Endpoint Uptime Analytics Report

Uptime is a key measure of the general health and availability of the IGEL Endpoints in a typical IGEL infrastructure. Periodic uptime values that the eG agent reports for target IGEL Endpoints can alert you to unscheduled reboots that occurred recently; however, to effectively assess Endpoint availability over time, accurately determine unexpected and prolonged breaks in availability, and accordingly ascertain service level achievements/slippages, a look at the total uptime of an IGEL Endpoint and the total number of reboots it experienced over a period of time is necessary. To enable such an analysis for one/more critical IGEL Endpoints in an IGEL infrastructure, eG Enterprise provides the Endpoint Uptime Analytics report.

Using the Endpoint Uptime Analytics report, you can figure out the following:

  • Which IGEL Endpoints are the healthiest, in terms of availability?
  • Which IGEL Endpoints have been down for the longest period of time? How long was each IGEL Endpoint unavailable during the specified timeline?
  • How many times during the designated period did an IGEL Endpoint reboot? How many of these were scheduled reboots? How long was the IGEL Endpoint down before every reboot?
  • Which Endpoints had the least uptime/downtime and how many Endpoints were available in the target environment?

To generate the Endpoint Uptime Analytics report, do the following:

  1. Select the Endpoint Uptime Analytics option by following the menu sequence: REPORTS BY FUNCTION -> Domain-specific Reports -> IGEL Reports.

  2. Figure 1 will then appear.

    Figure 1 : Specifying the criteria for generating the Endpoint Uptime Analytics report

  3. When Figure 1 appears, first indicate the Report Type to be generated. By default, Graph option will be chosen from this list indicating that this report will graphically represent the uptime/downtime of the chosen components. However, if you wish to generate the report in a tabular format, pick the Data option from this list.

  4. To ease the pain involved in choosing the components for report generation, eG Enterprise provides a Analyze By list. The options provided by the Analyze By list box are discussed hereunder:

    • Zone: By default, the Zone option is chosen from the Analyze By list - this indicates that by default, the list will display all the managed components in the chosen zone. Select the zone to which the components of interest to you belong from the Zone drop-down list.
    • Component: Select this option to generate a report on the components that are managed in the target environment.
    • Service: Select this option if the components for which a report is to be generated are involved in the delivery of a business service. Then, select a Service.
    • Segment: Choose this option if the components to be evaluated are part of a segment. Then, pick a Segment for analysis.
  5. Next, choose a Component Type. By default, IGEL Endpoints will be chosen from this list. The IGEL Endpoints list is then populated with the components pertaining to the chosen Component Type. If the Components list consists of too many components, then viewing all the components and selecting the ones you need for report generation could require endless scrolling. To avoid this, you can click the button next to the Components list. The COMPONENTS pop up window will then appear using which you can view almost all the components in a single interface and Select the ones for which the report is to be generated. You can narrow your search further by using the Search text box. Specify the whole/part of the component name to search for in this text box, and click the icon next to it.

  6. Then, specify the Timeline for generating the report. You can either provide a fixed time line such as 1 hour, 2 days, etc., or select the Any option from the list to provide a From and To date/time for report generation.

    Note:

    For every user registered with the eG Enterprise system, the administrator can indicate the maximum timeline for which that user can generate a report. Once the maximum timeline is set for a user, then, whenever that user logs into eG Reporter and attempts to generate a report, the Timeline list box in the report page will display options according to the maximum timeline setting of that user. For instance, if a user can generate a report for a maximum period of 3 days only, then 3 days will be the highest option displayed in the Timeline list - i.e., 3 days will be the last option in the fixed Timeline list. Similarly, if the user chooses the Any option from the Timeline list and proceeds to provide a start date and end date for report generation using the From and To specifications, eG Enterprise will first check if the user's Timeline specification conforms to his/her maximum timeline setting. If not, report generation will fail. For instance, for a user who is allowed to generate reports spanning over a maximum period of 3 days only, the difference between the From and To dates should never be over 3 days. If it is, then, upon clicking the Run Report button a message box will appear, prompting the user to change the From and To specification.

  7. In addition to the settings discussed above, this report comes with a set of default specifications. These settings are hidden by default. If you do not want to override these default settings, then you can proceed to generate the report by clicking the Run Report button soon after you pick one/more components for report generation. However, if you want to view and then alter these settings (if required), click on the icon. The default settings will then appear in the MORE OPTIONS drop down window (See Figure 2). The steps below discuss each of these settings and how they can be customized.

    Figure 2 : The default settings for generating the Endpoint Uptime Analytics report

  8. By default, this report ignores all reboots that occur when a 'maintenance policy configuration' is active on a component - in other words, such reboots are by default excluded from the count of reboots displayed by the report. This default behavior is governed by the Include Maintenance flag, which is set to No by default. You can however, optionally configure this report to include reboots that occur during maintenance periods in its count of reboots. For this, set the Include Maintenance flag to Yes.

