Rules are used within monitor policies to specify what metrics to monitor and how fluctuations in a metric's data value should be interpreted. After a rule is defined and activated, the metric data is collected from a specified application or operating system.

See About metrics.

Monitor Solution has different types of rules for different purposes. Rules can be used to poll metric sources, such as Windows NT events and log events. Some rules are configured to only collect metric data and nothing else. Other rules both collect data and also evaluate it against predefined acceptable ranges and values. If a data value is in an undesirable state or is beyond a wanted range, then the rule is considered triggered. When a rule triggers, actions can be taken.

See Types of rules.

The actions that a rule can trigger are defined either within the rule or within the monitor policy. Actions, such as running a script, can be initiated from the monitored computer. Actions, such as sending an email, can also be run as server-side tasks from the Notification Server computer.

See About Monitor Solution tasks and actions.