state.
Attention
Only when the Host has Monitoring Packs associated, the system shall set after the Name, identifying icons (of manufacturers, technologies, operating systems…) referring to these applied packs.
The system will display a maximum of three icons ordered by a predefined weight scale, giving priority to the most representative and relevant (and least generic) icons/packs of the Host’s monitoring profile.
Placing the cursor over a particular icon will bring up a text alluding to the technology represented.
More information can be found at: 1. Display technology identification icons on Assets, Problems and Events pages..
In order to make it easier for the user to read the data, the Type column contains the different icons that identify the type of Assets in the list. Additionally, by placing the cursor over the icons, a text will appear to remind the type of element (Host or BP Hosts). More information on the representation and identification of Assets can be found in Type field.
Important
Use the increasing or decreasing order of entries in the Type column to group and locate Assets of the same type.
Service Problems and Business Process Services (BP Services)
WOCU displays in the Services Problems and Business Process Services (BP Services) list those services whose status has changed from the normal operating state (OK) to any other operational state.
In order to make it easier for the user to read the data, the Type column contains the different icons that identify the type of Assets in the list. Additionally, by placing the cursor over the icons, a text will appear to remind the type of element (Services or BP Services). More information on the representation and identification of Assets can be found in Type field.
Important
Use the increasing or decreasing order of entries in the Type column to group and locate Assets of the same type.
Note
Enabling the Filter problem services if host down option in User Preferences may affect the data displayed in this pane.
Problems List Fields
The fields in the Problems listings are practically the same for both panels. In fact, these fields are also similar to the Host Inventory Fields.
The existing fields in each type of Asset are listed below:
Hosts and Business Process Hosts (BP Hosts).
Type
Name
Icons and graphics (Untitled)
Status
Impact
Last Check
Duration
Status Information
Actions
Attention
The Impact value of a Host may vary when it is part of one or more Business Processes. More information can be found in: Impact Value (Impact) inherited in Business Processes.
Services and Business Process Services (BP Services).
Type
Host
Service
Icons and graphics (Untitled)
Status
Last Check
Duration
Status Information
Actions
Important
From the Problems point of view, the two main fields to be considered in the first instance are the Status field, which indicates the severity of the event, and the Status Information field, which describes the circumstances of the event.
Actions of the Problem Listings
WOCU offers the option of applying a series of Actions on the Assets from the Problem listings. These are some of the fundamental tools in the operation and treatment of the Problems themselves.
To display the Actions menu, click on the icon in the Actions column in the row of the Asset/Problem you wish to edit. Then select the Action to be performed from the menu options.
Actions from the Hosts and BP Hosts Problem List
Actions from the Service and Business Process Services Problems List
The Actions applicable in the Problem listings vary slightly depending on the type of Asset: Host or Service.
Note
For a more detailed and extended explanation of the different Actions, see the detailed description in the Assets tab: Actions on inventoried hosts.
As a reminder, the available Actions are listed:
Hosts and Business Process Hosts (BP Hosts).
Show host events
Apply acknowledged to host
Disable active checks for host and/or all services
Add comment to host
Schedule downtime for hosts and/or all services
Disable notifications for hosts and/or all services
Reschedule Next Check for this host
Submit passive check result for this host/service
Export all metrics about this host last day)
Export all metrics about this host last week
Export all metrics about this host last month
Services and Business Process Services (BP Services).
Show host events
Apply acknowledged to host
Apply acknowledged to service
Disable active checks for service
Add comment to service
Schedule downtime for service
Disable notifications for service
Reschedule Next Check for this service
Submit passive check result for this host/service
Problem Inventory Operational Options
WOCU has a series of very useful options that facilitate the treatment of the Problems of the monitored Assets. The joint use of filters and actions allows a more organised management of alerts in complex environments.
By default, all filtering options are hidden, leaving a larger and clearer space for viewing and reading data. Simply click on the arrow icon pointing to the ends and the available filters will be displayed.
Important
The joint use of available filters and actions allows for a more organised management of alerts.
The filters of the Problem listings are described below.
Massive Actions
This filter allows you to distinguish inventory assets by type, whether they are: Hosts, Business Process Hosts (BP Hosts), Services or Business Process Services (BP Services).
Massive actions allow for a more organized management of large quantities of data in vast and complex environments.
The management of elements is carried out from the following drop-down menus:
For this reason, it is very useful to be able to establish filters similar to those for problem processing, in order to have a clearer view of the status of the problems. For this purpose, WOCU offers the possibility to apply the following filters:
Selection of list items
Disabling this filter hides all Active Problems, i.e. those where the WOCU user has not taken any Action. By placing the cursor over the button you can find a reminder of the action that will apply the filter: click to hide all Active Problems.
