Policy Templates

Administration > Monitoring > Policy Templates

Alternatively, click Policy Templates.

Policy template groups are used to organize policy templates. You can define your own policy template groups and place policies within them. Note that placing a policy template into a policy template group creates a link from that policy template to the template group it is being placed into (but does not physically move it). Therefore, individual policy templates can be linked to more than one policy template group.

The Templates grouped by type template group is used to automatically organize templates according to their Type value.

If you modify an existing policy template, you create a new version of the policy in the database with a unique version number. By default, the minor version number increases by one automatically after you modify the policy and save it. If you want to save the policy with a specific version number, you can select the major or minor version number that you want. It is not possible to replace an existing version of a policy. However, you can delete a specific version of a policy.

Parameters enable you to create policy templates that other users can easily customize. Each parameter corresponds to a variable in a policy template. A parameter gives consumers of a policy template the opportunity to specify the value of a variable, without having to modify the policy template themselves.

For example, if you have a policy template that monitors the level of CPU usage, you could have parameters for a minor event threshold, a major event threshold, and a critical event threshold. Consumers of the policy template set the parameters to specify for themselves what level of CPU usage is a minor, major, or critical event on the computer that they want to monitor. The user does not need to modify the policy template, and does not need detailed knowledge of how the policy template monitors the CPU. The user needs to know only what monitoring functionality the policy template provides and the purpose of the parameters.

Parameters also enable you to create policy templates that use values you could not specify in advance.

For example, a policy template that monitors database performance might need a user name and password to connect to the database. Appropriate parameters would make it possible to provide a generic policy template, without hard-coded user credentials.

After a policy template is assigned and deployed, an application expert can change the value of parameters as often as necessary to tune their monitoring solution.

You can specify a variable in any text field of a policy template in the format %%<variable_name>%% (for example %%CriticalThreshold%%). Variable names can include alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9) and underscores (_). No other characters (or spaces) are valid in variable names.

Each variable is internal to the policy template, and not visible to consumers of the template. Consumers see the corresponding parameter and can set the value.

You can specify the types of parameter value that are acceptable. Parameter values can be strings, numbers, passwords, or you can set up an enumeration of acceptable values to select from. You can set a default value for a parameter. A value is always mandatory for password and enumeration parameters, but you can control whether a value is mandatory for string and numeric parameters. For numeric parameters, you can specify a range of acceptable values. You can also specify the order in which the parameters are listed.

You can configure conditional default values based on the type of operating system of the host node to which the policy template is deployed. If you use conditional values, OMi evaluates the conditions in the specified order before the policy template is deployed and uses the value that corresponds to the first condition that is true. If no conditions are true, OMi uses the default value. If you use conditional parameter values, you must therefore set an unconditional default value for the parameter too.

An instance parameter enables you to create policy templates that monitor multiple instances of the same type of object (for example multiple database instances or multiple hard disks).

Each policy template can have only one instance parameter. When you add an instance parameter to a policy template, all other parameters become dependent on it. The user can specify separate values for the dependent parameters of each instance.

For example, if you have a policy template that monitors the percentage of disk space in use, you could create an instance parameter called 'Disks', and dependent parameters called 'Minor disk usage threshold', 'Major disk usage threshold', and 'Critical disk usage threshold'. A user of this policy template can specify multiple disk instances using the 'Disks' parameter (for example, by adding the instance values C:, D:, and E:). For each disk instance, the user can then set different values for the dependent parameters (for example, the value of 'Critical disk usage threshold' could be 85% for disk C:, 90% for disk D:, and 95% for disk E:).

OBJECT "^%%DISK%%$" SEPARATORS " 	"

The following policy types do not support instance parameters:

• Flexible Management

• Node Info

• Open Message Interface

• Service Auto-Discovery

• SNMP Interceptor

• Windows Event Log

• Windows Management Interface

You can find simple example OMi policies on the ITOM Marketplace to help explain how you might work with such policy types to monitor custom applications and infrastructure in your environment.

You can also use the Rapid Demo Generator to generate event, metric, and topology demo data to test your policies.

You can edit the policy template properties using the Policy Editor, which you can open in the following ways.

• To open the editor from the Edit aspect dialog box:

  1. Open the Management Templates & Aspects manager:

     Administration > Monitoring > Management Templates & Aspects

     Alternatively, click Management Templates & Aspects.

  2. In the Configuration Folders pane, expand the configuration folders.

  3. In the Management Templates & Aspects pane, click an aspect, and then click the  Edit Item button.

     The Edit Aspect dialog box opens.

  4. Click the Policy Templates tab, and then select the policy template from the list.

     Click the  Edit Item button, and then click the Edit Policy Template or Edit Policy Template (Raw Mode) button.

     The Policy Editor opens.

     Make the required modifications and then click Save and Close to save you changes and exit the wizard.

