PATROL Agent 9.5 - Part 4: How to include annotated data as part of the event?

The information included in this post actually applies to all versions of PATROL agent, not just version 9.5.  

Many PATROL KMs save important information to an annotated data point when changing a parameter status to ALARM or WARNING.  By default, this annotated data is not included in the event sent to BPPM cell.  What if you want to include annotated data in the event sent to BPPM cell so that it will be included in the notification email and incident ticket?

To achieve that, you will need to write a recovery action at PATROL agent.  Although PATROL Event Management KM is no longer required for PATROL agent v 9.5 from architecture point of view, to avoid modifying the original KM code, I still suggest to use PATROL Event Management KM so that you can add a recovery action by simply deploying some pconfig variable settings.

Here is an example of recovery action to include annotated data.  In this example, MS_HW_ENCLOSURE KM is used but you can apply the same concept to other KMs.  MS_HW_ENCLOSURE KM has a parameter named 'Status'.  When a blade goes down, this parameter's status becomes ALARM and an annotated data point is generated.

PATROL_CONFIG

"/AS/EVENTSPRING/MS_HW_ENCLOSURE/__ANYINST__/Status/arsAction" = { REPLACE = "6" },

"/AS/EVENTSPRING/MS_HW_ENCLOSURE/__ANYINST__/Status/arsCmdType" = { REPLACE = "PSL"},

"/AS/EVENTSPRING/MS_HW_ENCLOSURE/__ANYINST__/Status/arsCommand" = { REPLACE = "C:\\BMC\\Patrol3\\lib\\psl\\Annotate_Recovery.psl" }

Then write a PSL script C:\BMC\Patrol3\lib\psl\Annotate_Recovery.psl as follows:

sleep(1);

status = get("/MS_HW_ENCLOSURE/".__instance__."/Status/status");
txt = annotate_get("/MS_HW_ENCLOSURE/".__instance__."/Status");
txt = nthargf(txt, "2-", "\\");
origin = "MS_HW_ENCLOSURE.".__instance__.".Status_Annotate";
event_trigger2(origin, "STD", "41", status, "4", txt);

A few things to notice:

1) PATROL notification server is not required to run the above recovery action. 

2) The sleep(1) in the first line is to include a delay so that the KM has enough time to finish writing to annotated data before annotate_get() is called.

3) The nthgargf() call at the 4th line is to filter out the leading %Text %Infobox string included in every annotated data. 

4) I put 'Status_Annotate' as the last part in event origin so that this event's mc_parameter slot would become 'Status_Annotate' in the cell.  You can use any string you like.

5) The annotated data will be displayed in the event's mc_parameter_value slot.