Alarm Management

Alarm management is the viewing, analyzing, and processing of software generated and device based Incidents and Alarms. It might also include the configuration of these alarms on the devices and in the software.

Alarm conditions are monitored by the devices, or by the software. When a condition is met, an Alarm is logged to the database and displayed in the software. The software processes the Alarm information to categorize the Alarm and associate it with an Incident. Users can acknowledge Alarms.

Components

The following applications are used for Alarm management:

Alarms (Viewer)
Alarm Annunciator
Software Alarms

For details on how to use these applications see the Operate chapter. For details on how to configure these applications see the Configure chapter.

Prerequisites

The alarm conditions must be defined and actively monitored on the devices or in the software. That means that the devices or the software must indicate the active or inactive alarm states and must log the alarm details into the database. Software alarms require real-time communications with the devices that are monitoring the measurements that are being alarmed on.

Design Considerations

Carefully choose the alarm conditions on the devices and in the software. Alarming on too many, too few, or incorrect alarm conditions leads to poor system performance for alarm management.

When using software alarms, keep in mind that:

Reliable communication links to the devices that are providing the measurements are required.
There is a greater and less predictable time delay than for device-based alarming
Alarms are logged with the date and time of the software server, not the monitoring device.

Consider setting up logging of alarm related information, such as waveform captures or system states. This additional information might be valuable when analyzing Incidents. When creating Alarm Views, consider the needs of the users and their applications.