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Overview
The Overview dashboard of a Microsoft SQL application provides an all-round view of the health of the Microsoft SQL application being monitored, and helps administrators pinpoint the problem areas. Using this dashboard therefore, you can determine the following quickly and easily:
The contents of the Overview Dashboard have been elaborated on hereunder:
The Current Application Alerts section of Figure 1 reveals the number and type of issues currently affecting the performance of the Microsoft SQL application that is being monitored. To know more about the current issues, click on any cell against Distribution that represents the problem priority of interest to you; the details of the current problems of that priority will then appear as depicted by Figure 1.
Figure 1 : Viewing the current application alerts of a particular priority
To zoom into the exact layer, test, and measure that reported any of the listed problems, click on a particular alarm in the Alarms window of Figure 1. Doing so will introduce an Alarm Details section into the Alarms window (see Figure 2), which provides the complete information related to the problem clicked on. These details include the Site affected by the problem for which the alarm was raised, the test that reported the problem, and the last measure that was reported will be reported in the Last Measures.
While the list of current issues faced by the application serves as a good indicator of the current state of the application, to know how healthy/otherwise the application has been over time, a look at the problem history of the application is essential. Therefore, the dashboard provides the History of Events section; this section presents a bar chart, where every bar indicates the number of problems of a particular severity, which was experienced by the Microsoft SQL application during the last 1 hour (by default). Clicking on a bar here will lead you to Figure 3 which provides a detailed history of problems of that priority. Alongside the bar chart, you will also find a table displaying the average and maximum duration for problem resolution; this table helps you determine the efficiency of your administrative staff.
If required, you can override the default time period of 1 hour of the event history, by following the steps below:
The dial and digital graphs that follow provide you with quick updates on the status of a pre-configured set of resource usage-related metrics pertaining to the Microsoft SQL application. If required, you can configure the dial graphs to display the threshold values of the corresponding measures along with their actual values, so that deviations can be easily detected. For this purpose, do the following:
Finally, click the Update button.
You can customize the At-A-Glance tab page further by overriding the default measure list for which dial/digital graphs are being displayed in that tab. To achieve this, do the following:
Next, select the Test that reports the said measure, pick the measure of interest from the Measures list, provide a Display name for the measure, and click the Add button to add the chosen measure to the Existing Value(s) list. Note that while configuring measures for a dial graph the ‘Measures’ list will display only those measures that report percentage values.
Figure 4 : Configuring measures for the dial graph
Note:
Only users with Admin or Supermonitor privileges can enable/disable the system, network, and application dashboards, or can customize the contents of such dashboards using the Dashboard Settings window. Therefore, whenever a user without Admin or Supermonitor privileges logs into the monitoring console, the button will not appear.
Clicking on a dial/digital graph will lead you to the layer model page of the Microsoft SQL application; this page will display the exact layer-test combination that reports the measure represented by the dial/digital graph.
Figure 5 : The page that appears when the dial/digital graph in the Overview dashboard of the Microsoft SQL Application is clicked
If your eG license enables the Configuration Management capability, then, an Application Configuration section will appear here (as shown in Figure 1) providing the basic configuration of the application. You can configure the type of configuration data that is to be displayed in this section by following the steps below:
Next to this section, you will find a pre-configured list of Key Performance Indicators of the Microsoft SQL application. Besides indicating the current state of and current values reported by a default set of resource usage metrics, this section also reveals ‘miniature’ graphs of each measure, so that you can instantly study how that measure has behaved during the last 1 hour (by default) and thus determine whether the change in state of the measure was triggered by a sudden dip in performance or a consistent one. Clicking on a measure here will lead you to Figure 6, which displays the layer and test that reports the measure.
Figure 6 : Clicking on a Key Performance Indicator
You can, if required, override the default measure list in the Key Performance Indicators section by adding more critical measures to the list or by removing one/more existing ones from the list. For this, do the following:
Clicking on a ‘miniature’ graph that corresponds to a key performance indicator will enlarge the graph (see Figure 7), so that you can view and analyze the measure behavior more clearly, and can also alter the Timeline and dimension (3d/ 2d) of the graph, if need be.
