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Cloud Insights

Creating annotation rules

Contributors netapp-alavoie dgracenetapp

You can use annotation rules to automatically apply annotations to multiple assets based on criteria that you define. Cloud Insights assigns the annotations to assets based on these rules. Annotations set manually on an individual asset pages take precedence over rule-based annotations when Cloud Insight evaluates the annotation rules.

Before you begin

You must have created a query for the annotation rule.

Steps

  1. In the Cloud Insights menu click Manage > Annotation rules.

  2. Click + Rule to add a new annotation rule.

    The Add Rule dialog is displayed.

  3. Do the following:

    1. In the Name box, enter a unique name that describes the rule.

      The name appears in the Annotation Rules page.

    2. Click Query and select the query that Cloud Insights uses to identify the assets the annotation applies to.

    3. Click Annotation and select the annotation you want to apply.

    4. Click Value and select a value for the annotation.

      For example, if you choose Birthday as the annotation, you specify a date for the value.

    5. Click Save

    6. Click Run all rules if you want to run all the rules immediately; otherwise, the rules are run at a regularly scheduled interval.

      Note In a large Cloud Insights environment, you may notice that running annotation rules seems to take a while to complete. This is because the indexer runs first and must complete prior to running the rules. The indexer is what gives Cloud Insights the ability to search or filter for new or updated objects and counters in your data. The rules engine waits until the indexer completes its update before applying the rules.

Modifying annotation rules

You can modify an annotation rule to change the rule's name, its annotation, the annotation's value, or the query associated with the rule.

Steps

  1. In the Cloud Insights menu, Click Manage > Annotation rules.

    The Annotation Rules page displays the list of existing annotation rules.

  2. Locate the Annotation Rule you want to modify.

    You can filter the annotation rules by entering a value in the filter box or click a page number to browse through the annotation rules by page.

  3. Click the menu icon for the rule that you want to modify.

  4. Click Edit

    The Edit Rule dialog is displayed.

  5. Modify the annotation rule's name, annotation, value, or query.

Changing the Order of Rules

Annotation rules are processed from the top of the rules list to the bottom. To change the order in which a rule is processed, do the following:

Steps

  1. Click on the menu icon for the rule you want to move.

  2. Click Move Up or Move Down as needed until the rule appears in the location you want.

Note that when running multiple rules that update the same annotation on an asset, the first rule (as run from the top down) applies the annotation and updates the asset, then the second rule applies but doesn’t change any annotation that was already set by the previous rule.

Deleting annotation rules

You might want to delete annotation rules that are no longer used.

Steps

  1. In the Cloud Insights menu, Click Manage > Annotation rules.

    The Annotation Rules page displays the list of existing annotation rules.

  2. Locate the Annotation Rule you want to delete.

    You can filter the annotation rules by entering a value in the filter box or click a page number to browse through the annotation rules by page.

  3. Click the menu icon for the rule that you want to delete.

  4. Click Delete

    A confirmation message is displayed, prompting whether you want to delete the rule.

  5. Click OK