Performance tile

The Performance tile enables you to view a wide range of visualizations using performance data from the SCOM Data Warehouse.

SquaredUp DS accesses the Data Warehouse directly using the published schema, so must have a Data Warehouse connection (see How to check and reconfigure the Data Warehouse connection) with the correct permissions for Performance graphs to work.

Performance tiles can be added to both dashboards and perspectives.

This short (2 min) video gives you and overview of performance reporting features, including using the page timeframe, aggregation and resolution options, drilldown to a full page graph, compare to other objects/groups and export to Excel (Export to Excel).

How to configure a Performance tile

The following steps guide you through configuring all visualizations except the Report, since configuring a Performance Report works a little bit differently. If you want to configure a Report jump to How to configure a Performance tile Report.

  1. Add a new tile to a dashboard or perspective and choose the Performance tile.
  2. Select the visualization for your Performance tile and click next.

  3. Scope:

    The scope allows you to define which objects are shown, which in turn determines which metrics are available.

    Note for using the group or advanced option:

    By default the scope of Performance tiles will look at multiple levels of membership (recursive search) for objects, so they will look at multiple-levels of membership rather than just one level. This means the tile shows data for objects that aren't directly contained in a group, but are contained within other objects. For example, this allows you to find disk metrics when scoped to a server.

    If the scoped group contains only subgroups and you have not specified a class, then no metrics will be available in the metrics drop down list. By specifying a group AND a class it means that you can extend this recursive search to use top-level groups to show graph data for objects within sub-groups (as well as objects).

    To enable recursive searching to work for sub-groups you should specify a group AND a class in the advanced scope option. This will allow the dropdown list to show the metrics for the objects in the sub-groups.

    Note for choosing a class:

    Choose your class carefully as for a Performance tile this will determine which metrics are available in the Metric panel.

    Note for Scalars:

    The Scalar visualization should be scoped to only one object using the list option, as only one figure is shown. Do not use a group.

  4. Metric:

    Here you define which value the graph will show. For example, if you want to see the response time of different servers, your metric value would be response time. If you want to see the number of tickets, your metric value would be number (of tickets).

  5. Configure the settings for your visualization:
  6. Click done to save the tile.

    The tile now shows data according to your settings.

How to configure a Performance tile Report

  1. Add a new tile to a dashboard or perspective and choose the Performance tile.
  2. Choose the Report visualization.
  3. Report editor:
    Click on Configure report to switch to the report editor.
    In the report editor, you can compare different metrics and time periods with each other:
    Examples:

    Timeframe (at the top of the editor)

    There is only one timeframe for the report and it can be controlled from two different places, in the timeframe panel in the tile and in the report editor. If you change the timeframe in the panel, the timeframe in the report editor changes. If you change the timeframe in the report editor, the timeframe changes in the panel.

    The timeframe section allows you to determine the timeframe for the data. You can choose either to use:

    Use page timeframe

    Specific timeframe

    Custom timeframe

    SquaredUp DS automatically uses the highest resolution data available for the time period. If for example you are comparing a weeks worth of data with this time last week, then last weeks data (days 8-14) will most likely being showing hourly data, because by default the retention settings only keep raw data in the Data Warehouse for 10 days (see How to optimise the Data Warehouse - 5 Point Plan).

    Scope

    The scope allows you to define which objects are shown, which in turn determines which metrics are available.

    Note for using the group or advanced option:

    By default the scope of Performance tiles will look at multiple levels of membership (recursive search) for objects, so they will look at multiple-levels of membership rather than just one level. This means the tile shows data for objects that aren't directly contained in a group, but are contained within other objects. For example, this allows you to find disk metrics when scoped to a server.

    If the scoped group contains only subgroups and you have not specified a class, then no metrics will be available in the metrics drop down list. By specifying a group AND a class it means that you can extend this recursive search to use top-level groups to show graph data for objects within sub-groups (as well as objects).

    To enable recursive searching to work for sub-groups you should specify a group AND a class in the advanced scope option. This will allow the dropdown list to show the metrics for the objects in the sub-groups.

