Foglight Experience Monitor 5.8.1 - Installation and Administration Guide

Metric categories

By deselecting categories and clearing the appropriate check boxes, you are disabling the collection of data for certain metric categories. The settings for this page are global and therefore affect all appliances that are part of a multiple appliance cluster.

To select the metric categories that the appliance will gather metrics for, navigate to Configure > Reporting > Categories.

By default, most of the metric categories are enabled for collection. Ordinarily, you do not need to disable any categories but there may be cases where a certain category is not particularly useful for your applications. In this case, disabling the category may improve overall system performance and responsiveness, especially if the category is creating a large amount of entries in the database. Categories that do not appear in this list cannot be disabled.

You can turn off particular categories that you do not find useful. The following list of categories can contribute most to rapid database expansion:

These six categories are limited to 100,000 entries that can be loaded into the database for a five minute interval. This is a safety mechanism designed to prevent a database from reaching a threshold capacity that can sometimes occur due to errors in configuration. Records beyond the 100,000 limit are discarded.

Database metrics

You can view metrics for each category’s database using the System Database category. For more information, see “System database” in the Foglight Experience Monitor Metric Reference Guide.

Baseline calculations

The appliance can calculate baseline metrics that provide a historical perspective for a specific metric of a given resource.

Users can choose to include a baseline in reports by clicking Show Baseline. Baseline calculation is configured on the Baselines page, which is accessed by clicking Configure > Reporting > Options in the main menu.

Baseline calculations can be based on:

To change a baseline calculation, enter an amount of time in the appropriate box, indicating the number of preceding units of time the baseline calculation includes.

For weekly and monthly baselines, the calculation uses all of the preceding time periods. For example, if you have configured four months in the Monthly baseline calculation text box, a monthly baseline displayed in May would include the aggregation of data from January, February, March and April. Similarly, for weekly baselines the baseline calculation includes the preceding number of weeks specified in the Weekly baseline calculation text box on this page.

Hourly and daily baselines work differently in that the time period is considered significant. For example, an hourly baseline calculation for 10:00 utilizes only the metrics for the 10:00 hours found in the preceding 168 hours, assuming you have retained the default setting of 168 hours.

Similarly, daily baselines calculations includes metrics only from the same day. For example, the calculation for a Friday baseline includes only the metrics for each Friday found in the preceding 32 days, again, assuming you have retained the default setting of 32 days.

After modifying baseline calculation values, click Apply to retain the changes. The next time a report set is viewed, the new baseline calculation appears.

Time frames

Each user account has its own package of report sets that end users can configure to customize the report for their needs.

For more information, see the Foglight Experience Monitor User Guide.

The Edit Report Set page allows end users to display the metric data for specific time frames.

If the time periods included with the appliance do not offer the window of time needed to analyze metrics, you can define your own. For more information, see Configuring time frames for reports.

The Time Frames page, accessed by clicking Configure > Reporting > Time Frames, lists all time frames that are available when building reports sets and using the Metric View.

You can add a new custom time frame by clicking the Add a Time Frame link. You can edit an existing time frame by clicking its corresponding Edit link. For more information, see Editing a time frame.

You can delete a time frame by selecting its corresponding check box and clicking Delete.

The Time Frames > Edit page allows you to define the time frame settings.

In the Label box, enter a name for the time frame. This label appears in the Time Period lists on the Metric View page and when editing report sets. Ensure the label is unique and descriptive.

Select one of the Source options that best defines your custom time frame. The first option allows you to define the time frame by number of periods. For example, a custom Last 2 Weeks time frame could be defined as the Last 2 periods of Weekly data.

The second option allows you to build a custom time frame by unit of time, followed by the granularity of presentation. For example, a custom Last Full Week by Hour time frame could be defined as the Last full Week showing Hourly data.

When you are finished configuring the information, click OK to save the definition, and return to the Time Frames page.