Guidelines for Creating Action Policies

Action Policies bundle Actions and Notifications. Actions and Notifications are typically triggered by a condition or threshold observed by a monitor. You can combine Action and Notification building blocks as a way to implement a policy that governs selected devices and device roles.

In WhatsUp Gold Action Policies typically trigger any of the following:

• Simple notifications (e-mail, SMS, log).
• Corrective measures (such as remote script execution payload, configuration rollback, reboot, and so on).
• Some combination of corrective measures and notifications.

Examples of site actions bundled to implement action policies might be:

• Notifying application management engineers when production devices transition state (for example from maintenance mode to up)
• Applying approved configuration to a device found out of compliance (a default password is detected, anomalous port opened or traffic detected)
• "Activating" (reconfigure and restart) a backup host device whenever a primary fails
• Restarting "non-responsive" critical services (an FTP or log server, for example)

Note: You can also create and apply powerful policies which enforce configuration record versioning and device configuration alignment using WhatsUp Gold WhatsConfigured policies.

Creating Action Policies

Begin by creating a list or matrix of critical state change events, appropriate actions, and the chain of responsible individuals for your site.

Example: Device Recovery Matrix

1. Create an Action type from the Actions Library.

   Example: Test Connectivity/Remote Execution

   1. Click the new button, then select PowerShell (for Linux/UNIX, select SSH).
   2. Add syntax for remote login to the device in the script text box.
2. Create the Action Policy.

   Example: Combine with Notification Schedule and Roll Test into Action Policy

   • Add a notification action you created according to your site's notification hierarchy.
   • Add the PowerShell action you created.

See Also Alerts and Actions Applying Thresholds, Alerts, Notification Schedules, and Action Policies Creating Alerts Selecting an Action Type Built-in Action Types Selecting an Action Type Select a State Change Select Action and State Creating Actions and Action Policies Recurring Action Library Adding and editing a Recurring Action Select a State Change Select Action and State Configuring Actions and Alerts Thresholds Library Notifications Library Notification Policies Notification Blackout Policies Blackout Policies