Alarms can be used to notify an administrator of issues (or potential issues) in a vSphere environment. This notification allows an administrator to take corrective actions. Alarms can be configured to send email notifications and/or SMNP traps when conditions are triggered. Alarm definitions contain a trigger and an action. Triggers include issues like hardware failures, or states like increased CPU or memory utilization.
Properly designing alarm notifications can ensure successful ongoing operations in a vSphere environment.