The widgets have several different tools allowing users to enhance the visualization and modify the viewing of data on the graphs:

Show Application Details

The widget by default shows one graph per application. However, one application may run on several different servers, so it can be useful to see if all of those servers perform equally well.

To see this, click the widget's icon. This will split single application graphs into one graph per server that runs the application, including servers for which there's no data in the selected time period.

For web activities, it will split the single graphs into one graph per web activity element that PerformanceGuard measures.

Example: If your administrator has set up PerformanceGuard to measure each image on a web page, you will see a graph for each image if you click the icon.

Connect All Samples

The samples in the graph will by default be Automatic . If you don't want this you can select Connect All or set them to Disconnect All .

Resolution

To sort the large data-sets and view them more clearly in the graph, click the widget's resolution icon.

You can use resolution when you have a large number of individual graphic elements that you can not distinguish between them. It is very similar to the idea of putting data into categories / class as it divides the data values into a set of disjoint intervals called Bins. It will allow you to group individual data values into one instance of graphic element.

You can select from the lowest time interval such as (1 min) to the highest interval such as (1 week, 1 month).

Example: You can see a significant difference in display of data values from 04:00 to 08:00 when resolution is selected at the intervals of 30 min, 1 hour and 4 hours allowing you to visualize data in ways that are meaningful.

The data values which fall in to those selected respective intervals, a bin, are replaced by a value representative of that interval. The data outside of the [start, end] range is discarded and thus will not be displayed on the graph.

Toggle Minimum and Maximum Values Off and On

The widget by default shows average, minimum and maximum values. To toggle the minimum and maximum values off and on, click the widget's icon.

When you view minimum and maximum values, you can reveal otherwise hidden peaks in resource usage.
The difference can be dramatic. Look at this example: When we view average values, the highest average value is 18, but when we view the minimum and maximum values, the maximum value for the same period turns out to be 79.

How can the maximum value be much higher than the average? PerformanceGuard has typically sampled data many times between the data points in the graph. The maximum value is the highest value that PerformanceGuard has recorded when it sampled data in the interval between the points on the graph, but the maximum value may not have occurred very often, and therefore it may not contribute very much to the average value. The same principle applies to minimum values.

Adjust Vertical Axis (Y-Axis)

To adjust the vertical axis of a graph, click the widget's icon. If the graph has multiple vertical axes, you can adjust each axis separately.

When you adjust an axis, bear in mind that you won't be able to see data points that are outside the range that you specify.

Statistics

When you view the graph, you can also see a Statistics table by switching to Statistics mode . Statistics icon will not be visible if there is no data available.

Note that the Statistics table shows the weighted average for the graph's samples. That means that each value to be averaged is assigned a weight based on the number of occurrences of that value.

Zoom

To zoom in, click and drag across the required area of the timeline.

Thresholds

Display of thresholds is by default on. When you view a graph, you can toggle threshold display off by selecting Hide thresholds. This can be useful, for example if you think that a threshold blocks your view of the graph's data points.

If no event threshold is available, the toggle button will be inactive or hidden.

Thresholds are only relevant for certain types of data e.g. Response time (ms).

For such data, a threshold i.e. a baseline that the displayed values must ideally be below — can be displayed as a red horizontal line in the graph when:

Your PerformanceGuard administrator has predefined such thresholds i.e. select ADMINISTRATION > Event Management > Event Rules (or create a new event rule).
You have selected location, one server group and one agent group. You can also create new location from ADMINISTRATION > Computer Grouping > Locations.

In order to have thresholds displayed on the graph, both the above mentioned conditions must be applied i.e. an event rule must be created with a selection of a matching set of parameters.

An event is a threshold violation on an individual computer or server e.g. a response time that isn't acceptable. The event rules define the nature of the triggered event, and the parameters for capturing event-related information in an application. These events are categorized by severity levels.

After creating an event rule you can view these threshold lines on the graph. They work as an indicator on the graph providing you with target context and allowing you to identify application when the response time becomes higher or lower than the threshold's set level. On the graph each threshold has a name with its location, so it is easy for you to see what the threshold is about.

Example: In this example administrator has set the Lower Threshold as 20.0 ms for the DNS application for the IP Service - Response Time event. You can see in the following image where Response Time for DNS application has exceeded the limit than the level set in event rule. This threshold indication is concerning and alarming for the administrator / user.

When you select different locations or computers on your widget - threshold display might not be available, depending on how the thresholds have been defined i.e. which locations were selected when the event rules were created by the administrator.

Why do I see more than one threshold on a graph?

This is because your PerformanceGuard administrator is able to set up multiple thresholds for the same type of data. This can be useful in order to indicate different levels of severity, for example if values above 80 are acceptable for short periods of time, whereas values above 90 require immediate attention.

Threshold becomes invisible if you click all the legends to make the series hidden i.e. it will stay visible if there is even one legend visible. If a graph has thresholds, the thresholds will also appear if you use the graph in a report, except when they're hidden.

You can also enable Adaptive Baselining on this widget, read more about Adaptive Baselining.

Widgets supporting Threshold functionality

The following are the widgets that support Threshold functionality:

Application Chart Widget

A threshold for the metric Response Times can be set in Event Management using the Event Rule 'IP Service - Response Time'

Computer Chart Widget

A threshold for the metric Response Times can be set in Event Management using the Event Rules:

CPU Usage (%) = Computer - Machine Resource Usage
Memory Usage = Computer - Machine Resource Usage
Context Switches /s = Computer - Machine Resource Usage

Autosteps Chart Widget

A threshold for the metric Response Times can be set using the Event Rule "Business Transaction - Response Time".

Export

The button on the Event HotSpot Widget allows you to export your data in the Excel and CSV formats.

Exporting data from a table can often be a key part of an application monitoring or event management. This is a very useful tool, which can be used to analyze data more closely or in different ways.

Excel Export

This document contains a coversheet of your data including both content and format. This comes handy if you are using MS Office and need to archive your data then this is the perfect format to export. These exported files can only be read by applications that have been specially written to read their format.

CSV Export

This document will contain plain text separated by commas (,) e.g. "xx", "xx", "xx" (Computer Name, User name, Number of Events etc.). This expose every field of your Event HotSpot Widget and easy to share with a third party. The main advantage with this kind of export is that you can open this file in any text editor and read it. Majority of applications are capable of reading CSV files and many languages provide built-in functions that simplify reading CSV format.

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Tools on Graphs and Widgets