.Maps configuration vv7.6.0

First time execution

Go to Devo’s main menu and click on Applications > Service Operations. Refer to the installation section if Service Operations does not appear in the list of available applications.

After the application’s initial loading process, you should see Service Operation’s welcome section:

Service Operations manages two types of maps: global and domain-specific. Typically, the first execution will yield no available results for domain maps, and the application will inform you about this status as shown in the previous screenshot. In the following sections of this document, the full procedure to create a new map will be explained, but at this point it is also possible to click on the Global maps tab and select one of the Devo-curated maps that are available off-the-shelf. Please refer to the Global maps section in this documentation for more information on the access and usage of global maps.

Maps management

Click on the Go to administration button. The administration module of Service Operations will be loaded and it will go straight into the maps management section, listing all available maps in the current domain:

The two sections available in the left-hand side menu related to maps, provide two types of management capabilities:

• Available maps: Lists all available maps in the domain and allow their direct access (execution) as well as handling their associated back-end jobs.
• Manage maps: Provides general editing capabilities for all available maps, as well as the option to create new ones.

Creating a new map

Creating maps in Service Operations is a fairly iterative process that commonly starts with sketching the general service or application map you want to monitor, and how it breaks down in terms of main building blocks, subsystems, and so forth. It generally reaches the lowest level of detail with the atomic KPIs and/or KQIs that rule the operational, performance or business related-status of their affecting entities. Once that rough design of the service map is done, it becomes a far simpler task to begin translating that design in terms of actual entities and relationships in Service Operations. As a general recommendation, it is a good idea to work with two browser tabs simultaneously; the first one to navigate and perform the actual configurations on Service Operations, and the second one to run and refine any queries that will be necessary for the map creation.

Follow the steps outlined below to complete the creation of a new map:

1. Go to the administration interface by clicking on the config icon in the Service Operations main menu.

2. Click on Manage maps under the maps main section on the left menu. A list of all available maps in the domain and their associated categories will be shown:

   

3. Click on the Create new map button. The interface changes to the map editing mode, showing a blank configuration for the newly created one.
4. Once there, to configure the new map, collapse the left menu (button 1 in the image): Hide the main menu of the administration module.
5. Contextual editing tools (add entity "+", for example, button 2 in the image): Addition, cloning or deletion of entities in the map. Since it is a context-based tool, the number of active options will vary depending on the selected entity in the map.
6. General map setting (button 4 in the image): Shows or hides the general configuration parameters of the map.
   

Creating entities

Click on the "+" button to add a new entity to the map. A form will be shown with all necessary parameters to be set in order to create the new entity:

Entity definition section

The following table shows the general parameters associated to an individual entity. Asterisks denote mandatory fields to be filled out.

Metadata section

Metadata fields definition is an optional process but it is important for data filtering actions, as well as for the activation of certain application functions such as to populate the Customer Experience section, or to enable the calculation of incidents.

Impact assessment section

Linking entities 

Once there are at least two entities created in the map editor, it is possible to link them to specify impact rules. For example, two "CPU consumption" and "Server" entities are created individually, it is possible to establish a link between "CPU consumption" towards "Server" to indicate "CPU consumption" is an impacting entity on the status of "Server’" Furthermore, if the type "CPU consumption" is "KPI", the incidents detector mechanism will be able to create incidents and determine their root cause using it. 

To link two already-created entities use the following procedure:

1. Click on the source entity. The entity will be shown highlighted in the model, and a  icon in the upper part of the node will be displayed.

2. Click on the  button, keeping the button pressed down by your mouse, and start dragging the arrow to its destination.

3. Release the button on your mouse when the arrow is pointing at the border of the targeted entity.

To unlink two entities:

1. Click on the arrow that they are connected by.

2. Click on the paper bin icon on the top of the screen. Alternatively, you can press the Supr button on your keyboard.

NOTE: Remember the relationship you are establishing is based upon impact. That means, links should be read as "source entity impacts the status of the targeted entity".

