I have seen posts about the use of email being an unreliable method for critical event notification.
Does anyone know of a reliable system?
Terry Martin
Does anyone know of a reliable system?
Terry Martin
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Reliable verified event notification
- Thread starter sfnet
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moonsdarkside
Technical User
Terry,
Commonly there can be problems using email for notification (Especially if it's the email system that has become unavailable). Another point is that email notification assumes that the target recipient's email systems (external system(s) you may have no control over) are available as well. Using notification systems (i.e. TelAlert) in concert with your network and application management systems improves reliability of notification at a number of levels. Here are a few:
1. Notification facilities can be weaved into your management domain's high availability and business continuity processes.
2. Notification facilities can leverage both email and other methods of notification such as pager and cell phones to ensure that email doesn't become a single point of failure for your notification function.
3. Notification facilities can be configured to dovetail into the configuration fabric of your system management domain (i.e. be aware of operational staff roles and responsibilities).
4. Notification facilities can be configured to address escalation in the event that personnel do not respond to messages sent to them. This is a valuable function of notification facilities that (after a configured period of time) will either re-send the message to the original person or escalate the message to someone up the chain of communication.
5. Notification facilities can also be configured to verify that a message was successfully sent (i.e. handed off to the carrier that provides the messaging service). In the event the hand off is un-successful it can be set up to re-send until the message is successfully sent or (after a number of tries) send a new notification to report that the notification service is unavailable. In this circumstance you would hope that email is up. Naturally an event of this description would be a critical one for NOC staff if you have that environment set up.
6. Notification facilities will often allow target personnel the ability to acknowledge the receipt of a critical message (and in some cases execute remote commands that will mitigate or avoid damage sustained by the conditions of the surfaced event.
I hope this lends some background in support of your notification reliability needs. Certainly, where notification is concerned, the overall robustness of your environment needs to be taken into account. Still, I do think it's safe to say that when used as your only source of notification, email is generally not reliable. Still, risk management comes at a cost, and I'm sure you're required to contribute to the cost/benefit evaluation for all of this as well. Hope I've helped a little.
Cheers,
Larry Moon
Commonly there can be problems using email for notification (Especially if it's the email system that has become unavailable). Another point is that email notification assumes that the target recipient's email systems (external system(s) you may have no control over) are available as well. Using notification systems (i.e. TelAlert) in concert with your network and application management systems improves reliability of notification at a number of levels. Here are a few:
1. Notification facilities can be weaved into your management domain's high availability and business continuity processes.
2. Notification facilities can leverage both email and other methods of notification such as pager and cell phones to ensure that email doesn't become a single point of failure for your notification function.
3. Notification facilities can be configured to dovetail into the configuration fabric of your system management domain (i.e. be aware of operational staff roles and responsibilities).
4. Notification facilities can be configured to address escalation in the event that personnel do not respond to messages sent to them. This is a valuable function of notification facilities that (after a configured period of time) will either re-send the message to the original person or escalate the message to someone up the chain of communication.
5. Notification facilities can also be configured to verify that a message was successfully sent (i.e. handed off to the carrier that provides the messaging service). In the event the hand off is un-successful it can be set up to re-send until the message is successfully sent or (after a number of tries) send a new notification to report that the notification service is unavailable. In this circumstance you would hope that email is up. Naturally an event of this description would be a critical one for NOC staff if you have that environment set up.
6. Notification facilities will often allow target personnel the ability to acknowledge the receipt of a critical message (and in some cases execute remote commands that will mitigate or avoid damage sustained by the conditions of the surfaced event.
I hope this lends some background in support of your notification reliability needs. Certainly, where notification is concerned, the overall robustness of your environment needs to be taken into account. Still, I do think it's safe to say that when used as your only source of notification, email is generally not reliable. Still, risk management comes at a cost, and I'm sure you're required to contribute to the cost/benefit evaluation for all of this as well. Hope I've helped a little.
Cheers,
Larry Moon
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