Previous section.

Application Instrumentation and Control (AIC) API, Version 1.0
Copyright © 1999 The Open Group

AIC Events

An event is an alarm. The intention is that alarms can be logged, and through integration with a systems management framework it is possible to request some action (for example, a page to be sent to a support person).

Events are created within AIC through two well-defined mechanisms:

  1. From within an application using the AIC-AL API call AICAL_RaiseEvent()

  2. The Heartbeat mechanism detection of a failed application process

All events must be logged locally (to persistent storage) on the host where they are raised, regardless of the presence or absence of a management framework.

Every event has a fixed set of components as listed in Components in an AIC Event. Every event has a fixed set of components as listed below:

Field Auto Generated or
API Parameter
Optional Semantics
Hostname ** Auto ** no Hostname of server application runs on
Message API param no Error description - free format null terminated string
Application ** Auto ** no AIC internal federated name for the in-memory process
Source_Detail API param Yes See Open Group Best Practices document.
Suggested examples are build revision, physical application component name (dll, binary), source file name (.c file)
Category API param Yes See Open Group Best Practices document. Used for event correlation downstream.
EventID API param Yes Optional unique key for an event.
Severity API param no The severity is an integer representing the level of importance associated with the event. The range of this value is 1 to 4, with 1 being the most severe and 4 being the least severe.
Date/Time/Zone ** Auto ** no Internal date/time stamp including a timezone for each event at the moment the event is created. This stamp is in the following form:
    YYYY/MM/DD-HH:MM:SS XXX
where XXX is the 3 character timezone.

Table: Components in an AIC Event

For the AICAL_RaiseEvent() call, most of these components are supplied by the programmer.

When the internal heartbeat mechanism loses communication with a program (and assumes the program has failed), an event is generated with the values defined below.

Event Component Value
Hostname ** Auto-Generated **
Message Heartbeat failure
Application ** Auto-Generated **
Source_Detail HOST SERVICES
Category AIC
EventID HBEAT
Severity 2
Date/Time/Zone ** Auto-Generated **

Table: Event Values on Heartbeat Fail

Why not acquire a nicely bound hard copy?
Click here to return to the publication details or order a copy of this publication.

Contents Next section Index