Dashboard Tool

Resolve's Dashboard tool enables you to use Master Alarms and categories of system data to quickly identify possible problem areas for a specific point in time. After you identify a potential problem area, you can review the related Dashboard data and then use other Resolve tools, such as Black Box, to dig deeper into the details.

To get started with this tool, select a focus system, configure a Time Window and Focus Time for the data that displays on this page, and then proceed with the following sections.

The System Dashboard tool also includes the System Status section and the System Data section, which are explained in the following sections.

System Status Section

In the System Status section, you can click one of these four gauges to see data for that category in the System Data section:

Dashboard Gauge Resulting Data Category
CPU Utilization Shows applications sorted by CPU.
Memory Usage Shows applications sorted by MEM.
Disk Activity Shows applications sorted by IOPS.
Network Utilization Shows connections.

You can also click the Alarm Status Filters and Event Status Filters, which use colors and shapes to provide a quick overview of issues and events that affected the system during the Time Window you configured. Click an Alarm Status Filter button to display the active alarms for that alarm category. Click an Event Status Filter button to display the active events for that event category.

NOTE: Click the All button under Alarm Status Filters or Event Status Filters to display the active alarms or events for all classifications.

The shapes and color-coding for the Alarm Status Filter and Event Status Filter buttons are as follows:

Icon Description
A red square indicates that the classification has at least one active alarm with a critical security level.
A yellow triangle indicates that the classification has at least one active alarm with a warning security level.
A green circle indicates that the classification has no active alarms. If you select a green button, the System Data section will display no data.

TIP: Many of the Filter entries are normal changes that were detected.

Click the Server Latency graph to see that data in the System Data section.

System Data Section

As you select various items from the System Status section, the related data appears in the System Data section. The data that appears corresponds to the Focus Time you selected.

The System Data section includes a list box so that you can select from many data categories, which are explained in the following sections.

Alarms

When you select an Alarm Status Filter button from the System Status section, the table in the System Data section displays data for the category's alarms that were active at the Focus Time. Active alarms show as critical (red) or warning (yellow) in the Severity column.

Then when you select the Alarms category from the list box, data displays for the last alarm category button selected.

EXAMPLE: You select the Disk button under Alarm Status Filters. Then you select Alarms in the list box. The System Data table shows a list of alarms that have Alarm Class of Disk.

Applications

Select the Applications category in the list box to display a list of the applications running in the environment for the specified focus time. The highlighted application is the application in focus at that time.

One key use of Applications data is to determine which applications are consuming the most resources. For example, you can sort by CPU to determine which applications are occupying the most CPU.

Select an Application from the grid, and then you can use the icons to the right of the list box:

  • End Application: Use this button to end the application if you have administrative privileges for the focus system. If the application was running at the focus time but is not currently running, this action will have no effect.

  • View Process Tree: Use this button to view a process tree for the application.

  • View GPU Usage: Use this button to see a GPU Usage for Process information box for the application.

To the left of the Search value field are three more buttons:

  • Create a Custom Filter: Use this button to create your own custom filter.

  • Filter System Applications: Use this button to include or exclude system applications.

  • Filter Terminated Applications: Use this button to include or exclude terminated applications.

Connections

Select the Connections category in the list box to display data for the system's session and remote server dependencies. If there are no dependencies for the focus time, no data will be displayed. You can also click the Server Latency graph in the System Status section to show this Connections category data.

The Device ID column shows the VPN device.

  • Session Latency is a measure of the time it takes network traffic packets to get from the user's interface (such as a dumb terminal) to the host of the user's system and back.

  • Dependency Server Latency is a measure of the time it takes network traffic packets of the system running the application (such as Outlook) to get to and from the server that the application is dependent on (such as an Outlook Exchange Server).

TIP: If there is a dependency with a relatively high latency time, use the Dependencies Tool to investigate further.