This way, the first few sections of the At-A-Glance tab page help understand what issues are currently affecting the application health, and when they actually originated. To diagnose the root-cause of these issues however, you would have to take help from the remaining sections of the At-A-Glance tab page. For instance, the Key Performance Indicators section may indicate a sudden/steady increase in the Log cache hit ratio of the Microsoft SQL application. However, to determine whether the rise in the Log cache hit ratio was a result of one/more high SQL processes executing on the Microsoft SQL application or a couple of resource-intensive SQL applications, you need to focus on the SQL Process - Summary section. This SQL Process - Summary section for starters reveals the number of Processes that are in varying states of activity. With the help of this section therefore, you can quickly figure out whether there are currently any:
Say, you notice that too many processes are currently running in a BACKGROUND state. Immediately, you might want to know whether this is a sudden occurrence, or has that problem occurred over a course of time. To enable you to determine this, every process that is displayed in the SQL Process - Summary section is accompanied by a ‘miniature’ graph, which tracks the changes in the corresponding process during the last 1 hour (by default). To enlarge the graph, click on it; this will invoke Figure 8. The enlarged graph allows you to change the Timeline for analysis, and also the graph dimension.
While the At-A-Glance tab page reveals the current state of the databases and the overall resource usage of the Microsoft SQL application, to perform additional diagnosis on problem conditions highlighted by the At-A-Glance tab page and to accurately pinpoint their root-cause, you need to switch to the Details tab page (see Figure 9) by clicking on it. For instance, the At-A-Glance tab page may indicate the number of processes that are currently blocked, but to know which process has been blocked for the longest time, you will have to use the Details tab page.
Figure 9 : The Details tab page of the Microsoft SQL Application Overview Dashboard
The Details tab page comprises of a default set of comparison bar graphs using which you can accurately determine the following:
If required, you can configure the Details tab page to include comparison graphs for more measures, or can even remove one/more existing graphs by removing the corresponding measures. To achieve this, do the following:
Next, select the Test that reports the said measure, pick the measure of interest from the Measures list, provide a Display name for the measure, and click the Add button to add the chosen measure to the Existing Value(s) list.
Figure 10 : Configuring measures for the dial graph
Note:
Only users with Admin or Supermonitor privileges can enable/disable the system, network, and application dashboards, or can customize the contents of such dashboards using the Dashboard Settings window. Therefore, whenever a user without Admin or Supermonitor privileges logs into the monitoring console, the button will not appear.
By default, the comparison bar graphs list the top-10 databases only. To view the complete list of databases, simply click on the corresponding graph in Figure 9. This enlarges the graph as depicted by Figure 11.
Figure 11 : The expanded top-n graph in the Details tab page of the Microsoft SQL Application Overview Dashboard
Where detailed diagnosis is applicable, you can quickly view the detailed measures that correspond to a comparison graph by clicking on the icon at the right, top corner of the enlarged graph. This will invoke Figure 12, using which you can arrive at the root-cause of a problem.
Figure 12 : The detailed diagnosis that appears when the DD icon in the enlarged comparison bar graph is clicked
For detailed time-of-day / trend analysis of the historical performance of a Microsoft SQL application, use the History tab page. By default, this tab page (see Figure 13) provides time-of-day graphs of critical measures extracted from the target Microsoft SQL application, using which you can understand how performance has varied during the default period of 24 hours. In the event of a problem, these graphs will help you determine whether the problem occurred suddenly or grew with time. To alter the timeline of all the graphs simultaneously, click on the Timeline link at the right, top corner of the History tab page of Figure 13.
You can even override the default timeline (of 24 hours) of the measure graphs, by following the steps below:
Figure 13 : Time-of-day measure graphs displayed in the History tab page of the Application Overview Dashboard
You can click on any of the graphs to enlarge it, and can change the Timeline of that graph in the enlarged mode as shown in Figure 14.
