Meaning of SSMS database icon preceded by scroll with red x

SSMS 2008 R2, connecting to a 2008 instance shows the above glyph in SSMS Object Explorer. None of our other instances show that icon. I've moused over it in the vain hopes that I'd get a useful tooltip but to no avail.

I assume it's related to a failure we had this past weekend. Could someone provide a more authoritative response on what that icon means and any action I should direct my DBAs to take to clear it up?

This is documented in BOL under "Administering Servers by Using Policy-Based Management"


For failed policies, Object Explorer indicates a critical health
warning as a red icon next to the target and the nodes that are higher
in the Object Explorer tree.

I've not used policy based management myself so am not entirely clear what this means. Through the UI I couldn't see any way of denoting a policy condition as having any particular severity.

I've made this answer community wiki in case someone more familiar with the subject area wants to expand upon it.

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#7866, answer score: 8