During times when an IT infrastructure is under maintenance, it is but natural that few/all of the monitored components are rendered unavailable. This in turn, could cause the monitoring tool to generate a plethora of alarms indicating a "non-existent" problem situation. Similarly, some administrators might want network-related alerts to be suppressed during the non-working hours of a company, as such alerts are inevitable during that time of the day. Likewise, if administrators are deliberately bringing the web server process down for a brief period, they might consider insignificant the alerts pertaining to the Processes test on the web server during that period.

In order to prevent the meaningless generation of alarms during routine maintenance activities, eG Enterprise allows administrators to:

• Define maintenance policies based on the periodicity of the maintenance procedures performed on the environment
• Group the defined policies
• Associate policies with components/hosts

These features enable administrators to "switch off" the eG alarms for specific components/hosts during the maintenance periods.

This page appears upon selecting the Define Policies option from the Maintenance Periods sub-menu of the Configure menu, and allows definition of maintenance policies. To create a maintenance policy using this page, do the following:

1. Specify a policy name in the Enter policy name text box.
2. Next, from the Choose day list box, select any of the following options:
   • First day of month: If the maintenance procedure is performed on the first day of every month, then, select this option.
   • Last day of the month: If the maintenance procedure is performed on the last day of every month, then, select this option.
   • Daily: If the maintenance procedure is performed every day, then, select this option.
   • Day of week: If the maintenance procedure is performed on a particular day in a week, then, select this option. When this option chosen, a list box appears alongside that allows you to specify the exact day of the week on which maintenance is to be performed.
   • Date: If the maintenance procedure is performed on a specific date, then, select this option. Then, using the 'calendar' icon that appears next to the Date option, specify the exact date on which maintenance is to be performed.
3. Next, specify the duration of maintenance using the From and To fields against Choose time.
4. Then, add these specifications using the Add Entry >> button.
5. Similarly, multiple specifications can be added as part of a single policy. To delete a particular entry, select it from the list box adjacent to the Add Entry >> button, and click the Delete Entry button.
6. Finally, click on the Create Policy button to create a new policy.
7. All policies that pre-exist and those that are newly created will be listed at the bottom of this page. To run a quick search across policies to locate a particular policy, use the Search option in this page. Specify the whole/part of the policy name to search for in the Search text box and click the right-arrow button next to it. All policies with names that embed the specified search string will then be listed.

To modify an existing policy, do the following:

1. Click on the Modify button against the policy to be modified.
2. The date and time specifications that correspond to the selected policy will then be displayed in the list box adjacent to the Add Entry >> button. To delete a particular entry, select it from the list box adjacent to the Add Entry >> button, and click the DELETE ENTRY button.
3. New entries can also be added to the chosen policy using the procedure already discussed.
4. Finally, register the changes made by clicking on the Update button.

To delete an existing policy, do the following:

1. Click on the Delete button against the policy to be deleted.
2. This page will then request your confirmation to proceed with the deletion. Click the OK button in the message box to confirm deletion. Otherwise, click on the Cancel button.