Figure 14 : An enlarged measure graph of a Microsoft SQL Application
If you want to quickly perform service level audits on the Microsoft SQL application, then summary graphs may be more appropriate than the default measure graphs. For instance, a summary graph might come in handy if you want to determine the variation of Total size of a database with respect to the percentage of time during the last 24 hours. Using such a graph, you can determine whether the database size has been constant or varied, and if not, how frequently the application faltered in this regard. To invoke such summary graphs, click on the icon at the right, top corner of the History tab page. Figure 15 will then appear.
Figure 15 : Summary graphs displayed in the History tab page of the Application Overview Dashboard
You can alter the timeline of all the summary graphs at one shot by clicking the Timeline link at the right, top corner of the History tab page of Figure 13. You can even alter the default timeline (of 24 hours) for these graphs, by following the steps given below:
To change the timeline of a particular graph, click on it; this will enlarge the graph as depicted by Figure 16. In the enlarged mode, you can alter the Timeline of the graph. Also, though the graph plots hourly summary values by default, you can pick a different Duration for the graph in the enlarged mode, so that daily/monthly performance summaries can be analyzed.
Figure 16 : An enlarged summary graph of the Microsoft SQL Application
To perform effective analysis of the past trends in performance, and to accurately predict future measure behavior, click on the icon at the right, top corner of the History tab page. These trend graphs as shown in Figure 17 typically show how well and how badly a measure has performed every hour during the last 24 hours (by default). For instance, the Total size trend graph of each database of a Microsoft SQL application will help you figure out the total size of the database that was available in the application every hour during the last 24 hours. If the gap between the minimum and maximum values is marginal, you can conclude that the size of the database has been more or less constant during the designated period;this implies that the size of the database has neither increased nor decreased steeply during the said timeline. On the other hand, a wide gap between the maximum and minimum values is indicative of an erratic change in the size of the database, and may necessitate further investigation.
Figure 17 : Trend graphs displayed in the History tab page of the Application Overview Dashboard
To analyze trends over a broader time scale, click on the Timeline link at the right, top corner of the History tab page, and edit the Timeline of the trend graphs. Clicking on any of the miniature graphs in this tab page will enlarge that graph, so that you can view the plotted data more clearly and even change its Timeline.
To override the default timeline (of 24 hours) of the trend graphs, do the following:
Also, by default, the trend graph only plots the minimum and maximum values registered by a measure. Accordingly, the Graph type is set to Min/Max in the enlarged mode. If need be, you can change the Graph type to Avg (see Figure 18), so that the average trend values of a measure are plotted for the given Timeline. For instance, if an average trend graph is plotted for the Total size measure, then the resulting graph will enable administrators to ascertain whether the size of a particular database has been constant during a specified timeline.
Figure 18 : Viewing a trend graph that plots average values of a measure for a database available in the Microsoft SQL application
Likewise, you can also choose Sum as the Graph type to view a trend graph that plots the sum of the values of a chosen measure for a specified timeline. For instance, if you plot a ‘sum of trends’ graph for the measure that reports the Total size of a database available in the Microsoft SQL application, then, the resulting graph will enable you to analyze, on an hourly/daily/monthly basis (depending upon the Duration chosen), whether there was any change in the size of the database.
Figure 19 : A trend graph plotting sum of trends for a database available in the Microsoft SQL application
Note:
In case of descriptor-based tests, the Summary and Trend graphs displayed in the History tab page typically plot the values for a single descriptor alone. To view the graph for another descriptor, pick a descriptor from the drop-down list made available above the corresponding summary/trend graph.
Typically, the History tab page displays measure, summary, and trend graphs for a default set of measures. If you want to add graphs for more measures to this tab page or remove one/more measures for which graphs pre-exist in this tab page, then, do the following:
The Dashboard Settings window then appears. From the Module list of Figure 20, pick Application, choose Overview as the Sub-System, and then, select History Graph from the Add/Delete Measures for list.
Note:
Only users with Admin or Supermonitor privileges can enable/disable the system, network, and application dashboards, or can customize the contents of such dashboards using the Dashboard Settings window. Therefore, whenever a user without Admin or Supermonitor privileges logs into the monitoring console, the button will not appear.