What are the differences between Primary and Secondary Alarms in Spectrum

Products

• Spectrum
• Network Observability

Issue/Introduction

What is the difference between Primary Alarm and Secondary Alarm?

In the Alarm filter, we can choose if we want to see Primary and Secondary Alarms or only primary alarms, but what is the difference?

How come alarms show when a device is in Maintenance mode?

Environment

Release : All Spectrum releases. 

Component : Spectrum Core / Alarms

Resolution

Primary/Secondary alarms are when multiple alarms with different Conditions are asserted on the same model.

For example a Critical and Minor alarm asserted on the same mode. The Critical alarm is the Primary alarm and the Minor alarm is the Secondary alarm.

There is a hierarchy for alarm conditions it is Initial (Blue), Maintenance (Brown), Suppressed/Unknown (Gray), Critical (Red), Major (Orange), Yellow (Minor) and Green (Normal).

When a device is put into maintenance mode, all other alarms are set to be secondary.  If you have your alarm filter set to "Show All Alarms" then you will still see the alarms.  If you do not want to see the alarms, then you need to change the Alarm Filter setting in the State tab to "Show Only Primary Alarms"