Disk

Select the Disk category in the list box to display an overview of the system's physical drives for the specified focus time. You can also select the Disk Activity gauge in the System Status section to show this data.

Keep in mind that you should consider these metrics in context. For example, if a Disk has a relatively high Disk Time, but the Q Length and Q Time are at an acceptably low level, there probably is not a performance issue. But, if Disk Time is high and Q Length is higher than normal, this could indicate that transactions are not being processed in a timely manner.

Events

Select the Events category in the list box to display event data for the specified focus time. If a user is not logged into the system, this table will have no data.

ICA

Select the ICA category in the list box to display Citrix Independent Computing Architecture (Citrix ICA) data, if available.

Network

Select the Network category in the list box to display data for the system's network adapters. You can also select the Network Utilization gauge in the System Status section to show this data.

Review the data in the Broadcast/sec column and the Retransmit Rate (%) column to understand the utilization on the network interface. If there is an issue, you can investigate further to determine the cause. For example, is the issue with the adapter? Is it an external issue, such as extraordinarily high network traffic?

NOTE: If the focus system is a virtual machine, you will see data for the virtual adapter that provides network connectivity. If the focus system is not a virtual machine, you will see data for the physical adapter.

Performance

Performance is a custom data category. The collection items that display are manually specified for the system via SysTrack Deploy.

Power

Select the Power category in the list box to display power-demand data for the focus system. Although this data may not be meaningful when you are considering just one system, consider the effect of aggregating the cost of the power demand for a large number of systems.

NOTE: This category appears only for focus systems that are physical desktops.

RDP

Select the RDP category in the list box to display data related to Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), if available.

Scripts

Select the Scripts category in the list box to display data relating to the custom script.

NOTE: This category appears only for focus systems that have a custom script configured via the Deployment Tool.

Sensors

Select the Sensors category in the list box to display the time, name, severity, and details corresponding to any sensors triggered during the focus time.

Services

Select the Services category in the list box to display Windows Service Control Manager data for the focus time.

You can use this data to quickly answer questions, like these:

  • What role does the service play? (See the Description column.)
  • Does the service start automatically or manually? (See the Startup Type column.)
  • Was the service running at the focus time? (See the State column.)
  • Where was the service running? (See the Logon Account column.)

In the Service Name column, select a service, and then use these icons to the right of the list box:

  • End Service: Use this button to end the selected service. You must have administrator rights to the focus system.

  • Restart Service: Use this button to restart the selected service. You must have administrator rights to the focus system.

NOTE: If the State of the service (Started or Stopped) at the focus time is not the current state of the service, these actions will have no effect.

Sessions

Select the Sessions category in the list box to display user session data for the specified focus time. If a user is not logged into the system, this table will have no data.

This data enables you to investigate who is logging into the system and how they are connecting (such as with a Console or an RDP connection).

System

Select the System category in the list box to display general system characteristics as numerical values. Values with a red square indicate a critical level for the metric. Values with a yellow triangle indicate a warning level. If a value is not in the expected range, use other Resolve tools to investigate further.

For example, to investigate further, you could do the following:

  1. Use the Graphing Tool to add a System Trans Faults/sec series to the graph.
  2. In the resulting Trans Faults/sec graph line, click the data point that represents the critical level value.
  3. Use the Black Box Tool to review what was happening on the system at that point in time.

Terminals

Select the Terminals category in the list box to display data about the user account, IP address, whether a session is active, and the number of active sessions.

NOTE: This category appears only for focus systems that are physical machines.

Virtual Machine

Select the Virtual Machine category in the list box to display data about the virtual system host and the virtual system memory.

NOTE: This category appears only for focus systems that are virtual machines.

The Virtual System Host data tells you the host to which the virtual machine belongs.

The Virtual System Detail memory data provides basic performance statistics for the virtual machine. For example, if you notice that the Apparent CPU (%) and the Memory Ballooned (MB) values are above normal, this could indicate that there is a sizing issue, because the host system does not have enough resources for its virtual machines.