Metrics Evolution Reports

Another type of report offered by WOCU-Monitoring is the Metrics Evolution report. This functionality allows to collect a set of data for a selected metric and visualise it in an organised way.

The process of creating and running customised user-configured reports is detailed below.

Metrics Evolution Report configuration and generation

In general, when creating reports, the user must access the blue button New Report, located in the Reports.

Before generating the report, it will be necessary to set a number of filters and parameters as described below.

Scheduling Reports

WOCU-Monitoring also allows the automation of the reports, thanks to the possibility of scheduling their generation and launch at the user’s discretion by means of the New Scheduling. For more information, see: Scheduling.

Report

In this drop-down field the user must select the type of report he/she wishes to create, in this case it will be Metrics Evolution.

Note

Depending on the type of report selected, new fields to be defined will be automatically included.

Template

In this optional field the user selects the template to be applied to the Report. Templates are created prior to reports. This element is further developed in section Templates.

Name

Mandatory field in which the user assigns an identification term that differentiates the report from the rest.

Description

Optional field where the user may include descriptive text relating to the report.

Visibility

In this field the user determines whether the report will be visible to the rest of the users, i.e. a public report, or whether it will be private and only visible to the creator of the report.

Host Groups

This configuration parameter allows filtering the data collected and reflected in the report, showing only those related to the Host Groups existing in WOCU.

To select and filter the results of the report by a specific Host Group, simply choose the name of the group from the Host Group drop-down menu. All the groups registered within the realm will be displayed.

To deactivate the filter, the user must choose the No HG filter option, which appears first in the list.

In the case of a Multirealm, the list will show the Host Groups defined in the different realms that make up the set. To indicate to the user that a given Host Group belongs to one of the realms that make up the Multirealm, the name of the realm to which the Host Group belongs is enclosed in square brackets (“[Realm]”).

Metrics Configuration

To configure a metric it is necessary to define a set of parameters explained below:

✓ Host Selector

Drop-down for the selection of a specific Host on which the new report will be based. If you want to generate the report with all the Hosts in the Realm, select the All Hosts option at the top of the list.

Attention

The list of Hosts can be affected by the previous selection of a Host Group (Host Group). Only the Hosts belonging to the selected group will be displayed. See the following example:

✓ Chart title

Field to add the title of the metrics evolution graph(s) to be displayed in the report.

It is possible to add several graphs in one report. At the top button + Add host metric group appears at the top of this field. By clicking on it, a new row of parameters will appear, which must be configured.In case you want to delete one of them, just click on the button button with the cross (x) and the set of fields will disappear.

✓ Filter Metrics and Services using regular expressions (Toggle Regex)

By activating this option it is possible to filter Metrics and Services by applying regular expressions. This will be done by using a search pattern, providing greater flexibility and customisation of the filtering.

Ultimately, reports will be generated taking into account only those metrics and/or services whose name/description includes the defined text string.

Enabling this configuration method, will affect the parameter configuration parameter: Metric. As a result of the operability checks that the service launches on the Host to which that it is associated with, a set of metrics are generated that record performance, availability, storage, etc. values.

The following are the two configuration options available: Toggle Regex enabled and disabled.

A. Toggle Regex Enabled

Two new parameters will be displayed:

1. Metric: for the filtering of a metric.

2. Service Description: for filtering a service.

The operation of both fields is very simple, you will have to enter a search pattern that will act as a regular expression. For example, note that when you enter a certain term, such as “traffic”, the system constructs the regular expression /.*traffic.*/. These wildcards replace any character before or after the entered term.

Following the example, with the regular expression /.*traffic.*/ the report will capture all metrics whose name contains the characters “traffic”, i.e. all those metrics related in some way to the incoming and outgoing traffic of the monitored assets. This operation is similar in the Service Description field. In a sense, the use of regular expressions allows generic queries on a specific aspect in a quick and easy way.

Depending on the chosen Host (Host selector), only the set of metrics generated by the service(s) linked to the Host on which this report will be generated will be displayed.

Attention

As there can be several services associated to a metric and vice versa, the filtering is bidirectional. That is, by capturing one or several services (after defining a regular expression), the metrics filter will be updated showing only the specific metrics associated to the service or group of services and vice versa. In this way, the user can use this relationship to narrow the scope of the report.

