Escalation in longitude

When Longitude finds a problem, it will create an event visible in the Event Monitor. In order to have an event in the Event Monitor trigger an email, text message, OS command, etc, you can configure either an Action Rule (AR) or a Correlated Event (CE).

Both ARs and CEs do pretty much the same thing: something shows up in the Event Monitor that matches what the AR/CE is set up to look for, the AR/CE takes the actions it has been configured to take, and it then go into a cool off period before it will look for the alert condition again.

The difference between ARs and CEs is that ARs look for one specific Event in the Event Monitor, while CEs look for a combination of Events. For example, an AR can be configured to send an alert the first time a Ping Critical fails, and then go into a 30 minute cool off before it will alert again. A CE can be configured to send the same alert as the AR, but to wait until it has seen 3 consecutive failures before sending the alert.

CE events can look for any combination of Event Monitor events, with any number of re-occurrences before sending out alerts, so they can become very complex. However, CEs are not available in Longitude Standard, and CE event conditions are limited to looking for multiple occurrences of the same event in Longitude Professional.

You can find additional information on ARs and CEs in:

• Action rule tutorial: the 3rd tutorial from the top in the "Getting Started with Longitude" section
• Correlating Events to Recognize Problems