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Metric Explorer

Metric Explorer is an out-of-the-box tool to view, analyze, compare, and co-relate the metrics of the monitors in your infrastructure. This would help not only to analyze the performance of your infrastructure but also enable the root cause analysis of issues in your infrastructure.

Go to Menu. Select Metric Explorer. The Metric explorer screen is displayed.

Now, before we start using the Metric Explorer, let us understand what is a trend in metric explorer.

In metric analysis, a trend refers to the pattern found in the graphical representation of any metric value against time. A trend shows the range of values that a metric takes over a period of time.

The above picture shows a trend of latency, that is, it shows a plot of the latency values for a monitor over a period of time.

In order to start analyzing the metrics, you need to start by adding a trend of a metric to the metric explorer. This allows you to view the values of a metric for a particular monitor over a period of time.

Navigate to the metric explorer screen to start creating a trend. Perform the following steps to successfully set up a trend:

  1. Select the monitor from the Select Monitor dropdown on the panel in the metric explorer screen to analyze its metric.

  2. After selecting the monitor, a list of metrics appears on the panel.

  3. From the list of metrics, drag & drop the metric you want to analyze onto the Metric Explorer screen. The metric trend is now visible on the screen. You can view and study the trend on this screen for your analysis.

    The trend of bytes transferred into the network per second for a monitor can be seen in the picture above.

    note

    You can create as many as 10 sets of trends on the smart expansion screen. Drag & drop the metrics onto any of the 10 tiles titled 'Drop metric here to view trend' as per your requirement. You can also add multiple metrics to a single trend in order to compare different metrics. This will be explained further in the section Comparing Metrics.

Now that you have set up a trend, let's understand the various elements available on the Metric Explorer.

Compare two or more metrics on the same trend​

To compare two or more metrics on the same trend, you can use the drag-and-drop feature in the Metric Explorer. For example, we have already setup the value of bytes transferred IN the network per second for an AWS monitor on the metric explorer. If you want to compare the bytes transferred IN and OUT of a network, you can drag and drop the relevant metrics onto the same trend.

The trend will now look as shown below.

You can view and compare the values of both metrics on the same trend and even hover over the trend to see the values at a specific point in time.

Comparing Metrics from different Monitors​

If you need to compare metrics from different monitors, you can add a new metric tab in the Metric Explorer.

Motadata AIOps provides the ability to add as many metric tabs as you need for this purpose.

Select from the panel on the metric explorer. A new metric tab is now created.

The trends that were added by selecting the monitors in the first tab will also persist on the metric explorer for your reference. This will enable you to compare the trends from the previous monitor with trends of a different monitor which you can now add in the new tab.

Selecting Metrics based on their Instance type​

Suppose you have have setup a Citrix XenServer Cluster as a monitor. Metric Explorer allows you to select metrics on an instance level in such cases. In this case, you can select metrics at instance level such as 'Virtual Machine' and 'Node' for a Citrix XenServer Cluster.

Once you select a particular instance such as a 'Virtual machine', you can then select a specific virtual machine for which you want to view the metrics. In the image below, you can see that we have selected a virtual machine CentOS 6_3 and the metrics relevant to the virtual machine are then available for selection. You can then drag and drop these metrics on the metric explorer and start using them.

Changing the Time frame of Metric values​

You can change the time frame for all the trends on the metric explorer from the time selector on the top of the screen.

Click on Today which is the default time frame of the metric explorer. A drop-down with different time frames is displayed.

Select the time frame for which you want to view the metric values. For example, Select Last 48 Hours to view the metric values for the last 48 hours.

You can even select a custom time frame to set the time as per your convenience.

Selecting the Granularity in Metric Explorer​

Granularity refers to the level of detail in the metric data. Metric Explorer allows you to select the granularity of the metrics you are viewing.

Navigate to the granularity selector at the top of the metric explorer screen. Choose the desired level of granularity, such as '1 minute', '5 minutes', '1 hour', etc.

Selecting a finer granularity (e.g., 1 minute) provides more detailed data points, while a coarser granularity (e.g., 1 hour) provides a broader overview. Adjusting the granularity helps in analyzing trends at different levels of detail, depending on your monitoring needs.

Save Current Metric View​

You can also save a Metric view for quick and easy viewing at a later time. Once you have added all the counters in the Metric Explorer, click on

Then, on the side pop-up window, provide information like name and description for the Metric View. Also, choose if you wish to keep the view private or public. Finally, click on the Save button to apply the changes.

You shall be able to view all your saved metric views under the Saved Views tab in the Metric Explorer.

Apply Arithmetic Operations​

Click on the icon and select an operation using the dropdown menu.

This will open a new floating window with a preview of that arithmetic operation applied to the current trend. Below is a gist of all arithmetic operations avalaible in the chart widget for your ease of convenience:

Value Difference​

This operation calculates the difference between consecutive data points. It highlights the rate of change in the metric, showing how much the value has increased or decreased from the previous point. In a chart, this would show fluctuations and trends in the rate of change, rather than the raw values themselves.

Monotonic Difference​

Similar to Value Difference, but it only considers increases in a consistent direction. If the value fluctuates up and down, it will only display the positive change for the whole duration of the data. This is useful for highlighting consistently increasing trends, filtering out minor fluctuations.

Log 2 & Log 10​

These operations apply logarithmic scales (base 2 and base 10, respectively) to the data. Logarithmic scales are useful for visualizing data with a wide range of values, compressing large values and expanding small values. In a chart, this can reveal subtle trends in data that would be obscured on a linear scale, especially when dealing with exponential growth or decay.

Moving Average 3, Moving Average 7, Moving Average 15:​

These operations calculate the average of the data points over a specified window (3, 7, or 15 points). This smooths out short-term fluctuations and highlights longer-term trends. In a chart, moving averages create a smoother line that represents the overall trend, making it easier to identify patterns and reduce noise. The larger the moving average window, the smoother the line.

Take a Snapshot of the Metric Explorer​

Select to take a snapshot of all the trends that you have created. This snapshot will be saved on the 'Downloads' folder on your system.

Select to clear out all the trends that you have created.