    Note for choosing a class:

    Choose your class carefully as for a Performance tile this will determine which metrics are available in the Metric panel.

    Note for Scalars:

    The Scalar visualization should be scoped to only one object using the list option, as only one figure is shown. Do not use a group.

    Metric

    Here you define which value the graph will show. For example, if you want to see the response time of different servers, your metric value would be response time. If you want to see the number of tickets, your metric value would be number (of tickets).

    Top N

    Here you can define a limit for the number of results you want to see. Activate the limit number of results displayed checkbox to enter a limit for results. You can choose if this limit should be applied from the top ranking results down (ascending, default option) or from the bottom ranking results up (descending).

    Time comparison
    Creates a new line in the graph that shows the same data, but how it looked like in the past. The line will be a dashed line to be easily identifiable as a time comparison. If the line refers to the same object, the lines will be the same color, with the time comparison line in a lighter shade.
    You can choose different points in the past between yesterday and 12 months ago. If you don't want a time comparison line in your graph, leave the setting to none (default).
    Y-axis
    Here you can decide if the values (y-axis) and labels for this layer will be shown on the left or right side of the graph.
    If you want to compare two different metrics, it makes sense to put one layer's metrics on the left side and the other layer's metrics on the right side.

    Label

    auto

    Choose this option if you want to use the default label that has been created automatically.

    custom

    Here you can change the label to a custom label. You can use static text and dynamic properties. Use the mustache picker

    to select dynamic properties from the response data to use them as labels.

    For more information see How to use Custom Labels

    • A Layer contains the object and the metric. By adding new layers, you add new metrics and compare them with each other.
    • Time comparisons compares different time periods of the same metric in the same layer.
    • If you want to compare how one metric looks compared to the same metric six months ago, you only need one layer with a time comparison.
    • If you want to compare the CPU usage to the memory usage of one computer, you need two layers with different metrics.
  4. Click back to dashboard in the upper left corner to get back from the report editor to your dashboard.
  5. If you want to define further settings for your report, you need to switch the dashboard to edit mode and edit the tile.
  6. Timeframe:

    There is only one timeframe for the report and it can be controlled from two different places, in the timeframe panel in the tile and in the report editor. If you change the timeframe in the panel, the timeframe in the report editor changes. If you change the timeframe in the report editor, the timeframe changes in the panel.

    The timeframe section allows you to determine the timeframe for the data. You can choose either to use:

    Use page timeframe

    Specific timeframe

    Custom timeframe

  7. Data range:

    The Data Range option allows you to choose the range of data the graph will display. For line graphs, this means the data on the y-axis.

    percentage
    Shows 0 to 100
    fit to data
    Shows the data minimum to data maximum
    fit to data (from zero)
    Shows from 0 to the data maximum
    custom
    Allows you to specify the min and max
    custom fit
    Allows you to specify the min and max limits, so that data outside your settings will not be shown. If all the data falls within your specified ranges then the y-axis range will fit to the data rather than your caps.

  8. Height:

    Height:

    Allows you to set the height of the tile with a slider.

  9. Legend:

    Allows you to show or hide the legend of the graph.

  10. Click done to save the tile.

    The tile now shows data according to your settings.

How to enable graph color matching

Graph color matching means that one item (a specific resource, object, site, anything you are displaying in your graphs) is shown in the same color in different graphs on one dashboard or one perspective.

Line Graphs, Sparklines, Bar Graphs and Reports (available in Performance tiles) support graph color matching.

Color matching only works when the item uses the exact same label in all graphs.

For SquaredUp DS v4.8 and above:
Graph lines on a dashboard will show the same color when the object labels match, even if those graphs show different metrics.

For SquaredUp DS v4.7 and below:
Graph lines will only show the same color for the same object when displaying the same metric.

How to use graph color matching

  1. Graph color matching must be enabled for the dashboard or the perspective. The default setting for all dashboards and perspectives is color matching enabled.
  2. The label for the item must be the same in all graphs that you want to display the same color.
  3. For Sparklines and Bar Graphs (called Bar Top N in Performance tiles), you need to switch on multiple colors to enable color matching. Multiple colors is switched off by default, you need to switch it on for each Sparkline and Bar Graph.

