4. EXCEPTION REPORTING › 4.4 Identification and Qualification › 4.4.2 Severity Level Definition

4.4.2 Severity Level Definition

A severity level code is assigned to each exception.  The
assignment of the severity level enables the exception
reports to emphasize the relative level of seriousness of the
reported problems.  It also provides a method for exception
report selection.

The definition of severity level allows for three categories:
critical, impacting, and warning.  The assignment of severity
level is, of course, subjective.  The following guidelines
are suggested for this purpose.

o  Critical.  This is assigned to an exception that
   represents a missed service guarantee (e.g.,
   availability, response, turnaround, etc.), a missed
   management objective (e.g., maximum of five IPLs per
   month), a security violation, or a serious violation of
   an installation standard or audit guideline.

o  Impacting.  This is assigned to an exception that
   represents performance degradation related to
   reliability, service, capacity, turnaround, etc., that
   has created a political situation, or has in any way
   manifested itself in a noticeable problem short of the
   critical definition.

o  Warning.  This is assigned to an exception that
   represents a preventive maintenance problem (e.g.,
   buffers are running low), a symptomatic performance
   problem (e.g., demand paging rate is above normal), or
   a general installation standard or audit guideline that
   was violated.