Container Overview Report

A Container Overview report provides a comprehensive overview of the performance of a containerized environment. Metrics of interest (pre-specified by the administrators) are aggregated across all the containers in the target environment and a graphical report describing the performance of the containerized environment is provided as part of the report. Additionally, for each of the containers, critical metrics are reported for the timeline chosen by the user. These metrics provide key insights into how the container is performing and where the bottlenecks may be.

To generate this report, do the following:

  1. Select the Container Overview option by following the menu sequence: REPORTS BY FUNCTION -> Domain-specific Reports -> Container.

  2. Figure 1 then appears.

    Figure 1 : Specifying the criteria for generating the Container Overview report

  3. Choose a Report Type (Graph or Data) for generating the report. The default Report Type is Graph. A Graph report graphically represents the measure data.

  4. Select a criteria for analysis from the Analyze By list box. Using this report, you can obtain a historical analysis of containers hosted in your environment, or those that are part of a zone, service or segment. The options provided by the Analyze By list box are discussed hereunder:

    • Component: Select this option to choose the component(s) from across all the managed components in the environment.
    • Zone: To generate a report for one/more components that are included in a zone, pick the Zone option. A Zone drop-down list will then appear, from which you would have to select the zone to which the components of interest to you belong. A Sub zone flag also appears. Indicate whether the components present within the sub-zones of the chosen zone are also to be to be considered for report generation, by setting the Sub zone flag to Yes.
    • Segment: If you want to generate a report for one/more chosen components that belong to a segment, select the Segment option from Analyze By list box, and then pick the Segment from the drop-down list that appears.
    • Service: If you want to generate a report for one/more components involved in the delivery of a service, select the Service option from Analyze By, and then pick the required Service from the drop-down list that appears.
  5. Then, select the Component Type for which this report is to be generated.

  6. The Components list will now be populated with all the components that are managed in your environment for the chosen component type. If the Components list consists of too many components, then viewing all the components and selecting the ones you need for report generation could require endless scrolling. To avoid this, you can click the button next to the Components list. A Components pop up window will then appear using which you can view almost all the components in a single interface and Select the ones to be included in this report.

  7. Pick an option from the Measure list box for which the report is to be generated. By default, this list box displays a combination of Test name/Measure name. By default, the Container Images/Images not mapped to any container option will be chosen from this list.

  8. Then, specify the Timeline for the report. You can either provide a fixed time line such as 1 hour, 2 days, etc., or select the Any option from the list to provide a From and To date/time for report generation.

    Note:

    For every user registered with the eG Enterprise system, the administrator can indicate the maximum timeline for which that user can generate a report. Once the maximum timeline is set for a user, then, whenever that user logs into eG Reporter and attempts to generate a report, the Timeline list box in the report page will display options according to the maximum timeline setting of that user. For instance, if a user can generate a report for a maximum period of 3 days only, then 3 days will be the highest option displayed in the Timeline list - i.e., 3 days will be the last option in the fixed Timeline list. Similarly, if the user chooses the Any option from the Timeline list and proceeds to provide a start date and end date for report generation using the From and To specifications, eG Enterprise will first check if the user’s Timeline specification conforms to his/her maximum timeline setting. If not, report generation will fail. For instance, for a user who is allowed to generate reports spanning over a maximum period of 3 days only, the difference between the From and To dates should never be over 3 days. If it is, then, upon clicking the Run Report button a message box will appear, prompting the user to change the From and To specification.

  9. In addition to the settings discussed above, this report comes with a set of default specifications. These settings are hidden by default. If you do not want to disturb these default settings, then you can proceed to generate the report by clicking the Run Report button soon after you pick the criteria for generating the report. However, if you want to view and then alter these settings (if required), click on the button. The default settings will then appear in the More Options drop down window (see Figure 2). The steps below discuss each of these settings and how they can be customized.

    Figure 2 : The default settings for generating the Container Overview report

  10. The speed with which a report is generated depends primarily on the report Timeline. While a Timeline that varies between a couple of days to a week enables the eG Enterprise to quickly retrieve the required data, timelines that span multiple weeks/months could slow-down the data retrieval and report generation process to a considerable extent, owing to the volume of data involved. In order to ensure quick and easy access to reports, eG Enterprise provides you the option of enabling data retrieval from the Trend information in the database, instead of the Detailed test information base that is used by default for report generation. The Detailed test information comprises of multiple measurement records for a test - one or more each for every test execution. Whereas, the Trend information includes only hourly, daily, and monthly summary computations for how a test performed on a continuous basis. For instance, during a period of 1 hour, a test that runs every 5 minutes inserts atleast 12 records into the Detailed test information base. On the other hand, the Trend information base would consist of only 1 record for the same 1 hour period. Fewer the number of records, query execution becomes much quicker, and data retrieval faster. To use the trend data for report generation, you will have to select the Trend option from the Show Data field in Figure 2. By default, the Detailed option is selected in Figure 2 indicating that the report data is retrieved from the detailed test information in the database. If need be, you can also ensure that all reports always use the Detailed test tables alone by hiding the Show Data field from the reporter interface. To achieve this, do the following:

    • Login to the eG administrative interface as 'admin'.

    • Select the Manager option from the Settings tile that appears when the button against the Admin tab is clicked.

    • From the GENERAL SETTINGS page that then appears, if you set the Compute average/sum of metrics while trending flag to No, then the Show Data field will not appear in the reporter interface; this denies users access to the Trend option, and thus ensures that reports are always generated using the Detailed tables.

      Note:

      • A Trend report will not include the data for the current day since trend data is only computed at the end of the day.

      • If the Trend option is chosen, the time period of the report should be greater than 1 day.

