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Foglight Experience Monitor 5.8.1 - User Guide

Installing and configuring Multi-appliance clusters Configuring the appliance Specifying monitored web traffic Transforming monitored URLs Managing applications Foglight components and the appliance Using the console program Troubleshooting the appliance Appendix: Third party software Monitoring the user experience Customizing reports The alarm system Integrating the appliance SOAP-based web services

Metric analysis

Metric Analysis pages allows you to search the database for extreme values of the selected metric.

Figure 137. Metric Analysis page

Choosing a filter

Metric Analysis pages allow you to choose a filter that queries the database for extreme cases. Selecting Top or Bottom generates a list of resources with the largest or smallest values respectively for the selected metric.

The number of resources that are displayed are determined by the value of the box to the left of the filter. You can choose to display 5, 10, 20, or 40 resources at a time. When displaying a table view you can also choose to display All resources in the system, but this list may take some time to generate depending on the size of your site.

Figure 138. Choosing a filter

The filter box in the customization panel offers views of different extremities, depending on the chosen metric.

The precise meaning of each extreme depends on the metric currently being viewed. In the above example, the metric is time-based, thus selecting Top displays the content types with the highest (slowest) hit end-to-end times.

The Top (busiest) and Bottom (busiest) options are available for categories that could have a large number of resources (for example, Pages and Hits). These options allow you to focus your search on those resources that are the most active on your site. For example, a report on the Top (busiest) pages based on Page End-To-End Time display

only those Pages that are most frequently downloaded, ranked by their respective download times. Pages that are rarely downloaded do not appear, even if one of them has a long download time associated with it.

Choosing a statistic to display

When viewing a standard metric, you can see a box that allows you to modify the statistic that is being shown (for example, Mean, Minimum, Maximum, Standard Deviation). This feature works similarly to that found in the customization panel for the Metric View page.

For more information about metrics, see Types of Metrics in the Foglight Experience Monitor Metric Reference Guide.

Selecting a time period

The Time Period controls on a Metric Analysis page allow you to restrict a search to a specific time period. This function allows you to build a report showing resources with extreme values for a specific unit of time, for example, the slowest 5 web pages on Monday.

Choosing a protocol

For those categories that support HTTP and HTTPS data, a list appears that allows you to control which subset of data is displayed.

 
* 
IMPORTANT: No HTTPS data is available if SSL keys used by secure servers are not uploaded to the appliance. For more information see, Monitoring Secure HTTP Servers in the Foglight Experience Monitor Installation and Administration Guide.

Adding and editing variable rules

All variable rule definitions and modifications take place on the URLs > Edit Variable Rule page.

Figure 139. Variable Rules: Edit Variable Rule page

Configuration of a variable rule requires that you specify actions on both parts of the name-value pair. For example, consider the URL www.store.com?catalog=pet. This URL consists of a single variable whose name is catalog, that may have many values such as pet.

By defining a variable rule, you can control how both the name and value are transformed when the appliance adds the URL to the database. You could choose to ignore catalog altogether, to mask its values as XX, or to expose all of its values in the database.

The operations that can be performed on each half of the pair are respectively found in the Name Action and Value Action sections.

To create a variable rule:
1
On the Configure > URLs > Variable Rules page, click Add a Variable Rule.
The Variable Rules > Edit Variable Rule page is displayed.
2
In the Name Action section, begin by entering a string in the Variable name box that identifies the variable that appears in monitored URLs.
If you are entering a literal string, the name must match the actual variable name.
3
Select, or leave the Evaluate as regular expression check box clear, depending on whether you want to use a regular expression to define multiple variable names, or use a literal string to find an exact match.
4
From the Variable type box, select whether the variable that you are looking for is a query, form, XML, cookie, parameter or HTTP variable.
5
Select one of the name action option buttons to configure how the variable name is transformed, if at all.
6
If you wish the path rule to also apply to hits transmitted from the Foglight Experience Monitor to the Foglight Experience Viewer, enable the Apply to Foglight Experience Viewer hits check box.
For more information, see Sending URLs to the Foglight Experience Viewer.
7
In the Value Action section, select one of the option buttons to configure how the variable rule will transform the variable value.
8
Click OK to save the variable rule definition.
You are returned to the URLs page, and the variable rule list is updated to reflect your latest addition.
Transforming variable names

The Name Action section allows you to identify the variable name and type, as well as apply transformations to it.

Declaring the variable

The Variable name box and Evaluate as regular expression check box allow you to specify which variables are affected by the rule.

The name that is entered must precisely match that which you wish to find in monitored URLs. For example, if you enter catalog as the variable name, this sample URL:
www.store.com?catalog=pet
will be affected by this rule, but this URL:
www.store.co.uk?catalogue=pet
will not be transformed.

