Scheduling Downtime for a Device Group

This section describes how to schedule maintenance times for device groups.

You can use the Schedule Manager page to schedule downtime for an entire device group. This allows you to schedule maintenance and update tasks for all the devices in the device group and also inform other users of the scheduled downtime.

When the scheduled downtime occurs, each device in the device group will have a collection status of "maintenance".

You can specify whether or not you want SL1 to collect data from the devices in the device group during the scheduled maintenance. During scheduled maintenance, no events will be triggered for the devices in the device group.

NOTE: If the definition for a device group in the Device Group Editor page does not include Device Schedules in the Visibility field, you will not be able to schedule downtime and maintenance for the device group.

Use the following menu options to navigate the SL1 user interface:

To view a pop-out list of menu options, click the menu icon ().
To view a page containing all of the menu options, click the Advanced menu icon ().

Viewing the Schedule Manager

The Schedule Manager page (Registry > Devices > Device Groups > calendar icon) displays the following information about each scheduled or recurring device group maintenance window:

Schedule Summary. Displays the name assigned to the scheduled process.
Schedule Description. Displays a description of the scheduled process.
Event ID. Displays a unique, numeric ID for the scheduled process. SL1 automatically creates this ID for each scheduled process.
sch id. Displays a unique, numeric ID for the schedule. SL1 automatically creates this ID for each schedule.
Context. Displays the area of SL1 upon which the schedule works.
Timezone. Displays the time zone associated with the scheduled process.
Start Time. Displays the date and time at which the scheduled process will begin.
Duration. Displays the duration, in minutes, which the scheduled process occurs.
Recurrence Interval. If applicable, displays the interval at which the scheduled process recurs.
End Date. If applicable, displays the date and time on which the scheduled process will recur.
Last Run. If applicable, displays the date and time the scheduled process most recently ran.
Owner. Displays the username of the owner of the scheduled process.
Organization. Displays the organization to which the scheduled process is assigned.
Visibility. Displays the visibility level for the scheduled process. Possible values are "Private", "Organization", or "World".
Enabled. Specifies if the scheduled process is enabled. Possible values are "Yes" or "No".

To edit a scheduled or recurring device group maintenance window, click its wrench icon () and update the settings as needed on the Schedule Editor modal page. (For more information, see the section Defining a Scheduled or Recurring Device Group Maintenance Window.)

Defining a Scheduled or Recurring Device Group Maintenance Window

You can schedule a device group maintenance window in SL1 from the Schedule Manager page. SL1 will automatically set the status of each device in the device group to "maintenance" at the scheduled time.

To define a scheduled or recurring device group maintenance window:

Go to the Schedule Manager page (Registry > Devices > Device Groups > calendar icon).
Click Create. The Schedule Editor modal appears.
On the Schedule Editor modal, make entries in the following fields:

Basic Settings

Schedule Name. Type a name for the scheduled process.

Schedule Type. Indicates the scheduled process type (such as Tickets, Reports, or Devices).

Visibility. Select the visibility for the scheduled process. You can select one of the following:

Private. The scheduled process is visible only to the owner selected in the Owner field.

Organization. The scheduled process is visible only to the organization selected in the Organization field.
World. The scheduled process is visible to all users.

Organization. Select the organization to which you want to assign the scheduled process.
Owner. Select the owner of the scheduled process. The default value is the username of the user who created the scheduled process.
Preserve Schedule. Select this checkbox to exclude this schedule from being pruned after expiration.
Description. Type a description of the scheduled process.

Time Settings

Start Time. Click in the field and select the date and time you want the scheduled process to start.

End Time. Click in the field and select the date and time you want the scheduled process to end.
Time Zone. Select the region or time zone for the scheduled start time.

If you want SL1 to automatically adjust for daylight savings time (if applicable), then you must select a named region (such as America/New York) in the Time Zone field. If you select a specific time zone (such as EST) or a specific time offset (such as GMT-5), then SL1 will not automatically adjust for daylight savings time.

All Day. Select this checkbox if the scheduled process occurs all day rather than during a specific period of time. If you do so, the End Time field becomes disabled.

Recurrence. Select whether you want the scheduled process to occur once or on a recurring basis. You can select one of the following:

None. The scheduled process occurs only once.
By Interval. The scheduled process recurs at a specific interval.
Every Xth day of the Week. The scheduled process occurs at a monthly interval based on a day of the week. The day of the week displayed in this option matched the day selected in the Start Time field. For example, if you set the Start Time to Thursday, August 5th and that day is the first Thursday of the month, then the recurrence option will be Every 1st Thursday, and the scheduled process will occur monthly on the first Thursday of the month.

