MONITORING

Monitoring events on the Domino system
Every occurrence that happens on the IBM® Lotus® Domino™ system is an event. Events signal both that the system is working smoothly, processing data, and performing tasks; and that the system is malfunctioning, perhaps by not processing data or performing required tasks.

Domino generates events continuously. Therefore, to monitor the Domino system efficiently, you must decide which events you want to know about. For example, the event "Replicating files with servername" occurs every time a file replicates with a specified server; consequently, you may want to know about the event only if it fails. You configure events that you want to know about, based on what type of information is important to you. To configure an event, you determine three critical pieces of information: what type of event it is, what the severity level is, and how you want it handled. You configure your events using Event Generator and Event Handler documents. Event generators describe the condition that must be met for an event to be generated; event handlers describe what happens when the event occurs.

After deciding which events you want to know about, decide what will happen when the event occurs. You have several choices. You can log the event to the log file (LOG.NSF); you can mail a notification of the event to a file or an administrator; or mail the event to another application for further processing.

You create an Event Handler document to specify to log the event to a specified destination, and simultaneously receive notification of the event's occurrence and run a program for additional processing. You can also prevent the event from being logged or handled at all. However, if you want to know about an event, you must have an Event Handler document. Otherwise the event is not recorded. There is no default way of handling an event. So if you do not create event handlers, then events are not logged or stored anywhere (except for server or add-in task events, which are stored in the log). After an event is passed to the Event Monitor task, it can invoke one or more configured Event Handlers.

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