  9. If the timeline specified for the report needs to exclude the data collected during the Weekends, then set Exclude weekends to Yes. If not, select No.

    Note:

    You can configure the days of the week that need to be considered as a ‘weekend’ using the Days parameter in the[EXCLUDE_WEEKEND] section in the eg_report.ini file (in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory).  The Days parameter is set to Saturday,Sunday by default. To change this weekend specification, enter two other days of the week against the Days parameter.

  10. If the Report Type you have chosen is Graph, then a Chart drop-down list will appear from which you can select how uptime/downtime should be represented in the graph - as a percentage? or in hours?. If the %Uptime/%Downtime option is chosen, then the resulting graph will plot the percentage of time for which the selected components have been up/down. On the other hand, if the Uptime/Downtime option is selected, then the graph will plot the total number of hours for which the chosen components have been up/down. If the Reboots option is chosen, then, the graph will plot the total times for which the chosen components have been rebooted.

  11. Next, select the data on the basis of which the report should be sorted. By default, the Downtime option is chosen from the Sort by list.

  12. Since the default Sort by option is Downtime, by default, the report provides the details of only the top-10 components with the maximum downtime. If a different Sort by option, say Reboots, is chosen, then the report, by default, will only pertain to the top-10 components in the environment, on the basis of the number of reboots. You can choose a different top-n / last-n option from the Show list, if need be.

    Note:

    By default, the values displayed in the Show list range from TOP-10 to LAST-10. This is because, the Showtop parameter in the [infos] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory) is set to 10, by default. You can, if required, configure the Show list to display a different range of options. For this, specify a different number against the Showtop parameter, and save the eg_report.ini file.

  13. Specify the start time and end time for report generation against the Time period field (see Figure 2).

  14. In large environments, reports generated using months of data can take a long time to complete. Administrators now have the option of generating reports on-line or in the background. When a report is scheduled for background generation, administrators can proceed with their other monitoring, diagnosis, and reporting tasks, while the eG manager is processing the report. This saves the administrator valuable time. To schedule background processing of a report, you can either select the Background Save - PDF or the Background Save - CSV option from the Report Generation list. In this case, a Report Name text box will appear, where you would have to provide the name with which the report is to be saved in the background. To process reports in the foreground, select the Foreground Generation - HTML option from this list.

    Note:

    • The default selection in the Report Generation list will change according to the Timeline specified for the report. If the Timeline set is greater than or equal to the number of days specified against the MinDurationForReport parameter in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Background Save - PDF. On the other hand, if the Timeline set for the report is lesser than the value of the MinDurationForReport parameter, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Foreground. This is because, the MinDurationForReport setting governs when reports are to be processed in the background. By default, this parameter is set to 2 weeks - this indicates that by default, reports with a timeline of 2 weeks and above will be processed in the background.
    • The Report Generation list will appear only if the EnableBackgroundReport flag in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the [EG_INSTALL_DIR]\manager\config directory) is set to Yes.
  15. Click the Done button if any changes were made to the More Options drop down window.

  16. Finally, click the Run Report button to generate the report.

  17. If the option chosen from the Report Type list is Graph and the option chosen from the Report Generation list is Foreground Generation - HTML, then clicking the Run Report button will reveal Figure 3.

    Figure 3 : The generated Endpoint Uptime Analytics report in a graphical representation

    From Figure 3, administrators can figure out the following:

    • The Overview section reveals the total number of IGEL Endpoints in the target environment. This section also gives a heads up on the count of IGEL Endpoints that experienced downtime and those that did not experience downtime. Using this section, you can also identify the average downtime of the IGEL Endpoints in the target envrionment.
    • A bar graph in the Virtual Machines Uptime Chart - IGEL Endpoints section reveals the top-10 uptime and downtime of the IGEL Endpoints chosen in the target environment. From this graph, you can easily identify the IGEL Endpoints that have been unavailable during the specified Timeline, and the duration of the unavailability.

    • A pie chart that reveals the percentage of time the IGEL Endpoints in the target environment were up/down.

  18. If the option chosen from the Report Type list is data and the option chosen from the Report Generation list is Foreground Generation - HTML, then clicking the Run Report button will reveal Figure 4.

    Figure 4 : The generated Endpoint Uptime Analytics report in a Data format

  19. For every IGEL Endpoint chosen, the generated report (see Figure 4) reveals the total uptime, total downtime, percentage uptime, percentage downtime, and number of reboots. IGEL Endpoints with high uptime/downtime and those that rebooted frequently can be instantly isolated using this report. The DETAILS column helps administrators view the reboot details of the chosen IGEL Endpoint.

  20. Clicking the icon against a chosen IGEL Endpoint in Figure 4 will provide you with the reboot information in a separate window as shown in Figure 5.

    Figure 5 : The Reboot Details appearing in a separate window