An alert is any event in Backup Exec that is important enough to display a message or require a response from you.

Alert categories are conditions that cause alerts. Alert categories encompass many circumstances or problems that affect the system, jobs, media, or device sources. Each alert category can include one or more events that generate an alert. For example, a Job Failed error can be caused for many reasons.

Each alert category has one of the following alert types, which helps you distinguish the severity of the alert or whether Backup Exec needs a response from you.

Most alerts are enabled. However, you choose which alerts to display by editing alert category properties.

See Configuring alert category properties.

Alerts remain in the Active Alerts pane until they receive a response. You can respond to an alert manually or you can configure Backup Exec to respond to them automatically after a specified length of time. Depending on the alert type, a response might not be required, such as with informational alerts. After you respond to an alert, Backup Exec moves it to alert history, where it remains for the length of time you specify or until you delete it.

See Responding to active alerts.

You can configure Notifications to inform recipients when alerts occur. For example, you can notify a backup administrator via email or cell phone text message when a critical alert occurs.

See Setting up notification for alerts.

To assist with hardware troubleshooting, Backup Exec displays alerts for SCSI event ids 9 (device timeout), 11 (controller error), and 15 (device not ready).