• To open the editor from the Policy Templates manager:

  1. Open the Policy Templates manager:

     Administration > Monitoring > Policy Templates

  2. In the Policy Template Groups pane, expand Policy Template Group > Templates grouped by type.

  3. Click the desired template folder and then click the policy template in the Policy Templates pane.

     Click the  Edit Item button and then click the Edit Policy Template or Edit Policy Template (Raw Mode) button.

     The Policy Editor opens.

     Make the required modifications and then click Save and Close to save you changes and exit the wizard.

1. Open the Policy Templates manager:

   Administration > Monitoring > Policy Templates

2. In the Policy Template Groups pane, expand the tree and navigate to the policy template that you want to deploy.

3. In the Policy Templates pane, select the policy template that you want to deploy and click the button. The Assign and Deploy wizard opens.

Note The Assign and Deploy button is grayed out if the policy template contains a stub instrumentation. Upload the instrumentation by using the Content Manager.

4. In the Configuration Item page, click the configuration item to which you want to assign the policy template, and then click Next.

5. Specify a value for each parameter:

   To change a parameter, double-click it, or select it in the list and click Edit.

   • For standard parameters, the Edit Parameter dialog opens.

     To set a specific default parameter value, specify Value in the range that is valid for this parameter. This value overrides any default values defined in the configuration object.

     To use the default value from the configuration object, select Use Default Value.

   • For instance parameters, the Edit Instance Parameter dialog opens.

     Add instance values and specify dependent parameter values for each instance value.

     Click OK.

   Click Next.

6. Optional. In the step Configure Options, clear the Enable Assignment(s) check box if you do not want to enable the assignment immediately. You can enable the assignment later using the Assignments & Tuning manager.

7. Click Finish. OMi creates deployment jobs, which deploy the policy template to the nodes.

   After a policy template has been deployed, the OMi server specified in the Default Virtual Gateway Server for Data Collectors URL infrastructure setting becomes the owner of the policy on the node.

1. Open the Policy Templates manager:

   Administration > Monitoring > Policy Templates

2. In the Policy Template Groups pane, select Template Groups and click the  New Item button. Alternatively, to create a nested template group, select an existing group and click the  New Item button. The New Template Group dialog box opens.

3. Type the name and description of the new template group and click OK. The new template group is added below the selected template group.

4. Add policy templates to the template group by selecting them in the Policy Templates pane and dragging them to the template group.

   Alternatively, select a policy template and click the  Duplicate Item button. Then select the template group to which you want to add the policy templates and click Add button in the Policy Templates pane.

   Note  

   • Template groups always contain the latest version of a policy template.

   • When you add policy templates to a template group, the templates are linked to the group. To delete templates from a group, select the templates and click Delete Item(s) From Group. This deletes the template links from the group; the actual policy templates continue to exist under Templates grouped by type.

If a newer version of a policy template exists, you can update the related management templates and aspects to the latest version.

1. Open the Policy Templates manager:

   Administration > Monitoring > Policy Templates

2. In the Policy Templates pane, right-click the policy template for which a newer version exists, and select List Items Requiring an Update from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, click List Items Requiring an Update. The Update to Latest wizard opens at Management Templates and Aspects.

   Note Listing items requiring an update can only be done for one policy template at a time. Selection of multiple policy templates is not supported.

3. The Management Templates and Aspects screen displays a list of management templates and aspects that do not contain the latest policy template version and may therefore require an update. Management templates precede the aspects.

   Note The aspects included in the management templates are also listed and are selected automatically if the management template that contains this aspect is selected. If you deselect a contained aspect, it will still be updated with the management template anyway, however, the assignments and automatic assignment rules related to that aspect will not be displayed in the next steps of the wizard.

   The same applies to the nested aspects, that is aspects within other aspects.

   Select the item(s) you want to update and click Next.

4. The Review screen displays a preview of the resulting tree view of management templates and aspects after the update takes place. The items are labeled

   "(old version > new version)".

   Review the structure and modify it if required, for example, by excluding single items as described below.

   1. Select the item you want to exclude.

   2. Click Exclude From Update . The selected item is now excluded from the update as indicated by the label being followed by the item.

   3. Click Reload Preview to apply the exclusion. The list of management templates and aspects is refreshed and displays a changed status.

   To include a manually excluded item again, select it and click Include in Update followed by Reload Preview.

   Note Top-level items selected for update at the previous step cannot be excluded from update at the Review screen. To exclude already included top-level items, click Back to return to the Management Templates and Aspects screen and deselect the items.

   When no further changes are required, click the Apply button to start the update.

   A progress bar is displayed showing the information on the update progress. When the update is finished, you are automatically taken to the Summary screen.

5. The Summary screen displays a list of updated management templates and aspects. The columns Old Version and New Version display the original and the latest version the item has been updated to.

   Review the updates. If you want to update the related assignments and/or automatic assignment rules, click Next. If no update is required, click Close to exit the wizard.

