Configuring Escalations (question about contacts)

[dlukinski]

Hello XI support

We generally have Contact groups configured in host templates while now trying to configure alerts escalation now.

Should we remove contact groups and notification interval from hosts (or templates), while configuring contacts in host escalations instead?


Almost all of our service alerts are based of Host contacts (or groups) / how to configure service escalations in this case?
- say contact groups removed from hosts?


Thank you

[lmiltchev]

Should we remove contact groups and notification interval from hosts (or templates), while configuring contacts in host escalations instead?

Why do you think you need to do this? You can have contact groups assigned to a host via a host template, and still escalate notifications to contact(s) or contacgroup(s). Have you had an issue with setting up a host escalation? Can you show us a "sample" config?

Almost all of our service alerts are based of Host contacts (or groups) / how to configure service escalations in this case?
- say contact groups removed from hosts?
escalate notifications to contact(s) or contacgroup(s)

You can escalate notifications to any contact/contacgroup you wish by clicking on the "Manage Contacts" or "Manage Contactgroups", and adding them.

example01.PNG

What is the specific issue that you are having?

[bwallace]

Refer to this doc for more about what lmiltchev mentions....
https://assets.nagios.com/downloads/nag ... ations.pdf

[dlukinski]

Should we remove contact groups and notification interval from hosts (or templates), while configuring contacts in host escalations instead?

Why do you think you need to do this? You can have contact groups assigned to a host via a host template, and still escalate notifications to contact(s) or contacgroup(s). Have you had an issue with setting up a host escalation? Can you show us a "sample" config?

Almost all of our service alerts are based of Host contacts (or groups) / how to configure service escalations in this case?
- say contact groups removed from hosts?
escalate notifications to contact(s) or contacgroup(s)

You can escalate notifications to any contact/contacgroup you wish by clicking on the "Manage Contacts" or "Manage Contactgroups", and adding them.

example01.PNG

What is the specific issue that you are having?

Reason for questions: to minimize alerts.. so i had to ask if escalation configurations overwrite host contacts (unlikely in my opinion)
- therefore i have to remove contacts from hosts and only have them configured in escalations instead?
- if there are essentially same contacts participating..

This was asked during training earlier this year, but no luck with getting explanations

[bwallace]

Thanks for clarifying. Notification escalations should not be used if your primary concern is to reduce notifications. I would follow the suggestions on the doc from my earlier post, where you add new contacts onto the 'higher' level escalation definitions while the contacts on the lower level definitions receive notifications regardless of the level. Then again, you can customize this to however you see fit. There shouldn't be any need to change your existing set up however, when configuring escalations.

[dlukinski]

Thanks for clarifying. Notification escalations should not be used if your primary concern is to reduce notifications. I would follow the suggestions on the doc from my earlier post, where you add new contacts onto the 'higher' level escalation definitions while the contacts on the lower level definitions receive notifications regardless of the level. Then again, you can customize this to however you see fit. There shouldn't be any need to change your existing set up however, when configuring escalations.

This does not answer my question:
- We want to prevent too many notifications
- We have contacts configured almost exclusively at host (or host template level)
- this still produces hundreds of emails even in specific trouble cases

- we want 1st email to go to Contacts Group # 1
- we want 2-5 emails go to Contacts Group # 2
- we want 5+ email to go to Contacts Group # 1 & Contacts Group # 3

while there is a Contacts Group # 0 at host level which includes # 1,2,3

How to make it so that there are less notifications without removing alerts completely?
- would creating escalation groups and removing host-level contacts be correct in this scenario?

[rkennedy]

Yes, you'd want to follow what @bwallace mentioned and create escalations. This will allow what you're looking to accomplish.

[dlukinski]

Yes, you'd want to follow what @bwallace mentioned and create escalations. This will allow what you're looking to accomplish.

This does not answer my question: should we be removing host-level contacts when creating escalations instead?

[rkennedy]

Yes, you'd want to follow what @bwallace mentioned and create escalations. This will allow what you're looking to accomplish.

This does not answer my question: should we be removing host-level contacts when creating escalations instead?

I didn't see that part, no. This really depends on what you're looking to accomplish though. You can use escalations in conjunction with your regular notifications, escalations just trigger after x amount of times. It sounds like you still want all of the regular notifications going out still, but then an escalation process to certain 'tiers'.

[dlukinski]

Yes, you'd want to follow what @bwallace mentioned and create escalations. This will allow what you're looking to accomplish.

This does not answer my question: should we be removing host-level contacts when creating escalations instead?

I didn't see that part, no. This really depends on what you're looking to accomplish though. You can use escalations in conjunction with your regular notifications, escalations just trigger after x amount of times. It sounds like you still want all of the regular notifications going out still, but then an escalation process to certain 'tiers'.

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Well, I cannot really remove contacts from the host level (no access / visibility in this case)
Do I set host "Alert Settings" Notifications enabled to "off" while assigning notifications (and escalations) to Services ?