B. Toggle Regex Disabled

A single selector will be displayed for the search and selection of a specific metric. To do this, type its name in the search bar. When entering characters, WOCU will display a list of metrics whose name corresponds to the characters entered. The search works with the first characters of the name, even with several characters in between or at the end. The user finally has to select one of the proposed metrics from the list. Following the metric name, the service that generates and records the metric is specified in brackets (e.g.: Metric (Service) = metric_CLOSE (TCP States)).

Note

Depending on the chosen Host (Host selector), only the set of metrics generated by the service(s) linked to the Host on which this report will be generated will be displayed. See the following example:

WOCU-Monitoring allows you to set up several metrics and visualise them on a single graph. To the right of the metrics panel there is a button with a plus sign (+). Pressing it will bring up a new row of parameters that will be configured. In case you want to delete one of them, you only have to click on the button with the cross (x) and the set of fields will disappear.

Attention

Given the wide variety of Systems and Hosts that WOCU is able to monitor, a detailed description of the different metrics is beyond the scope of this manual.

✓ Alias

Optional field to add a term identifying the metric, which will appear in the legend of the graph(s) presented in the report.

This option is very useful, as metric names can be complex or imprecise and the use of aliases would make them easier to understand.

✓ Color

WOCU allows you to select the colour of the line of graph values that will appear in the report. As it is possible to add several metrics in a single graph, this option is very practical for analysis, visualisation and comparison.

Attention

The fields highlighted with an asterisk (*), such as: Name (Name), Chart title (Chart title) and Metric (Metric) are mandatory configuration fields, then their completion is necessary to proceed with the generation of the new report. Otherwise, the system will display the following warning:

Date Interval

Before running the report, it is necessary to indicate to WOCU a date range(s) or time frame(s) to which the data reflected by the report will refer.

There are a number of time criteria already in place:

Today: filters and displays only events generated during the time period elapsed in today’s day.

Yesterday: generated yesterday.

Last 24 hours: generated in the last 24 hours.

Last 48 hours: generated in the last 48 hours.

Last 7 Days: generated in the last seven days.

Last 30 Days: generated in the last 30 days.

This Week: generated during the period of time elapsed in the current week (from the start day of the week to the current day).

This Month: generated during the period of time elapsed in the current month (from day 1 to the current day of the month).

Previous Week: generated in the previous full week (Monday to Sunday).

Previous Month: generated in the previous full month (from day 1 to days 28/30/31).

In case you want to set a specific period of time there is the option Custom Range. To configure the time frame it is necessary to set a start date and an end date. By clicking on one of the days, this date will be set as a selection, being marked with a blue background. In addition to the day, a specific time can be set for that day, using the drop-down menus in the hour, minute and second boxes, until the desired time is set. The selected date and time can be seen both in the upper boxes and in the lower part of the view.

Once the programming has been carried out, click on the Apply button to apply the programming.

Attention

It is of course not possible to choose start and end dates after the current date, nor to set an end date before the start date.

Execution and scheduling of Metrics Evolution Reports

To save the configuration and generate the report, click on the blue button Create.

Once the report has been created and programmed, you will go back to the initial screen of this section, where the reports will be stacked sequentially in the Reports. Within the panel is the user can access the generated report by clicking on the name of the report.

The user is then directed to a new window dedicated to the report where information generated and collected by the system. These panels are described in detail in the following section.

Scheduling Reports

WOCU-Monitoring also allows the automation of the reports, thanks to the possibility of programming their generation and Scheduling option.

Exporting Metrics Evolution Reports

WOCU-Monitoring also allows the export of the report in PDF, CSV and JSON formats. These condense all information on the availability of the monitored assets in a document that can be easily dissemination and simple analysis.

Through the Export selector located in the global report panel, the corresponding files shall be downloaded”

Analysis and Options for Metrics Evolution Reports

The information generated by WOCU for this type of Report is presented to the user through two panels: a configuration panel and another one that includes all the data related to the evolution of the selected metric.

Report configuration panel

This configuration panel presents the filters and parameters set in the configuration of the generated report.

These are:

ID: Report identifier code.

Name: Identification name assigned to the report.

