> #### Setting properties for generated alerts

> The alert-related properties are:

> - Alert severity.
> - Throw alert after.
> - Clear alert after.

> The Alert severity is set for all polled and asynchronous alerts; the last two properties provide mechanisms to reduce unnecessary noise in your polled alerts.

> ##### Assigning an alert's severity

> You can assign an alert one of four different severity levels. This allows you to choose which alerts are assigned highest priority based on the specific needs of your organization. The four levels of severity, from least severe to most severe, are:

> - Information
> - Warning
> - Error
> - Severe

> To assign a severity to an alert, choose the desired severity from the Alert severity drop-down menu located in the Rule definition section of a monitoring plan page. Figure 2–2 shows the Alert severity field with the four severity levels displayed.

> Figure 2–2: Alert severity field and its four severity level options

> ##### Specifying when to throw an alert

> Noise is the normal variability that can occur while Fathom monitors monitoring a resource. For example, a CPU might run at 75% utilization with infrequent spikes of 100% utilization. The infrequent spikes are noise. You probably do not need to be alerted to those spikes because they do not reflect the true overall performance of the CPU. To avoid unnecessary alerts like these, you can set the Throw alert after and Clear alert after properties appropriately.

> For example, you determine how many times a condition must occur before an alert is generated. Setting a low number, such as 1, means you are more susceptible to noise. Setting this value to a higher number, such as 3, reduces the likelihood of noise alerts, but also means an event must occur three times in a row before an alert is generated. The higher the setting of the Throw alert after property, the longer Fathom takes to generate an alert. For example, with a Throw alert after property set to 3, three sample periods occur before the alert is generated.

> ##### Alert properties location in Fathom

> Alert properties are located on the Rule definition section of a resource's Monitoring Plan page. Review and update the values associated with these alert properties as you edit monitoring plans for a resource.

> The following procedure reviews the steps to edit a monitoring plan, noting the location and use of the alert properties.

> To edit a resource monitoring plan:

> 1. In the Resources list, click the resource category that contains the resource you want to access. In this example, the category System is selected, and then the specific default memory resource named Memory is selected from the detail page. The Monitoring Plan page appears:

> 2. Click a schedule assigned to the monitoring plan. The Schedule Monitoring Plan page for Memory appears:

> 3. Click Edit. The following Resource Edit page appears:

> 4. Review and update values associated with the alert properties, as necessary:

> To change this alert property... | Perform this action...
> --- | ---
> Alert Severity | Select the drop-down list option to display the four severity options: Information, Warning, Error, and Severe.
> Throw alert after | Enter the number of failed polls after which Fathom will trigger the alert. (For most resources, the default value is 1; however, the default value for network resource monitors is 2.) Consider setting this property to a low number for critical resources and to a higher number for less critical resources to minimize noise. Note: This property is not applicable to all resource monitors, and does not appear on every resource property page.
> Clear alert after | Enter one of three possible values to indicate when Fathom will clear an alert once the condition that prompted the alert has been resolve: Value 0 — Fathom does not automatically clear an alert. You must manually clear the alerts. Value 1 — Fathom automatically clears an alert the first time the resource successfully passes a poll. Value greater than 1 — Fathom does not clear the alert until the resource passes this specified number of consecutive polls. This can prevent anti-noise from clearing an alert prematurely.

> 5. Click Save. any changes you made to the alert properties will appear on the updated Resource Monitoring plan page for the Memory resource.

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