About Dashboards

About Dashboards and My GroundWork

Dashboards are AJAX-powered and display real-time and dynamically updated monitoring status providing system users with quick answers to questions about overall network health, alerts regarding issues or problems, and information to help make decisions that impact the business. Dashboards incorporate critical data from available portlet instances and display this information on a web page where you can navigate and drill-down into specific host and service information. The Dashboards page displays shared system dashboards viewable by all system users based on their role attributes. We'll also cover the My GroundWork page which enables a user to create dashboards with quick accessibility to gadgets and personal views of monitoring information that are private to each user account.

Shared System Dashboards

GroundWork Monitor's standard system dashboards can be displayed by selecting Dashboards. These shared dashboards include; Summary, Trouble View, Monitoring, System View, and Enterprise View and can be viewed by all system users. The preferences for shared dashboards can be set by the individual user.

Additional shared dashboards can be created by an administrator with a GWRoot membership. Creating shared dashboards allows access to a particular subset of the infrastructure to specific users. It is possible to set up user memberships to have access to individual pages or sub-pages, and to control exactly how much of the monitored infrastructure individual users can see and interact with.

Below, we'll discuss the five different types of GroundWork Monitor shared dashboards.

A portal administrator can also create a Portal Page with specific Portlet Instances to be viewed by all users of a membership (role). Portal Pages are located in the top navigation (e.g. Event Console, Status, Reports) and can be created to have global access based on user membership.

Dashboards Summary

This dashboard displays the Quick Navigation portlet outlining various components of the GroundWork Monitor system. Links can be selected under each component for direct access. It also shows the NetworkServicePlugin portlet instance which provides general information regarding notifications and a GroundWork Installation Report including the installation name and date, and component versions.

Figure: Dashboards Summary

Dashboards Trouble View

This dashboard displays the portlets; Events: Entire Network, Host Status: Entire Network, Service Status: Entire Network, Troubled Hosts: Entire Network, and Troubled Services: Entire Network.

Figure: Dashboards Trouble View

Dashboards Monitoring

This dashboard shows the Monitoring Performance portlet with statistics for the entire monitoring system in a series of gauges. The Service Latency gauge measures service latency in seconds, Service Execution measures the number of seconds for check execution, and the Service Checks gauge measures the number of checks performed per minute. Also included are the portlets; Recent State Changes, and Performance Measurement.

Figure: Dashboards Monitoring

Dashboards System View

The System View dashboard displays troubled hosts and services for the entire network and a view portlet showing the Views page in GroundWork Monitor which provides access to NagVis, a visualization add-on for Nagios.

Figure: Dashboards System View

Dashboards Enterprise View

The Enterprise View dashboard displays three portlets; Seurat View (Host Group Snapshot: Entire Network), Host Group Status, Service Group Status and Event Pies. This portlet can be sorted using the drop-down Host Name. Blinking icons in this view represent any host or service that has not been acknowledged.

Figure: Dashboards Enterprise View

My GroundWork Personal Dashboards

Personal dashboards are viewed using the My GroundWork link in the toolbar. The example below shows three gadgets in a personal dashboard. The My GroundWork Editor link is where you can choose to add a new dashboard page, edit an existing, or edit the current layout.

Figure: My GroundWork

About Users and Roles

Personal dashboards are configured and viewable by username. For example, if you login with the username user and create a dashboard, only the username user can view the dashboards created.

Additionally, it is important to remember when configuring dashboards that memberships (roles) are associated with user accounts and roles limit the accessibility of specific portal pages and portlet instances. For example, the logged in username user is associated with the role GWUser which can not access the portal page Event Console, see About System Administration.

So, for dashboards this also applies to specific portlet instances. An example; all Event Console portlet instances will be unavailable to users associated with the roles; GWUser, msp-sample, and ro-dashboard when configuring a dashboard. And the Actions portlet used to execute commands in several portal pages is limited to GWRoot, GWAdmin, GWOperator, and the msp-sample memberships.

About Dashboard Portlets

This section describes each GroundWork portlet instances that administrators or users can add to My GroundWork pages.

GroundWork Monitor runs under the JBOSS portal, and the user interface is composed of portlet applications. Various GroundWork portlets are not available for use in dashboards since many of them depend on other portlet associations or configuration data in order to work. This list of portlets is controlled by the file /usr/local/groundwork/config/mygroundwork.xml. If you add portlets from an external source or of your own design to the system, you will need to add them to this file to make them visible. The GroundWork Portlets available to add to a dashboard include the following.

