How to create a test alarm in UIM using different options (interfaces/utilities)

Products

• DX Unified Infrastructure Management (Nimsoft / UIM)
• DX Unified Infrastructure Management (Nimsoft / UIM)
• CA Unified Infrastructure Management SaaS (Nimsoft / UIM)
• Unified Infrastructure Management for Mainframe

Issue/Introduction

When working with nas probe related issues, it is helpful to create an alarm to test functionality, a newly defined rule, validation of a regex, or alarm functions in general.

What are some ways to generate a test alarm available in UIM?

Environment

DX UIM 20.4 / 23.4

Cause

- Need specific instructions for available methods of generating test alarms in UIM

Resolution

nas probe GUI:

1. Open Infrastructure Manager -> hub with nas probe -> nas probe gui -> Status tab 
2. Click the Send Test Alarm button and an Alarm Properties config window will appear so you can configure the available alarm properties. 
3. Configure the alarm appropriately and click the Send button 
4. Confirm the alarm arrived in the IM Alarm Window. 

controller Probe Utility: 

1. Open the Infrastructure Manager and select the robot from which the alarm should be sent. 
2. Highlight the controller probe and hit Ctrl+p to open the probe utility. 
3. Use the Probe commandset drop down to select 'test_alarm' 
4. Enter the level of alarm which is appropriate. The options are: clear, informational, warning, minor, major, critical. 
5. Click the green play arrow at the top of the window. 
6. Confirm the alarm arrived in the IM Alarm subconsole window. 

nimalarm command line utility: 

nimalarm is a command line utility typically located in ...\Nimsoft\bin. To use it, open a command window and navigate to the appropriate directory and run the utility with appropriate switches.

The simplest command is: 

nimalarm <string> 

Which will send an informational alarm with that string as the message. There are many switches which can be used with this utility and more details can be found here: 

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/ca-enterprise-software/it-operations-management/unified-infrastructure-management/23-4/working-with-development-tools/the-nimalarm-utility.html 

Here are the nimalarm usage parameters: 

E:\Program Files (x86)\Nimsoft> cd bin 
E:\Program Files (x86)\Nimsoft\bin>nimalarm
usage: nimalarm [options] message-string
where options are: 
   -l <severity level> 
   -s <subsystem id> 
   -c <checkpoint id> 
   -d <debug level> 
   -S <source/hostname> 
   -i return message-id 
   -1 <custom1> 
   -2 <custom2> 
   -3 <custom3> 
   -4 <custom4> 
   -5 <custom5> 
   -t <CI type> 
   -n <CI name> 
   -m <CI metric> 
   -a <alarm token> 
   -v <message values e.g. key1=val1;key2=val2...> 
   -V print version 

Testing with a specific probe: 
Temporarily create an alarm condition by modifying the alarm threshold in a probe. 

Example for CDM: 
1. Lower the disk or memory threshold to lower than the current value and restart CDM and alarm should be sent. 

or 

2. Set the disk threshold to just above the current value and copy a large file to the drive. this should generate an alarm.