6. Optional. The Auto-Assignment Rules screen displays a list of related automatic assignment rules that may require an update. Select the automatic assignment rule(s) that you want to update and click Update Assigned Item. Only the rules of one assigned item can be updated in one step.
   Note that this screen is not available if you are not assigned a role with Full Control permission for a configuration folder in Assignments, and Full Control permission for Automatic Assignment Rules (for details, see Users, Groups, and Roles).

   For more information on updating the automatic assignment rules, see How to Update Automatic Assignment Rules.

   Note The update of the automatic assignment rule triggers the update of the related assignments.

   After the update is completed, click Next to proceed to the Assignments screen or Close to exit the wizard.
   

7. Optional. The Assignments screen displays a list of related assignments that may require an update. Select the assignment(s) that you want to update and click Update Assigned Item.
   Note that this screen is not available if you are not assigned a role with Full Control permission for a configuration folder in Assignments (for details, see Users, Groups, and Roles).

   For more information on updating the automatic assignment rules, see How to Update Assignments.

   Note You can only update direct assignments. Direct assignments triggered by automatic assignment rules are not displayed. To update direct assignments triggered by automatic assignment rules, update the related automatic assignment rule.

   After the update is completed, click Close to exit the wizard.

If newer versions of a policy template exist, you can update the related assignments to contain any existing version. You can only update direct assignments. However, if you update a parent assignment that triggered indirect assignments, all related indirect assignments are updated as well.

1. Open the Policy Templates manager:

   Administration > Monitoring > Policy Templates

2. In the Policy Templates pane, right-click the policy template for which newer versions exist, and select List Assignments for Selected Item from the drop-down menu. Alternatively, click List Assignments for Selected Item. A list of all existing assignments is displayed.

3. Select the assignment(s) you want to update and click Update Assigned Item. The Update Assigned Item wizard opens at Update Options.

4. Select the policy template version you want to update the assigned item to (by default, the latest version is preselected) and specify one of the following options:

   • To use parameter values from existing assignments, select Use parameter values from existing assignments.

   • To use default parameter values from the new policy template version, select Use default parameter values from version selected above.

5. Click Next to go to Required Parameters. If you selected Use parameter values from existing assignments, only the new mandatory parameters that do not have a default value are listed. If you selected Use default parameter values from version selected above, all mandatory parameters from the selected policy template version that do not have a default value are displayed. These parameters must be edited before proceeding to the next step of the wizard.

   To change a parameter, double-click it or select it from the list and click Edit. The Edit Parameter dialog opens. Make the required changes and click Next to go to Parameter Summary or Finish to save the changes and close the wizard.

   If there are no mandatory parameters that require editing for this assignment, you are automatically taken to the Parameter Summary screen.

6. Optional. Parameter Summary displays the following:

   • All new parameters if you selected Use parameter values from existing assignments.

   • All parameters from the selected policy template version if you selected Use default parameter values from version selected above.

   Review the parameter values and make the required changes by double-clicking a parameter or selecting it from the list and clicking Edit.

   • For standard parameters, the Edit Parameter dialog opens.

     To set a specific default parameter value, specify Value in the range that is valid for this parameter. This value overrides any default values defined in the policy template.

     To use the default value defined in the policy template, select Revert to the initial assignment value.

     Click OK to continue.

   • For instance parameters, the Edit Instance Parameter dialog opens.

     Add instance values and specify dependent parameter values for each instance value. Click OK.

7. Click Finish to save the changes and close the wizard. The assigned item is updated to the specified policy template version.

1. Open the Policy Templates manager:

   Administration > Monitoring > Policy Templates

2. In the Policy Template Groups pane, click the  Search Content button. The Search dialog box opens.

3. Type a search string in the Search for field.

   You can type one or more characters and combine them with asterisks (*) to match zero or more characters. Spaces are taken literally. The search is case-insensitive.

4. Click Search. The search results are displayed in the lower half of the dialog box.

5. Optional. Select a policy template in the search results and click Search View to highlight the template version in the Policy Templates pane.

   Optional. Select a policy template and click  Edit Item to open the corresponding policy editor for the template.

To simplify creating policy templates that are similar to existing policy templates, you can create copies of any existing policy templates using the Copy Item button.

When you paste one or more policy templates, you can choose between pasting the contents of the clipboard as a link to the original policy templates ( Paste as Item Link) or as new policy templates ( Paste Item):

• Paste as Item Link pastes the previously copied policy templates as links into the selected policy template group.

  You can also use drag-and-drop to create links to policy templates in other template groups.

• Paste Item pastes a previously copied policy template to a new location. If you have copied a single policy template, you can specify a completely new name; if you have copied multiple policy templates, you can specify only a suffix that will then be added to the original names of the copied policy templates.

Click Generate Inventory Report in the Policy Template Groups pane.

A new browser window opens and displays the preconfigured inventory report. The report lists all management templates, aspects, and policy templates that are available on a server.

The ITOM Marketplace provides policy template examples for different policy types. You can use the Rapid Demo Generator to generate event, metric, and topology demo data: Rapid Demo Generator