Smarts SAM: Attributes populated with "???" instead of correct description; Dynamic modeled attributes do not have Description field populated correctly

Products

• VMware Smart Assurance

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:




Event Text in SAM shows "???" instead of the actual description:

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - SMARTS

Cause

This is typically a model file compilation issue or a version mismatch issue (where old version compiled dynamic model files are incompatible with the new version of the server).

This is caused by refining the class in two different model files which is not a best practice. 

From a developer's point of view (object oriented), this is not an efficient way either.; it actually breaks the inheritance tree by having a disjoint refinement of a class in two different model files.

Functionality wise, there will not be any issues, but the .data files that get generated as part of compilation on these model files will have a clash while being loaded.

Here is an example of looking into the mdl file implementation.  We can see that the UnitaryComputer system is refined in these model files:

in file cpu_fault_hr.mdl following is the class refinment:

refine interface UnitaryComputerSystem  <<<<<<<<<
{
   export DeviceRestarted;

   export AgentRestarted;


in file cpu_performance.mdl following is the class refinment:

refine interface UnitaryComputerSystem  <<<<<<<<<<<<<
{
   export HighUtilizationAllCPUs;

   attribute float UtilizationThreshold
   = 0;refine interface UnitaryComputerSystem

Resolution

The best practice is to have a consolidated file which has the refinement of the class and all new events declared in the same class.

For the example used under Cause, The UnitaryComputerSystem is being refined in two different model file (namely in : cpu_fault_hr.mdl and cpu_performance.mdl) and this must be consolidated into one file

Additional Information

There is no issues with the SMARTS functionality and this behavior is expected.