Disabling this filter hides all Problems where the user has applied the Disable active checks action for that Asset. By placing the cursor over the button you can find a reminder of the action that will apply the filter: click to hide problems with “Checks Disabled”.
The Disabled checks and Acknowledged checks filters can be disabled by default, if the options are enabled in the User Preferences: Filter disabled checks and/or Filter acknowledged statuses.
Select the complete list (Select All).
Select only the current page of the list (Select Current Page). This option can be used in a concatenated manner, meaning selecting multiple current pages and adding up the items they contain.
This functionality allows you to apply actions on several Problem records. By selecting at least two inventory records, this tab will display a set of actions that will be applied to the selected set of items.
To select one or more items from the list, simply click on one of the rows (highlighted in a darker colour) and it will be included in the joint selection.
To select multiple items, hold down the CTRL key while clicking on another of the items you wish to select. To deselect any of the items, simply click again and it will be removed from the selection.
Applying mass actions allows for a more organised management of large numbers of problems in large and complex environments.
Note
The operational design of WOCU is oriented to perform in a simple and efficient way the tasks of monitoring and operation of Systems and Network elements: the usual workflow in this type of environment assumes that every Problem must be examined and treated by the operator or Administrator of the monitored elements. It is therefore always good practice to perform an acknowledgement (Ack) of the incidents handled, alternatively to disable the active checks (in certain circumstances), or to apply the scheduled downtime (in the case of scheduled maintenance or intervention). WOCU offers tools to keep your Problem view as clean and uncluttered as possible so that you can concentrate on an orderly handling of your Problems: it is advisable to establish good habits and incorporate a good workflow that includes a correct use of Problem Filters and Asset Actions.
Filtering by Duration
This filtering option modifies the display of Hosts and Services according to the time that the incident has been active, that is, the duration of the downtime or total failure. Remember that this information is recorded in the Duration field for each of the elements.
This selector has multiple filtering options:
Duration < 5 minutes: Duration less than 5 min.
Duration < 10 minutes: Duration less than 10 min.
Duration < 15 minutes: Duration less than 15 min.
Duration < 30 minutes: Duration less than 30 min.
Duration < 1 hour: Duration less than 1 hour.
Duration < 2 hours: Duration less than 2 hours.
Duration < 8 hours: Duration less than 8 hours.
Duration < 1 day: Duration less than 1 day.
Duration > 5 min: Duration greater than 5 min.
Duration > 10 min: Duration greater than 10 min.
Duration > 15 min: Duration greater than 15 min.
Duration > 30 min: Duration greater than 30 min.
Duration > 1 hour: Duration greater than 1 hour.
Duration > 2 hours: Duration greater than 2 hours.
Duration > 8 hours: Duration greater than 8 hours.
Duration > 1 day: Duration greater than 1 day.
Flexible filtering allows you to respond to queries such as: display only Hosts that have been in a critical state for more than 2 hours.
Important
The settings made will be retained even if the user switches tabs.
Filtering Assets by Status Type
These filtering options modify the display of hosts and services according to their current status. This filtering makes it easy to choose items that are in a particular state.
For easy understanding and selection, the boxes use the same colours already associated with the different types of statuses. However, by placing the cursor over the box, a reminder of the status to be selected will be displayed. More information on statuses and associated colours can be found in: Statements of Assets in WOCU.
By clicking on a box, you can activate or deactivate this option. Note that once selected, the box marked with a tick (✓) will appear inside it.
Attention
The service filter by status type cannot be applied when the selected expansion/compression option is “Hide all services”. In this case no selection shall be applied.
Finally, once the filters have been configured, the changes must be saved by clicking on the blue “Filter” button, in order to reload the inventory with the new data request.
Impact
This option is enabled only for Hosts and Business Process Hosts (BP Hosts), not for Services. Applying this filter will only show the Problems of the Hosts whose degree of criticality or Impact is equal to or greater than the selected value. By default this option will be inactive and, therefore, all Problems will be displayed, whatever their Impact value:
The user will be able to select the Impact value he/she wishes to set as a filter. The selected option will be highlighted in red.
To remove the filter, simply click on the minus sign on the left.
Remember
The impact value is defined in the Import-Tool, specifically in the Business Impact field of the Hosts in Assets and Host Business Processes on Assets view. The impact is represented using a scale from 0 to 5, with 0 being the least vital and 5 being the most critical.
Impact Value (Impact) inherited in Business Processes
This variable is used to establish the importance that a Host or Business Process will have in the Realm, which will influence the normal operational flow, for example, in the treatment and notification of incidents to the operator.
By default, the default value is 2 for Business Processes and 0 for Hosts (scale of six values). Based on this situation, any Host that is part of the logical relationship that constitutes a Business Process, will inherit its impact value as long as it is greater than or equal to the one assigned to it as an individual element, i.e:
If the highest Impact is that of the Host, the one it has is maintained.
