Viewing the Databases Dashboard

This section describes the various components of the Databases dashboard. To learn how to customize the display of this dashboard and focus on a specific instance, refer to Selecting an Instance to Monitor.

The Instance home page is displayed by accessing the Databases dashboard.

The Databases dashboard includes the following sections:

  • Database cartridge type tiles - each tile represents a database type (SQL Server, SQL Server BI, Oracle, Sybase, DB2, MongoDB, Cassandra, or All Instances). Tiles display the number of instances for each database type, along with a breakdown according to the instance health (Normal, Warning, Critical, Fatal, or Unknown).

  • Status section - includes the following components:

    • Status summary - a color-coded bar, which provides a visual representation of the summarized health condition of all instances listed in the Database Group table. The status summary bar provides a graphic representation of the current state of the monitored environment, broken down to the number of instances and their current health state: Fatal, Critical, Warning, Normal or Unknown.
    • Database-specific health summary - when the database group All is selected, this section displays all the currently monitored instances for each database type, divided by their health state (for example: four SQL Server instances, three of which have the health state Warning and one is indicated with the health state Fatal). When a user-defined database group is selected, this section displays data only about the agents included within the selected group.

    The Status Indicators section can be used for filtering the Databases Group table to display only instances that meet a criterion set in this section. For more information, refer to Filtering the Display by Severity.

  • The Monitor button - Use this button to add instances to monitor. For more information, refer to Monitoring Data Replication.

  • The Configure Alarms button - Navigates you directly to the Administration > Alarms page. On the Alarms page you can view the alarms as well as configure the Alarm Template and alarm notification settings.

  • The Settings button - Use this button to do one of the following:

    • Access the User Management settings to restrict the instances that specific users are allowed to view. This makes it easier for users to find information about only the instances they are interested in. For more information, refer to Assigning Instances to Users or Groups.
    • After selecting one or more instances of the same database type, use this button to set options for collecting, storing, and displaying data for the selected instances, and configuring the connection to SQL Performance Investigator (if installed).

  • Currently selected database group table - a list of all monitored databases within the database group that is selected in the Databases section. For more information, refert to Currently Selected Database Group.

  • The Select dashboards () button - provides direct link to several drilldowns and panels, by that means saving the need to navigate to these locations through the Overview drilldown.

This section covers the following key areas:

Assigning Instances to Users or Groups

The User Level Access screen allows you to assign specific instances to users or groups. When users view their Databases dashboard, they only see the instances assigned to them.

The Status Indicators section filters the Databases Group table to display only instances that meet a criterion set in this section. For more information, refer to Filtering the Display by Severity.

The User Level Access screen displays all users and groups as they appear in the Foglight User & Security dashboard. By default each user is assigned to view All instances monitored in the Foglight Management Server.

To assign instances to a specific user or group:

  1. On the main Database dashboard, click Settings and select User Level Access from the menu. The Users and Groups panes appear.
  2. To assign instances to a specific user or group, locate the user name in the table. Click the relevant value under the required domain in the Assigned instances column. You can also click Configure in the right column.
  3. Select one of the 3 options:
    • Manage - allows you to manage which instances or groups to view
    • All Instances - set the user to view All monitored instances
    • None - block the user from viewing any monitored instances
  4. Select Manage the instances to display the Assign Instances view.
    1. Select the instances or the pre-defined groups of instances.
    2. Click the arrow button to move the instances from the Assigned Instances box to the Available instances box.
  5. Click Set to save your choices and exit.

    A Reset button is available in the Users table toolbar. This button allows you to reset user level access to the default behavior. All users will be assigned to view all instances.

Selecting an Instance to Monitor

Because the Databases dashboard displays by default all the currently monitored databases, customize the dashboard view to display only the relevant instances, and then preview such instances to decide which to monitor.

To select an instance to monitor:

  1. Display only instances relevant for your needs, using one of the following methods:
    • Filter by database type - if multiple database types are being monitored, click the database type tile that represents the requested type (in this case, SQL Server).
    • Filter by severity - use the status indicators to display only instances of a specific database type that share a specific health state severity. For more information, refer to Filtering the Display by Severity.
    • Create user-defined groups - use the Databases area to create groups that contain only the databases that need to be monitored for a specific need. For more information, refer to Creating Custom Database Groups.
    • Assign Instances to specific users - When accessing a Database dashboard, nonadministrative users view only instances which have been assigned to them. For more information, refer to Assigning Instances to Users or Groups.
  2. View the severity level of the selected instances by using the status indicators.
  3. Click the requested instance to view a cue card with a preview of the most significant performance indicators of the instance.
  4. Click Home Page on the cue card to open a full-screen view of the requested instance.

