CA’s Unified Infrastructure Manager (UIM) has numerous data visualization options for presenting system data. Of these, four support readily customizable, dynamic views of system metrics:
- Performance Reports
- List Reports
- Unified Reports
- Dashboards
Reports vary as to content and format to suit specific needs:
Performance Reports use drag-and-drop to overlay line graphs of various QoS data for quick comparison of metrics over time. Reports are iterative and dynamic, can be easily changed according to need, and can be saved as templates that can be applied by different groups of users.
List Reports display tabular data for sets of systems or other components. A variety of data visualization options are available for metrics, attributes, and alarms.
Unified Reports combine graphical and tabular elements in a highly customizable display of data. Reports include internal scheduling and advanced tools for output and summary.
Dashboards contain graphical and tabular views of system metrics from multiple data sources, including SQL queries and webpages. Dashboards can also be linked for drill-down into system data.
Of the four, all but the last can be saved to PDF. Individual dashboards can be accessed through browsers.
Which reporting mechanism is right for you? Here are some suggestions:
- Use the performance report when you are doing troubleshooting and wish to do visual correlation of multiple metrics on the same axes. This is the easiest report to generate and alter.
- Use the list report for tabular views that are dynamically assembled for different metrics. This type of report is the most formal in terms of format and output.
- Use a dashboard to create live views of metrics or alarms designed for presentation on screen. This type of report has the greatest number of customizable elements and so requires more time to define.
- Use the unified reports for highly customized presentation of data for export to PDF for export and distribution to non-UIM users. Given the number of display options, this report requires the most time to configure.
With these choices available, there’s an optimal way to present network data and communicate that information to system administrators, managers, engineers, support personnel, and customers.
To learn more about CA’s UIM dashboards, visit the wiki documentation here.
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20111006-NodeXL-Twitter-Kickstarter network graph by Marc Smith (2011), used with Creative Commons license permissions*, originally published on Flickr.com.