      • The usage of Detailed test tables for generating reports, especially those that span weeks, increases the stress on the eG database, thus resulting in undue delays in report generation. In order to ensure that the database is not choked by such voluminous data requests, you can configure eG Enterprise to automatically "force" the use of the Trend option if the Timeline of a report exceeds a pre-configured duration. To specify this time boundary, do the following:

        • Edit the eg_report.ini file in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory.

        • In the [MISC] section of the file, you will find a DetailedTime parameter.

        • Specify the duration (in days) beyond which Detailed reports cannot be generated, against the DetailedTime parameter, and save the eg_report.ini file.

          For instance, to make sure that Detailed reports are disallowed for a Timeline of over 2 weeks, set the DetailedTime parameter to 14 and save the file.

          Say, subsequently, you attempt to generate a Detailed report for a FixedTimeline of 3 weeks (which is greater than the 14-day limit set in our example). The instant you select the 3 weeks option from the Fixed list box, the Detailed option gets automatically disabled, and the Trend option gets enabled. Similarly, if you specify an Any Timeline that runs over 14 days, then, upon clicking the Run Report button to generate the report, a message box appears informing you that only the Trend option is permitted.

          To proceed with the Trend report generation, click the OK button in the message box. To terminate Trend report generation, click the Cancel button.

  11. By default, Top-15 option is chosen from this list indicating that the report will be generated for the top 15 components in the target environment. You can also choose a different top-n / last-n option from the Show list, if need be.

    Note:

    By default, the values displayed in the Show list range from TOP-15 to LAST-15. This is because, the Showtop parameter in the [INFOS] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory) is set to 10, by default. You can, if required, configure the Show list to display a different range of options. For this, specify a different number against the Showtop parameter, and save the eg_report.ini file.

  12. If the timeline specified for the report needs to exclude the data collected during the weekends, then set Exclude weekends to Yes. If not, select No.

    Note:

    By default, the weekend constitutes Saturday and Sunday. To override this default setting, do the following:

    • Edit the eg_report.ini file in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory.
    • In the [EXCLUDE_WEEKEND] section of the file, the Days parameter is set to Saturday,Sunday by default. You can modify this by setting the Days parameter to a comma-separated list of other days of the week - say Friday,Saturday.
    • Save the file after making the required changes.
  13. Specify the start time and end time for report generation against the Time Period field (see Figure 2).

  14. In large environments, reports generated using months of data can take a long time to complete. Administrators now have the option of generating reports on-line or in the background. When a report is scheduled for background generation, administrators can proceed with their other monitoring, diagnosis, and reporting tasks, while the eG manager is processing the report. This saves the administrator valuable time. To schedule background processing of a report, you can either select the Background Save - PDF option or the Background Save - CSV option from the Report Generation list. In this case, a Report Name text box will appear, where you would have to provide the name with which the report is to be saved in the background. To process reports in the foreground, select the Foreground Generation - HTML option from this list.

    Note:

    • The Report Generation list will appear only if the EnableBackgroundReport flag in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the [EG_INSTALL_DIR]\manager\config directory) is set to Yes.
    • The default selection in the Report Generation list will change according to the Timeline specified for the report. If the Timeline set is greater than or equal to the number of days specified against the MinDurationForReport parameter in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Background. On the other hand, if the Timeline set for the report is lesser than the value of the MinDurationForReport parameter, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Foreground. This is because, the MinDurationForReport setting governs when reports are to be processed in the background. By default, this parameter is set to 2 weeks - this indicates that by default, reports with a timeline of 2 weeks and above will be processed in the background.
  15. Click the Done button if any changes were made to the More Options drop down window.
  16. Finally, click the Run Report button to generate the report.

  17. If the option chosen from the Report Type list is Graph and the option chosen from the Report Generation list is Foreground Generation - HTML, then clicking the Run Report button will reveal Figure 3.

    Figure 3 : The generated Container Overview report

    From Figure 3, administrators can figure out the following:

    • A distribution pie chart reveals the number of components in different distribution ranges (see Figure 3). The distribution ranges are obtained based on the first of the configured functions on the chosen Measure. For instance, assume that Memory utilization is the chosen Measure. Say that you have configured to display the Avg and Max of Memory utilization in the generated report. Typically, both these configured values will appear only in a Data report. In the case of a Graph report however, the first of the two functions - i.e., Avg of Memory utilization - alone is calculated for the chosen component. Click on a particular range displayed in the legends of the pie chart to view the list of components that fall within the value range represented by that slice (see Figure 4). Against every component name, the actual values for each of the configured functions (both Avg and Max, in our example) will be displayed. The Health(%) of the components that fall within the chosen range is also displayed.

      Figure 4 : Viewing the data of containers within a distribution range

    • A bar graph in the Top<N> Containers by <Measure> section (see Figure 3) reveals the top-15 components based on the chosen measure in the target environment. For example, if your Measure chosen is Images not mapped to any containers, then, from this graph, you can easily identify the top 15 containers to which images are not mapped during the specified Timeline. Clicking on a bar in Figure 3 will lead you to Figure 5 where you can analyze the performance of the chosen component corresponding to the bar.

      Figure 5 : Viewing the Server Performance report for a chosen container

  18. If the report is generated by choosing the Report Type as Data, Figure 6 will appear listing all the key metrics for the chosen components.

    Figure 6 : The Container Overview report generated when Report Type is Data

  19. Clicking on a component in Figure 6 will lead you again to Figure 5 where you can view the Server Performance report of the chosen component.

  20. Clicking on the Health of a chosen component will lead you to Figure 7 where you can obtain an overview of the performance of the chosen component.

    Figure 7 : Viewing the Executive Report for a chosen container