Example MP to Trigger Non-stop Notifications

Occasionally I speak to someone who would like to have OpsMgr continually send notifications until an alert is resolved. One way this can be done is by setting up multiple notification subscriptions and staggering the alert aging. The problem with this method is it is finite, and can be quite tedious to setup.

Alternately, we can have a process run one a timed interval to modify certain open alerts in a manner that would trigger another notification to be sent. One way to trigger that is to update a custom field.

So as an example of how to accomplish this, here is a small management pack that includes a Timed Command Rule that executes a script (VBS with Powershell embedded) on the RMS. The script is setup to run every 5 minutes, and will update Custom Field 10 in order to trigger a new notification when it is run. If anything exists in Custom Field 10 already it will be overwritten. The MP should work with OpsMgr 2007 SP1 and newer.

Please note that the management pack in its current form can be detrimental to performance. It will affect ALL alerts that are not closed (resolution state 255). If you have quite a few open alerts, it could potentially consume quite a bit of CPU to update the alerts, and also consume additional resources when the notification workflow runs to send out the notifications. Not to mention any adverse effects that could be caused by the increased size of the alert history which will grow with each run.

This is of course provided AS-IS and as an EXAMPLE only.

Custom.Field.Updater.xml