The Auto Alarm Manager delivers alarms by dialing a phone number, called the primary contact, defined in your RAS phone book. The name of this entry must match the iFIX node name of the Receiver node that the Auto Alarm Manager is dialing. If it cannot connect to the primary contact, (for example, if the line is busy) the Auto Alarm Manager tries a second RAS phone book entry, called the secondary contact. The name of this entry must also match the iFIX node name of the node that the Auto Alarm Manager is dialing; however, the secondary contact can be different from the primary contact.
TIP: To avoid confusion, it is recommended that your iFIX node name is the same as your computer name. Also, you may need to add the iFIX node name to your Windows HOSTS file. For more information, refer to the Before You Begin With TCP/IP section in the Setting up the Environment e-book.
When the Auto Alarm Manager cannot connect to the primary or secondary contact, it assumes the alarms are undeliverable and does the following:
- Sets a tag in the database (called the emergency tag) to 1. This value indicates that the Auto Alarm Manager could not connect to the primary and secondary contacts. Typically, you would use a Digital Output (DO) block type for this tag.
- Sends a message to all enabled local alarm destinations.
- Deletes the alarms in its alarm queue. These alarms are not acknowledged; they are removed from the alarm queue because the Auto Alarm Manager cannot deliver them.
NOTE: The emergency tag is also set to 1 when the Auto Alarm Manager loses a connection to the Receiving node during delivery and is unable to finish sending all of its alarms.