    Launching a full-screen view of the requested database by clicking the Home Page link can only be performed for instances monitored in Foglight for SQL Server mode.

Currently Selected Database Group

The Databases table displays the group selected from the available database groups under the Databases section of the navigation pane. The Databases table contains the following columns:

As the currently selected group can contain instances of various types of databases monitored by Foglight, the table describes instances in general.

Name Description
Database
Sev The highest severity alarm of an instance, which determines its health state.
Name The name of the instance.
Version The version number of the instance.
Up Since The date and time when the instance was last restarted.
Workload Displays the workload chart for the instance.
DB Alarms The number of warnings, critical, and fatal alarms for the instance.
Shows the most recent alarms invoked for the specific instance displayed in the row. The alarms are displayed by their severity levels, with the aggregated number for each severity.
Click the severity icon of an alarm to display the Alarm pop-up, which provides in-depth information about the alarm, including its causes and implications
System Utilization
Host The name of the computer that hosts the instance.
CPU Load (%) The overall operating system CPU usage (including CPU usage by the database).
Memory (%) The percentage of memory consumed by all operating system processes (including the database) within the total memory. This value includes both RAM resident memory and swapped memory.
Disk (% Busy) The percentage of time the busiest device spent serving system-wide input and output requests. This metric serves as a measure for the system I/O load.
Monitoring Status
Agent The operational status of the monitoring agent. When the agent instance is running, hovering over the Stat icon displays the status message “Collecting Data”.
When the agent instance is running but not collecting data, hovering over the State icon displays one of the following status messages:
Starting
Stopped
Stopping
Unknown
OS The state of OS-related data retrieval by the database cartridge, the Infrastructure cartridge, or both.

Filtering the Display by Severity

The Status Indicators section can be used for filtering the Databases Group table to display only instances that meet a criterion set in this section.

To filter the display by severity:

  1. Click a specific type of severity within a specific database type (for example, SQL Server instances whose severity level is Fatal). The selected filter is shown in the table title.
  2. To select another filter, click the required status indicator (for example, SQL Server > Normal severity). To display the entire list of databases, click Database type tile.

Creating Custom Database Groups

While all existing and newly discovered instances are added to the “All” list, the Databases area of the navigation pane allows the creation, editing, and removal of sub-groups of database instances. By doing so, it serves as a filter that enables the display of only a specific, user-defined group of instances.

The Databases area includes the following components, which can be selected from a drop-down list:

  • Database Groups - includes by default the “All” list and the “Database Groups” list, which serves as the parent group for creating user-defined sub-groups of database instances. Such sub-groups are recognized as Foglight services. The Database Groups section also displays the highest severity level of the database groups, under the column Sev.
  • Services - displays the configured services, which contain at least one object (database topology) that Foglight for SQL Server uses.

All the Foglight for SQL Server sub-groups, which were created using the Database Groups section, are also displayed under Services. In addition, Services displays groupings of monitored resources that were created using the Service Builder dashboard, and contain Foglight for SQL Server database topology.
The Services section also contains the column SLC (Service Level Compliance), which indicates the current availability of the selected service over a given period.

To create a database group:

  1. Select the parent database instance group, Database Groups, under Databases in the navigation pane.
  2. Click the icon. The Add Sub Group dialog box appears.
  3. Type a name for the group in the Name field.
  4. Type a description for the group (optional).
  5. Select an instance in the Available column, and click [>] to move the instance to the Selected column. Alternatively, click [»] to move all the databases to the Selected column.
  6. Click OK.
    The sub-group name appears in the Database Groups list. The database instances are listed in the Databases dashboard.

After adding one or more user-defined sub-groups, it is possible to add sub-groups to these sub-groups.

To remove a database sub-group:

  1. Select the sub group to remove.
  2. Click the icon. The verification dialog box appears.
  3. Click Remove. The sub-group is removed from the Database Groups list.

To edit a database sub-group:

  1. Select the requested sub group.
  2. Click the icon. The Edit Group dialog box appears.
  3. To add an instance to the sub group, select the requested instance in the Available column and click [>]. The selected instance moves to the Selected column.
  4. To remove an instance from the sub-group, select the requested instance in the Selected column, and click [<]. The selected instance moves to the Available column.
  5. Click OK.