Description: Descriptive text relating to the report.

Comments: shows the comments added by the user.

Create at: Indicates the date and time the report was created.

Create by: Indicates the user who created/owns the report.

Realm: Indicates the name of the Realm which is the subject of the report.

Scope: indicates the scope of the report (Host, Host & Services, Business Processes and All).

Metric groups: Summary of the metrics analysed indicating:

• Title of the graph of a metric/s.

• Metrics applied.

When the scope of the report is one or more individual Hosts, the table shall include a first column listing the Host followed by its corresponding metric configuration data.

When the report configuration includes filtering by regular expressions, these shall be specified for both Metrics (Column Metric) and Services (Column Service Description).

Date Interval: Indicates start and end time and date of the reporting period.

Metrics Evolution Dashboard

This panel is presented to the user through two main blocks:

• Filtering options

• Metrics Evolution Graph

Filtering options

Since there can be a large number of hosts and metrics, WOCU has filtering options to refine and organise the data displayed on the graph. These are:

Host

Indicates the Host for which the metric data has been collected. If the report has been run with all the Hosts in the Realm, a list will be displayed so that you can freely choose one of them and view the evolution of the metrics applied.

Service description

This field indicates which Service of a Host (Host) the report refers to for the selected metric.

Note

A service can have several metrics, for example, the Traffic_eth0 service has two different metrics: incoming traffic (traffic_in) and outgoing traffic (traffic_out), for the host wocu-gns3. Therefore, by selecting this service in this filter, both metrics can be displayed in the graph. This field makes it easier to establish the relationship between the different metrics displayed for the services of a host.

Metric group

In the case of having generated several graphs, this field will display the list of all of them.” list of all of them. It is possible to display the graphs both individually, or as a whole, by selecting the option All.

Metrics Evolution Graph

This graph reflects the evolution of a metric/s for a monitored Host over a given time interval.

The graph provides historical information according to the data recorded, which allows to observe its metric evolution over time (values reached on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis).

Important

The unit type of the values obtained from the represented metrics (%, ms, KB/s…), shall be indicated on the Y axis of the graph, next to the title of the graph and inside the cell for the minimum (MIN) and maximum (MAX) value, provided that:

1. The unit is already specified from the source metric storage DB. Otherwise, the magnitude in which the values are modelled and displayed shall not be shown.

2. All metrics collected for the report share the same unit. Otherwise, it will not be displayed.

Thanks to the legend on the right of the graph, we can identify the colour of the line representing the values collected for a given metric, as well as the maximum (MAX), average (AVG) and minimum (MIN) values recorded. As it is possible to add several metrics in a single graph, the legend makes it easier to visualise and compare them.

The maximum and minimum values are also visible on the graph. By placing the cursor over the highlighted circles at a particular point in the function, a pop-up window with additional information will appear. WOCU will first indicate the type of value (maximum or minimum) and the metric it belongs to, then the date and time it was recorded, and finally the exact value reached (in the unit recorded in the database).

Attention

To reduce the computational burden of the report, the data shown in the graph is the result of averaging the actual values recorded. This situation is notified to the operator with the following message:

In addition, the legend can be hidden to leave more space for viewing the graph. To do this, simply click on the icon with the arrow to the right (”→”), located to the left of the legend.

By clicking on the i button, a new summary table is displayed, which makes it easierthe query of highlighted data on a selected metric and host selected. This information consists of:

• Host name

• Unit of the values obtained

• Description

• Global table with relevant values achieved in the evolution of the metrics (MAX, MIN and AVG).

Finally, the graph incorporates a set of functionalities that make it easier to understand and analyse. These are:

Download plot: a download of the plot in svg.

Pan: with this option it is possible to scroll or move the graph along its axes”

Autoscale: this option will automatically scale axes so that all data points are visible on the graph, preventing any point from being outside the visible range.

Zoom in: the option of the magnifying glass icon with the “+” sign, zooms in on the displayed graph.

Zoom out: the magnifying glass icon option with the “-” sign zooms out the view of the displayed graph.

Rearrage: the option of the icon with horizontal lines, returns to the default zoom view.

Reset axes: this option automatically resets the limits of the axes to their default values, undoing any manual adjustments previously made.