Event Portlet - This portlet is an embedded Event Console application which provides an event list for the Entire Network or for a selected Host Group, Service Group, Host, or Service.
Host Health - Displays a color-coded status indicator shows the current state of selected host. In addition, the time the host has been in the current state, and the number of groups and parents for this host are conveniently listed. Groups and Parents links can be selected to show a popup window with status information and further drill-down capability.
Host Information - Shows detailed status and check information. In this portlet you can directly schedule downtime or disable notifications, and schedule or disable checks. You can also acknowledge a host problem or you can enable notifications for the host. The Related Links section displays links to Nagios and other configurable custom links. In dashboards a user can specify these custom links via the editing preferences.
In the Status application an administrator can specify these custom links using the status-viewer.properties file. Only the Admin and Operator roles users can see links in this section.
Host List - Provides a listing and status of the host group's hosts. The Host List portlet allows each device name (Host Name) to be selected to drill-down into more detail, and each host problem can be directly acknowledged. By default this portlet displays a list of hosts under the Linux Servers host group.
Host Summary - Shows monitoring statistics at the entire network and host group levels with drill-down capability for viewing detailed data. The Host Summary portlet displays graphs which provide an at-a-glance filtered view of your overall host status representing segments of host states. The displayed values indicate the number of filtered and total hosts in a specific state (e.g. Down, Up). The total columns indicate the total number of monitored hosts. By default this portlet shows monitoring statistics for the Entire Network.
HostAvailability - Displays color-coded status for a selected host. In the Host Availability portlet the name of the host and number of services are listed first (e.g. local host (26 services)) and colored horizontal bars show a host's availability by status color. The Time selector enables the user to change the present time period for the graph. By default this portlet displays color-coded status for host localhost.
HostGroup Health - Displays the status for the selected host group’s host and service availability. The Host Group Health portlet displays a color coded status indicator shows the host group's, as a parent node, most critical state, (e.g. a host group will be displayed as Down if any of the underlying hosts are in a Down state).
HostGroup Summary - The Host Group Summary portlet shows monitoring statistics at the entire network level with drill-down capability for viewing detailed data. These graphs provide an at-a-glance filtered view of your overall host group status. The displayed values indicate the number of filtered and total host groups in a specific state (e.g. Down, Up).
Monitoring Performance - Displays statistics for the entire monitoring system in a series of gauges. The Monitoring Performance portlet shows performance monitoring graphs and statistics in the form of dial charts and communicates with Nagios performance JMS to show graphs for Service Latency, and Service Execution and Checks. This portlet also displays various statistical data; Active and Passive Service Checks per 1 /5 / 15 minutes.
Performance Measurement - Provides RRD graphs for the entered host service. The Performance Measurement portlet displays graphs which are arranged in the same order of the Host Availability portlet and aligned also by their timelines. Time filters, for example; Today, Last 24 Hours, Last 30 Days, Custom Date-Time etc, can be selected as needed. The integrated performance graphs display time-series data such as; network bandwidth, CPU utilization, machine-room temperature, transaction response times, and server load averages. These graphs are viewable at the host and service levels.
Graphs may not be available for a service unless configured by a system administrator using the Configuration>Performance feature in GroundWork Monitor.
Service Availability (Recent State Changes) - Provides color-coded status for a selected service. The Service Availability portlet lists the name of the host and number of services first (e.g. local host (26 Services)) and colored horizontal bars show a host's availability by status color. The Time selector enables the user to change the present time period for the graph. By default this portlet displays color-coded status for host localhost.
Service Health - The Service Health portlet displays a color-coded status indicator which shows the service state along with the time the host has been in the current state. The associated host and the number of groups for this service are listed to the right, both of which you can drill-down into for detailed information.
Service Information - Shows detailed status and check information for the selected service. In the Service Information portlet you can directly schedule downtime or disable notifications, and schedule or disable checks. You can also acknowledge this service problem or you can enable/disable notifications for the service. The Related Links section displays links to Nagios and configurable custom links. In dashboards a user can specify these custom links via the editing preferences.
In the Status application an administrator can specify these custom links using the status-viewer.properties file. Only the Admin and Operator roles users can see links in this section.
Service List - Provides a list of services and their statuses. The Service List portlet lists services associated with the configured entity (host, service group, or host group). Each Service Name can be selected to drill-down for more detail, and each service problem can be directly acknowledged. By default this portlet displays a list of services under the host - localhost.
Service Summary - Shows monitoring statistics at the entire network, host group, service group and host levels with drill-down capability for viewing detailed data. The Service Summary portlet displays a graph which provides an at-a-glance filtered view of your overall host status representing segments of service states. The displayed values indicate the number of filtered and total services in a specific state (e.g. Critical, Ok, Warning). The total columns indicate the total number of monitored services. By default this portlet shows monitoring statistics for the Entire Network.
ServiceGroup Health - Provides a quick status for the selected service group’s service availability. The Service Group Health portlet displays a color coded status indicator which shows the service group's, as a parent node, most critical state, (e.g. a service group will be displayed as Critical if any of the underlying services are in a Critical state).
ServiceGroup Summary - Shows monitoring statistics at the entire network level with drill-down capability for viewing detailed data. The Service Group Summary portlet show a graph which provides an at-a-glance filtered view of your overall service group status. The displayed values indicate the number of filtered and total service groups in a specific state (e.g. Critical, OK).
Seurat View - Offers an overall view of a host groups hosts status sortable by host name, status, last state change, along with the ability to drill-down directly into a hosts detail in the Status application. In the Seurat View portlet a user can right-click on any of the displayed host and drill down to host details where one can have a view of services under that host and can acknowledge host and service problems.