Linking entities using a link criteria

The mechanism described in the previous paragraph is the standard to link entities in an all-to-all way. The following table of results should be expected when linking entities using that approach:

In some situations though, it is necessary to link sources and targets based upon some criteria. In the event of this, it is possible to set a linking criteria to ensure only those links will be created.

The procedure to observe is as follows:

1. Create a link between two different entities using the procedure described in the previous section.

2. Click on the link (arrow). A form on the right hand side of the screen will be displayed with four options:

1. Use the dropdown selectors to set the linking criteria between the two entities. Service Operations will list all grouping keys defined in both source and target entities' value calculation queries. The way this should be interpreted is as follows: “link the entities whose value in the ‘from’ column matches exactly the value of the ‘to’ column". Looking at this mechanism from a different perspective, a join operation is being performed between the source and destination entities' tables, linking the details of those entities for which there is a match between the ‘from’ and ‘to’ column values.

2. Click apply. The link criteria is established and displayed in textual form on top of the arrow between the two linked entities.

It is possible to assign a relative weight to the established link. The link weight is utilized in the calculation of the final score for auto entities, or more specifically, as a multiplier to the normalized value of the underlying child node. For example, if an ‘auto’ parent entity called ‘Server’ had two child nodes ('CPU' and ‘Memory’) implemented as KPIs and linked to the parent entity, the overall status score for ‘Server’ would be automatically calculated using the normalized values for ‘CPU’ and ‘Memory’, and then by applying the weighting factor for each of the two nodes. If the specified weight for ‘Memory’ were 0, then the overall score of the ‘Server’ entity would be a normalized version of the ‘CPU’ metric alone.

The weight value can be specified either by a static number (1, 0, 0.5, and so forth), or as the result of a query using the ‘Dynamic weight’ input field. Use that field to specify a LinQ query whose evaluated numeric result will be the applicable weighting factor for the link.

Configuring summary view

The Service Overview module in Service Operations supports multiple layouts for the representation of the real-time status of a service or application. One of them is the so-called ‘Summary views’ (or ‘Summary’ for short). Summary views consist of a reduced number of high-level entities and metrics displayed on a background image that condense all information calculated by Service Operations in an efficient, easy-to-interpret interface.

For Summary Views to be available, at least one entity in the map must be configured including the ‘Summary’ value in the ‘Visualization type’ list. Note that only those entities with an Autodiscovery Criteria value set to ‘None’ are eligible for Summary Views. Once the previous conditions are met, the ‘Summary Options’ button will become available and clicking it will switch the map editing tool to the Summary View editor.

Summary views in Service Operations support a nested approach, meaning it is possible to create and navigate through different levels of visualizations. While the first level of the Summary always corresponds to the level-1 entities defined with such visualization type, users can navigate to a second and subsequent levels by linking level-2, level-3 entities to the parent ones and defining them also with the ‘Summary’ value in their respective ‘Visualization type’ input. 

For each entity defined as Summary in the Visualization type, a green box will be shown on screen, with a sample value and unit text ('0 unit'). Click on the green box and, without releasing the button, drag it through the screen to position it in its desired location on top of the defined background image. Check in the ‘Setting the General Map Configuration - Modules’ section in this same document how to set the initial background image for the Summary View.

A single click action on the green boxes will, on its side, show the ‘Summary Mode Settings’ form for the selected entity:

The following table summarizes all available configuration options for an entity in the Summary View:

Setting the general map configuration

These settings describe the general characteristics and structure of a model. Among other things, these settings are used to configure the overall behavior of Service Operations mainly by enabling or disabling its main functional modules. Ancillary configurations are also performed in this block, such as the predefined analysis time range, and so on:

Global settings

Modules

Administration

Init the data processor job

In order to see the maps and be able to work with them, it is necessary to init the data processor jobs. To do this, go to ‘Available Maps’ and click on the 'play' icon.

Three options will appear for displaying the maps:

• Sampling period seconds: The period of time in which we want to monitor a map.

• Enable stats module: Enable or disable to generate statistics of the entities. If you have it activated, the statistics will be added to Devo, in addition to the calculation of the state of an entity, its maximum, minimum, and average value.

• Enable incidents module: Enable or disable to init or stop the incidents identification processor.