Creating a health policy: Define health condition properties

Use this page to define the specific behavior of the health policy.

To view this administrative console page, click Operational policies > Health policies > New.

Privileges for health policies differ, depending on the user’s administrative role. Roles include monitor, operator, configurator, and administrator. If you are a user with either a monitor or an operator role, you can only view health policy information. If you are a user with either a configurator or an administrator role, you have all configuration privileges for health policies.

Health condition properties

Specifies properties that are specific to the health condition.

Table 1. Age-based condition properties
Setting Description
Maximum age

This field is available for the age-based policy. The age-based condition policy restarts the associated members when their age reaches the maximum age. Acceptable values are positive whole numbers in days or hours between 1 hour and 365 days. To enter a value like 1.2 days, use 36 hours, because decimal numbers are not supported.

Table 2. Excessive request timeout condition properties
Setting Description
Timed out requests

The excessive memory usage condition policy restarts members when the memory usage exceeds a percentage of your heap size over time. The total memory used percentage is used with the time over memory threshold value to determine when to restart members. Acceptable values for this field are whole numbers between 1 and 99.

Table 3. Excessive response time condition properties
Setting Description
Response time

This field is available for the excessive response time condition policy. The excessive response time condition policy restarts members when the average number of responses completed exceeds a given period. Acceptable values for this field are between 1 millisecond and 60 minutes.

Table 4. Memory condition: excessive memory usage properties
Setting Description
JVM heap size

The excessive memory usage condition policy restarts members when the memory usage exceeds a percentage of your heap size over time. The total memory used percentage is used with the time over memory threshold value to determine when to restart members. Acceptable values for this field are whole numbers between 1 and 99.

Offending time period

This field is available for the excessive memory usage condition policy. The excessive memory usage condition policy restarts members when the memory usage exceeds a percentage of your heap size over time. Acceptable values for this field are between 1 second and 60 minutes.

Table 5. Memory condition: memory leak condition properties
Setting Description
Detection level
You can choose from the following detection levels. For each level a trade-off exists between the speed and accuracy of detecting suspected memory leaks.
  • Faster detection, higher probability of false alarms: A faster detection level detects a potential memory leak quickly, however this detection level has a greater chance of falsely identifying a memory leak than a slower detection policy because the analysis is done before the Java heap expands to its maximum configured size.
  • Standard detection, standard probability of false alarms: A standard detection level is more accurate than a faster one, but not as quick to identify a potential memory leak. The standard and faster settings require the same amount of historical data, but the standard setting analyzes after the Java heap has expanded to its maximum configured size.
  • Slower detection, lower probability of false alarms: A slower detection level is the most accurate, however this detection level does not detect a potential memory leak as quickly as the faster detection level does. This slower setting requires the most historical data.
Table 6. Storm drain condition properties
Setting Description
Detection level
  • Standard detection, normal probability of false alarms: A standard detection policy is less accurate than a slower one, but quicker to identify a potential storm drain.

    This level uses fewer samples (N=10) for both response times and dynamic workload manager weights and detects a change point in each of the metrics based on the sample set. As a result, this policy reaches a conclusion faster because it waits for 20 samples, 10 for the left mean and 10 for the right mean, for calculating a difference of means and looking for a local maxima. The samples are collected at intervals of 15 seconds. Therefore, the storm drain can be detected within 5 minutes of its occurrence. However, because the samples are fewer, if the samples have multiple transient peaks or dips, then there is a higher probability for false alarms.

  • Slower detection, lower probability of false alarms: A slower detection policy is the most accurate, however it does not detect a potential storm drain as quickly as the standard detection policy does.

    This level uses more samples (N=15) for both response times and dynamic workload manager weights. As a result, this policy reaches a conclusion slower because the policy has to wait for 30 samples (15 for the left mean and 15 for the right mean) for calculating a difference of means. The detection time is seven minutes and 30 seconds. However, because there are more samples, the presence of samples with transient peaks or dips does not overly affect the mean values. Therefore the probability of false alarms is lower.

Table 7. Workload condition properties
Setting Description
Total requests

The workload condition policy restarts members when a certain user-defined number of requests are serviced. A request value must be a whole number greater than 1000.

Table 8. Custom condition properties
Setting Description
Run reaction plan when Specifies a subexpression that represents the metrics that you are evaluating in your custom condition.
Health management monitor reaction

Specifies how WebSphere Virtual Enterprise behaves when a defined health condition needs improving.

Reaction mode

Specifies the reaction mode that defines the behavior of the health policy. The reaction mode can be Supervised or Automatic.

  • When the reaction mode is set to Supervised, health policies are active and recommendations on actions are sent to the administrator with a runtime task. The administrator can follow the recommendations. If the administrator approves a recommendation, actions are taken to improve the health condition automatically.
  • When the reaction mode is set to Automatic, health policies are actively logging data, and WebSphere Virtual Enterprise automatically takes actions to improve the health conditions, without approval from the administrator.
Take the following actions when the health condition breaches

You can define a specific set of actions to occur when the health condition breaches. These actions can be the existing default actions, or you can define custom actions to run an executable file.

A list of actions displays in the order that they are run when the health condition breaches. To add an action, click Add Action.... You can choose an existing default health policy action, a custom action that you have created, or you can create a new custom action.

To remove a step, select the step and click Remove Action. To change the order of your steps, select one step to move and click Move Up or Move Down.




WebSphere Virtual Enterprise information center (online)

Related information
Custom health condition subexpression builder
Health policy collection
Health policy settings
Creating a health policy: Define health policy general properties
Creating a health policy: Specify members to monitor
Custom actions collection
Custom actions settings

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