You will need to keep a timestamp that say when the "message" became active, and that way you can remove the "message" from the ticker <number> of minutes after receiving it.
Also you will need to keep the UID (something unique at least), that way when receing an alert that would clear the problem (going from down to up), you can remove the "old" alert from the ticker (even if it's before the actual normal remove time). Maybe you will need to work in 2 steps: small app, that is called from within Servers Alive (commandline app that is used as alert), this commandline app has all the parameters and will update the textfile ticker that uses the file that the "small app" uses. From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:salive@woodstone.nu] On Behalf Of ian.g...@okieurope.com Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 5:17 PM To: Servers Alive Discussion List Subject: RE: [SA-list] Alerts ticker OK, I'm working on a ticker client. The question now is how to get the data out of SA. * If I use alerts, the data will appear more quickly, and I can (as Dirk says) use the "when" field to add things to the ticker. However, I really need the data to be in a text file (easiest thing for a ticker client to read), and I don't know how to do that other than by a "command" of some sort. Also, I want to be able to "remove" the alert from the ticker after (say) 10 minutes, so not sure how to do that. Also, as there is no global add or delete for alerts, I'd have to add them to each check manually (not realistic). * Although the ticker won't be as up to date, therefore, an output file might be more realistic, and I can easily add in HTML markup for colour coding the ticker. However, I still need to filter by recent status changes (say changed in the last 10 mins). I hoped I might be able to use <sa_onstatustime> in the form of something like this: <SAIF sa_onstatustime LT 600 AND SA_STATUS IS DOWN> but that doesn't work, because the sa_onstatustime variable returns something like "157d 10h 45m 23s". Any bright ideas on either of these options? Ian _________________________________ Ian K Gray OEL IS - European Infrastructure Support Tel: +44 1236 502661 Mob: +44 7881 518854 Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit From: "Dirk Bulinckx" <d...@woodstone.nu> To: Servers Alive Discussion List <salive@woodstone.nu> Date: 28/03/2011 17:21 Subject: RE: [SA-list] Alerts ticker Sent by: Servers Alive Discussion List <salive@woodstone.nu> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think that what you're looking for, is almost a custom build "client", could be an XMPP or any other protocol-type. Not sure if that would realy fit into Servers Alive. Using the already existing alerting types give you the flexibility of the WHEN of the alerts. You just need to build a client for it :-) Or "pay" someone to do that for you…. dirk From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:salive@woodstone.nu (mailto:salive@woodstone.nu)] On Behalf Of ian.g...@okieurope.com Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 6:02 PM To: Servers Alive Discussion List Subject: RE: [SA-list] Alerts ticker Great minds and all that - I was actually looking at XMPP alerts earlier with precisely that idea in mind. It doesn't quite do it for us though - it may sound silly, but I can accurately predict that 80% of my tech team (the management types in particular) would complain at having to read and close the window every time, whereas a ticker they can just ignore until it goes away. _________________________________ Ian K Gray OEL IS - European Infrastructure Support Tel: +44 1236 502661 Mob: +44 7881 518854 Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit From: "Hanson, Brett" <bhan...@agrium.com> To: Servers Alive Discussion List <salive@woodstone.nu> Date: 28/03/2011 15:05 Subject: RE: [SA-list] Alerts ticker Sent by: Servers Alive Discussion List <salive@woodstone.nu> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This isn’t quite the same as a ticker, but accomplishes the same thing… We use XMPP (Spark client with Wildfire server installed on the Servers Alive server). When a check fails, an alert is sent by XMPP to the team that cares about it. Spark shows a popup at the bottom of the screen for several seconds then hangs around on the task bar until the ‘conversation’ is read and closed. It works pretty well for us. Brett Hanson Systems Analyst Agrium Inc. From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:salive@woodstone.nu (mailto:salive@woodstone.nu)] On Behalf Of ian.g...@okieurope.com Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 5:16 AM To: Servers Alive Discussion List Subject: RE: [SA-list] Alerts ticker Hmmm, that's a fair point. I agree that having it set for individual alerts would be useful. I guess the other side of the coin is being able to easily set it for *all* checks, just as you can now for an output page. Have cake and eat it.... ;-) _________________________________ Ian K Gray OEL IS - European Infrastructure Support Tel: +44 1236 502661 Mob: +44 7881 518854 Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit From: "Dirk Bulinckx" <d...@woodstone.nu> To: Servers Alive Discussion List <salive@woodstone.nu> Date: 28/03/2011 12:05 Subject: RE: [SA-list] Alerts ticker Sent by: Servers Alive Discussion List <salive@woodstone.nu> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The part were I think there will be a problem is setting it universally. I'm sure that IF we would add such a ticker feature that very quickly we'll get questions on can we have a different ticker per entry/group. For example why would the database admins need to see the "problems" on the mailservers? From: Servers Alive Discussion List [mailto:salive@woodstone.nu (mailto:salive@woodstone.nu)] On Behalf Of ian.g...@okieurope.com Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 12:31 PM To: Servers Alive Discussion List Subject: [SA-list] Alerts ticker I'm throwing an idea around in my mind about setting up a ticker for SA alerts, that people can have scrolling across the bottom of their monitors. The idea would be that every time a check changes status, that would be shown in the ticker for a predetermined amount of time (or number of check cycles). Before I pushed further down this road, I wanted to see if anyone else had already done something like this to avoid me re-inventing the wheel. My ideal scenario would be this: * Ticker installs as a free standing app, not as a web page * Ticker is free or ultra-low cost * Different status changes show in different colours - e.g. new down is in red, new up is in green, change to maintenance is in blue * Ticker responds immediately the check changes status (like an alert) rather than waiting for the end of the check cycle (like a web output page) * Ticker can be set universally, rather than having to set it up as an alert on each check * Time that items appear on the ticker can be customised I've had a quick look for existing software that would do this. There are a few RSS tickers around (such as http://www.rssadvantage.com/ (http://www.rssadvantage.com/)), although maybe better is a ticker that can take a txt file (such as Text Ticker from http://www.slashbackassociates.com/ (http://www.slashbackassociates.com/)). That's $20 for a single licence, getting (much) cheaper as you buy more, but given that we're being ultra-thrifty at the moment I'd rather get something free... ;-) Any thoughts from anyone on this? Dirk - do you see this as a possible feature for SA? Ian _________________________________ Ian K Gray OEL IS - European Infrastructure Support Tel: +44 1236 502661 Mob: +44 7881 518854 Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit ______________________________________________________________________________ Any opinions expressed in this email are those of the individual and not necessarily of the Company. This email and any files transmitted with it, including replies and forwarded copies (which may contain alterations) subsequently transmitted from the Company are confidential and solely for the use of the intended recipient. It may contain material protected by legal privilege. 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