Alerts: Protocol Status vs Thread Status

[Robert Milfajt]

I was undertaking a review of our alerts, which remain mostly unchanged from our initial Cloverleaf 3.8.1P implementation.  We are now on 5.5Rev1 going to 5.8rev(latest).

I see there is thread status and protocol status alerts on most threads, and wonder what the difference is and whether the dual alerting is necessary.

What does everyone else do ❓

Thanks,

Bob

Robert Milfajt
Northwestern Medicine
Chicago, IL

Topic

[Robert Kersemakers]

Hi Robert,

We only have alerts based on thread status. Never saw the need to use protocol status.

Zuyderland Medisch Centrum; Heerlen/Sittard; The Netherlands

[Mike Ellert]

I don’t understand the difference either.  Can someone please explain?

[Robert Kersemakers]

Your thread status can only be ‘up’ or ‘down’. It tells you if this thread is running or not.

The protocol status will tell you what the tread is doing; what the connection-status of this thread is. Also ‘up’ or ‘down’, but can also be ‘opening’, ‘initializing’ etc. So a thread can be ‘up’, but because the other side has closed the connection, the protocol status will be ‘opening’.

Most of our (tcp/ip-)connections will show ‘up’, but some suppliers/systems will only establish a connection when actual data is send, so these connections will show ‘opening’.

I only want to know if the thread is running. If it is, then the connection should be established.

Zuyderland Medisch Centrum; Heerlen/Sittard; The Netherlands

[Mike Ellert]

Well that was embarrassingly simple.  Doh!

Thank you.

[Jim Kosloskey]

Unless the other side has not released the port in which case you can still be ‘Up’ but nothing is flowing.

Happens too often with VPNs and/or Firewalls in the way.

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[Robert Kersemakers]

In that case I use the ‘last received’ or ‘last sent’ alert to restart the thread if we haven’t received/sent a message for a while, which could indicate a connection is down.

Zuyderland Medisch Centrum; Heerlen/Sittard; The Netherlands

[Jim Kosloskey]

We also have backup alerts but the combination is not as precise as we would like and that caqn cause us to have false alerts.

It would be wonderful if all of the VPN/Firewall administrators could be competent enough to handle the connections between two machines appropriately. I know it can be accomplished because there are VPN/Firewall setups that do not cause this issue.

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[Robert Milfajt]

Aaah, I see the light ❗

Thanks for great explanation.

Robert Milfajt
Northwestern Medicine
Chicago, IL

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