If you select By Interval, the following additional fields appear:

Interval. In the first field, enter a number representing the frequency of the scheduled process, then select the time interval in the second field. Choices are Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, or Months. For example:

If you specify "6 Hours", then the scheduled process recurs every six hours from the time listed in the Start Time field.

If you specify "10 Days", then the scheduled process recurs every 10 days from the date listed in the Start Time field.
If you specify "2 Weeks", then the scheduled process recurs every two weeks, on the same day of the week as the Start Time.
If you specify "3 Months" the ticket recurs every three months, on the same day of the month as the Start Time.

Recur Until. Specifies when the scheduled process stops recurring. You can select one of the following:

No Limit. The scheduled process recurs indefinitely until it is disabled.
Specified Date. The scheduled process recurs until a specific date and time. If you select Specified Date, you must select a date and time in the Last Recurrence field.

Last Recurrence. Click in the field and select the date and time you want the scheduled process to stop recurring.

Action Settings

Scope. Select if the scheduled maintenance will affect only the group or both the group and children devices.

Collection Polling. Specifies whether SL1 should perform collection on the device during the scheduled maintenance. Choices are:

Enabled. During scheduled maintenance, SL1 will collect data from the device, but no events will be triggered for the device.
Disabled. During scheduled maintenance, SL1 will not collect data from the device. No events will be triggered for the device.

If a patch window is set, data collection will continue when a maintenance window opens and stop only during the patch window instead.

Patch Window. You can specify a "patch window" within the larger maintenance period. The "patch window" allows SL1 to limit the suppression of events to a small time-frame within the larger maintenance window. Your choices are:

None
Between 5 minutes and 60 minutes, in five-minute intervals.

For example:

Suppose you have to patch a server that is monitored by SL1. Suppose you know you will perform this task sometime between midnight and 6:00 AM. Suppose you know that the actual patch process requires only 15 minutes of downtime for the server. In SL1, you would define a maintenance window of 24:00 - 6:00 and a patch window of 15 minutes. In this scenario:

At 24:00, SL1 generates an event saying that the server is going into maintenance mode. Because you have defined a patch window, SL1 continues to monitor this server as normal.

At 3:00, you apply the patch to the server. The server reboots, and SL1 generates an event saying that the server is offline. The first event that both matches or exceeds the Patch Maintenance Minimum Severity in the Behavior Settings page (System > Settings > Behavior) and occurs within the larger maintenance window triggers the start of the patch window.
SL1 suppresses the event that triggered the patch maintenance window and instead generates an event "Patch Maintenance Window Opened".
For the next 15 minutes, SL1 will suppress all events for the device.
At 3:15, SL1 will generate an event for "Patch Maintenance Window Closed". This event clears the previous event "Patch Maintenance Window Opened".
SL1 will now generate events for the device, even though the maintenance window extends until 6:00.

NOTE: If the patch was applied at 5:50, the server was rebooted, and SL1 generated an event saying that the server is offline, events would be suppressed only until the end of the maintenance window, 6:00, even though the patch window is 15 minutes.

Click Save.

Enabling or Disabling One or More Scheduled Device Group Maintenance Windows

You can enable or disable one or more scheduled or recurring device group maintenance windows from the Schedule Manager page (Registry > Devices > Device Groups > calendar icon).

If you remove a static device from a device group while the device is in maintenance mode, the device will stay in maintenance mode until you disable it. You must disable the maintenance schedule on the device itself in the Device Manager (Registry > Devices > Device Manager by clicking on its calendar () icon. For more information, see the section on Device Maintenance.

To enable or disable one or more scheduled or recurring device group maintenance windows:

Go to the Schedule Manager page (Registry > Devices > Device Groups > calendar icon ).

Select the checkbox icon for each scheduled process you want to enable or disable.
Click the Select Action menu and choose Enable Schedules or Disable Schedules.
Click the Go button.

Deleting One or More Scheduled Device Group Maintenance Windows

You can delete one or more scheduled or recurring device group maintenance windows from the Schedule Manager page (Registry > Devices > Device Groups > calendar icon). To do this:

Go to the Schedule Manager page (Registry > Devices > Device Groups > calendar icon).

Select the checkbox icon for each scheduled process you want to delete.
Click the Select Action menu and choose Delete Schedules.
Click the Go button.