Jay,
I take it that you are suggesting that an explicit statement or at
least a recommendation be included in the RFC relative to repeating
Alert Entries for continuing conditions.
I suggest that, since the RFC described an Alert as a reportable
event, and an event as a change of state, there should be only one
alert for a condition such as low toner (or whatever). It may be
desirable to specifically call this out.
The potential problem of losing an alert because the depth of the
Alert Table is addressed by the priorities suggested for maintaining
the Alert Table. In the scenario whereby a significant warning
condition is lost because of (perhaps) a multiplicity of different
critical alerts might suggest that an operator should check for
warning conditions when he is servicing a critical condition. The
scenario of loosing a warning because of many other (different)
warnings suggests that some consideration should be given to the level
of warning reported versus the size of the Alert Table. However, one
cannot assume (as Tom Hastings suggested) that the size of the Alert
Table will always be made sufficiently large to allow every possible
warning and critical alert to be retained.
I would not suggest that it be required or recommended that the
printer re-enter a warning alert should the initial alert have been
removed to accommodate other events.
Bill Wagner