Walkthroughs

Walkthrough: Adding a Line Graph to show % Processor Time.

Walkthrough: Adding a Heatmap to show % Processor time and Logical Processors.

Walkthrough: Adding a Report to compare different metrics and/or time periods.

Using the Performance tile

The Performance drilldown

Clicking on a line graph, bar chart or sparkline will take you to a Performance drilldown page. On a line graph you can click on an individual line to drilldown to that one line, or click on white space to drilldown to multiple lines.

From here you can:

  • Change the timeframe using the options along the top, the custom timeframe picker, or by clicking on the graph itself.
  • Compare the data to another object or group of objects.
  • Export the performance data to Excel for further analysis (see Export to Excel).
  • View trend lines for the objects in the graph.
  • See the minimum, maximum and average for the time period. See Understanding the figures on Performance graphs.

FAQs

How do I get the line colors to match for the same objects on different graphs?

Ensure that the labels match, jump to How to enable graph color matching.

How do I show a metric that has a comma in the name?

See How to use wildcards in metrics.

How can I show more than one metric on the same graph?

For SquaredUp DS v4.3 and above use the Report tile (jump to How to configure a Performance tile Report), for v4.2 and below see How to show multiple metrics on one graph (v4.2 and below).

What does the m µ k or M mean on the performance drilldown page? Why isn't GB shown?

See Understanding the figures on Performance graphs.

Why is the time comparison line not shown?

If your report uses the page timeframe, some page timeframe settings might make it impossible to show a time comparison. The page timeframe must be set to a shorter range than the time comparison.
Example: Your report uses the page timeframe and your time comparison is set to last week (which means 7 days ago from today). When a user changes the page timeframe to last 30 days (which means 30 days ago from today), the time range of the report data is longer than the time comparison.

How to identify this issue:
When the comparison line cannot be shown a yellow exclamation mark will be shown at the top right of the tile with a message similar to Timeframe from 5/25/2019 10:26:00 AM to 6/24/2019 10:26:00 AM cannot be shifted by the range 'Last7Days' because it is longer than the range.

How to fix this issue:
If you set your report to a specific timeframe, this issue will not occur since the page timeframe will be ignored.

Why is the time comparison line less detailed than the original line?

SquaredUp DS automatically uses the highest resolution data available for the time period. If for example you are comparing a weeks worth of data with this time last week, then last weeks data (days 8-14) will most likely being showing hourly data, because by default the retention settings only keep raw data in the Data Warehouse for 10 days (see How to optimise the Data Warehouse - 5 Point Plan).

Why are the time comparison lines showing different objects to those shown on the legend?

For SquaredUp DS v4.4 and above:
The time comparison always shows the same objects. The top n setting is applied to the objects for the current time period, and then the same objects are shown for the time comparison as dashed lines.

For SquaredUp DS v4.3 and below:
When you limit the number of results using the top n option in a time comparison in the Report tile, the top n lines are shown for the current time period can be different from the top n lines shown for the time comparison period. For example, if your top n settings limit the number of results to the top 5 results (ascending) and compare them to the results 30 days ago, there might be different results in the top 5 which leads to different objects shown in the graph.

Note: Only the lines shown for the current time period are shown in the legend, which may not be clear when using Open Access.

Troubleshooting the Performance tile

The Performance tile accesses the Data Warehouse directly using the published schema, so must have a Data Warehouse connection with the correct permissions for Performance graphs to work.

No Performance graphs anywhere in SquaredUp DS

If no graphs are showing anywhere in SquaredUp DS, SquaredUp DSis particularly slow, or you are seeing connection or login failed errors on all Performance tiles, you should check the Data Warehouse connection, see Troubleshooting the Data Warehouse connection.

Only some graphs are shown in SquaredUp DS

If you are seeing some graphs in SquaredUp DS, this means the Data Warehouse connection is configured correctly. If some Performance tiles show blank or show an error you should troubleshoot these tiles individually.

Errors

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