If you select the Evaluate as regular expression check box, then the value that you entered in the Variable Name box is treated as a regular expression. With this setting selected and the string catalog.* specified in the Variable Name box, this rule would affect both of the URLs:
www.store.com?catalog=pet
www.store.co.uk?catalogue=pet

The Variable type list allows you to specify the variable type:

•
Query Variable - These are query strings that appear after the question mark in a URL, and are the most common type of variable to which you can apply transformations.
•
Form Variable - These are variables that appear in HTTP POST requests, and are typically tied to HTML elements that allow the user to enter data, such as text entry boxes.
•
XML Variable - These are variables that appear in HTTP POST requests, but are encoded as XML.
For example, if a POST is submitted to this URL:
http://www.store.com/entryform.asp
and the following XML structure is passed in that HTTP POST on submission:
<Screen Action=“Save” Panel=”Address” >
the URL will appear in the system as:
http://www.store.com/entryform.asp
However, if Screen.Action is declared as an XML variable, then the URL would appear as:
http://www.store.com/entryform.asp [ Screen.Action=”Save” ]
•
Cookie Variable - These are variables that appear in cookies contained in the HTTP header. From the perspective of end users, cookies are transparent, and are not visible in URLs.
•
Parameter Variable - These are values that appear after the path portion of a URL.
•
HTTP Variable - These are value that appear in the HTTP headers and contain information about the client, server and the web page. Some applications can create custom HTTP headers that contain useful state information relevant to the application itself. In these cases, you can configure these HTTP variables and expose their values in the user interface.
Retaining variable names

When you select the Show as is option button, the name portion of the name-value pair is not transformed, and only the operation performed on the value portion of pair changes the URL.

In the case of a Cookie variable, the name portion of the name-value pair is appended to the recorded URL.

If you are identifying an XML variable in the Variable type box, this is the only available option. You cannot transform the name portion of an XML variable.

Replacing variable names

If you are identifying a Query Variable, Form Variable, Cookie Variable, Parameter Variable, or HTTP Variable in the Variable type box, you can replace the name value of the variable with either a literal string, or a regular expression.

Selecting the Replace with option button requires that you enter a direct replacement string in the accompanying text entry box.

Selecting the Transform with option button necessitates the entry of a regular expression in the accompanying text entry box.

Masking the value

Selecting the Mask with XX option button causes all values of the name-value pair to be replaced with XX in the transformed URL.

Decoding the value as XML

Selecting the Decode as XML option button indicates XML is embedded in the variable value, and needs to be expanded.

Consider the following example:
http://www.store.com/page.asp?xml=<Screen Action=”Save” Panel=”Address”>

In this URL, there are two XML variables in the XML string:
Screen.Action, and Screen.Panel.

By default, the appliance would detect and display the URL as:
http://www.store.com/page.asp?myxml=XX

In the Name Action section, if you identify xml as the variable name, and in the Value Action section, choose to Decode as XML, the URL would transform to:
http://www.store.com/page.asp?xml=<Screen Action=XX Panel=XX>

If you continued by defining another variable rule for Screen.Action, the URL would then be transformed to:
http://www.store.com/page.asp?xml=<Screen Action=”Read” Panel=XX>

Decoding the value as URL

Selecting the Decode as URL option button indicates the variable value is an embedded URL, and needs to be expanded.

Consider the following example:
http://www.store.com/page.asp?step=http://www.store.com/
actualstep.asp?action=save&session=12345

In this URL, you can create a variable rule that instructs the appliance to decode step as a URL. This allows you to further manipulate variables that are embedded in the step URL (that is, action, and session).

By default, the appliance would detect and display the URL as:
http://www.store.com/page.asp?step=XX

If you identify step as a variable name in the Name Action section, and in the Value Action section, choose Decode as URL, the URL would transform to:
http://www.store.com/page.asp?step=http://www.store.com/
actualstep.asp?action=XX&&session=XX

If you continued by adding an additional variable rule for action, the URL would then be transformed to:
http://www.store.com/page.asp?step=http://www.store.com/
actualstep.asp?action=save&&session=XX

Soap fault log details

Click the Details link to see a page displaying all the information recorded about the SOAP fault.

Foglight configuration

In the Foglight Experience Monitor console, use the Foglight configuration page to establish how Foglight Experience Monitor will communicate with the Foglight server. Enter the IP address of the Foglight server and the port for communicating with it.

Figure 140. Network Settings page

 
* 
NOTE: The actual cartridge installation is performed on the Help > Upgrade page.

 

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