If the highest Impact is that of the Business Process, the Host inherits that value.
If the Host affects several Business Processes, it shall inherit the highest impact value among the above.
See example below:
Object |
Impacto |
|---|---|
|
|
|
none |
|
|
|
|
BP A –> |
|
BP B –> |
For the above configuration, the system shall act as follows:
Host
h1will maintain its impact value since it is higher than that of the Business Process BP A of which it is a part.The
h2Host, having no value, acquires the impact value of the Business Process BP A.The Host
h3, acquires the impact value of the Business Process BP A, since it is greater than its value as a particular entity.In the case of the
h4host, two issues need to be observed:1. Su valor de impacto es menor que el de ambos Procesos de Negocio del que forma parte. En caso contrario conservaría el suyo propio.
2. Hereda el valor del BP B, puesto que es mayor que BP A.
Filtros avanzados (Advanced Filters)
The application provides another advanced filtering system for inventory items, making it easier to select and visualize items within certain categories or operational situations.
The available options are:
BP Host: Filtering by asset type, specifically, by Business Processes of Devices. More information about the representation and identification of Assets in Type field
Disabled Checks: Filtering assets in which the user has suspended the active monitoring tasks that the system is performing, that is, the Disable active checks for services has been applied.
Acknowledged: Filtering alarms that have been acknowledged, meaning, alarms in which the user has applied the Apply acknowledged to service action for that asset.
Downtime: Filtering alarms that are in Downtime, meaning, alarms in which the user has applied the action Schedule downtime to service.
Active Problems: Filtering Active Alarms. This will filter incidents in which the user has not yet taken any action or treatment.
In Notification Period: Filtering alarms with a configured notification period. The list will show only the alarms that, at that moment, are within their notification period.
Include softproblems: By default, the main table Host Problems displays alarms generated from both
SOFTandHARDtypes. With this filter, all entries ofSOFTtype alarms are included in the list, while those of typeHARDare excludedFlapping: Filtering alarms associated with devices experiencing rapid alternation of monitoring state changes, known as Flapping.
The operation in this mode allows the concatenation of filters, offering different combinations to the operator for the direct visualization of data of interest. This is possible because each filter can assume 3 states summarized in the following table. Simply check the filtering box repeatedly to cycle through the different states indefinitely.
Icon |
Value |
Description |
|---|---|---|
ー |
Off |
The filter is not enabled. The table shows all items by default. |
✔ |
True |
Filter enabled. The table is updated to show the items that meet the filter condition. |
✖ |
False |
Filter enabled. The table is updated to hide the items that meet the filter condition. |
The main table Host Problems displays by default generated problems of both SOFT and HARD types, sometimes triggering very long and informative listings.
To minimise this possible data saturation during the processing of active problems, there is the Exclude soft problems filter, which discriminates and extracts all SOFT type problem entries from the list, loading and displaying only HARD type problems.
Button for clearing applied filters (Clear Filter)
When the intention is to clear the applied filters, you can click the Clear filter button, and the configuration will be reset immediately, except for the search performed in the Search bar.
Problem list export
Next to the search bar there are two options for downloading files in CSV and JSON format, for data processing and management in tools external to WOCU or for later use in the system itself.
Clicking on one of the buttons starts the download of files in the format:
- CSV (Comma Separated Value)
Simple format that separates columns by a separator (semicolon “;”) and rows by a line break.
- JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
Lightweight data interchange format capable of being read by any programming language and therefore being used to exchange information between different technologies.
By default the filename will be: problems_[realm name]_00h-00min_dd-mm-yyyy and the extension .csv or .json depending on the option chosen.
Important
If a filter is enabled, only the Problems corresponding to the filter criteria applied shall be included in the export file, i.e. the same filter applied on the screen shall be applied in the export.
Important
The different navigation, search and sorting options available on this screen are explained in detail in the section: Common navigation, filtering and sorting options in WOCU.
Show Selected Hosts
This list offers different specific filters to configure the display of Problems, which facilitates navigation and speeds up and narrows the search in lists that can be very extensive.
Clicking on it will open a new window where, in addition to knowing which filters are active, you can interact with them.
This management view consists of the following elements:
Selection of entries to display (Show) and search bar.
Selection table: with the following columns:
Type: This field hosts an identifying icon for the type of Device according to its nature. The possible options are:
Host: Dhosts identified with the house icon.
BP Hosts: Business processes identified with the house icon framed in a circle.
Host: Indicates the name by which the Host is known in WOCU-Monitoring.
“Realm: Realm to which it belongs.
Deselect action: By clicking on the cross icon (X), the corresponding device will be removed from the table and automatically deselected from the inventory.
Deselect All Hosts: Acción rápida para la deselección de la totalidad de elementos de la tabla.