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This module describes the features on your Cisco WebEx Server dashboard and how to use them.
This section describes the features on your dashboard and how to use them. The dashboard is the home page of the administration site and provides several displays and graphs of key monitoring features.
The dashboard includes the following sections:
System messages—One or more system messages appear in a bar at the top of the page. Three types of system messages might appear at the top of the page:
Warning—Indicated by a red bar. Warning messages indicate the system is in a special state. For example, maintenance mode.
Alert—Indicated by a yellow bar. Alerts indicate time-sensitive issues such as license expiration dates.
Information—Indicated by a blue bar. Informational messages that notify you of important information. For example, these messages might inform you that a first-time tutorial is available or display the status of a disaster recovery procedure.
System Monitor—This section displays the system status and time stamp and includes the following subsections:
Status—Indicates overall system status, Good or Down.
1 day—By default, data for the previous day is displayed. Use the date selector to select a single day during the preceding six-month period.
1 week—By default, data for the previous week is displayed. Use the date selector to select a single week during the preceding six-month period.
1 month—By default, data for the previous month is displayed. Use the date selector to select a single month during the preceding six-month period.
6 months—The previous six-month period is displayed. The date selector disappears since you have selected the maximum period.
Time of day—To view meetings that occurred during a specific time of day, mouse over the graph and select the desired time.
Usage—Displays the current participant count both as a percentage of total resources and the number of participants. You can select the Usage graph to open the Meeting Trend page. You can select a point on the Participants or Meetings graphs to show the Meeting list for the time slot specified on the graph.
Alarms—Displays the alarm threshold settings you have configured. By default, alarm thresholds are displayed as a percentage. Select Number # to change the alarm information to numerical data. Alarm thresholds are displayed in the System Monitor section in graphical form and on the Alarms page in numerical form. You can select the graphs in the System Monitor section to view the Resource History page for the alarms that you have configured. See Viewing Your Resource History for more information.
You can configure alarms for the following:
Meetings In Progress—Indicates when current meetings are experiencing issues.
Usage—The total number of users currently using the system.
CPU—Shows the value of the one virtual machine in the system with the highest CPU usage out of all virtual machines in the system.
Memory—Shows the value for the one virtual machine in the system with the highest memory usage.
Network—Total system bandwidth used.
Note | The storage alarm appears if you have configured a storage server. See Adding a Storage Server for more information. |
Process status—Displays the performance of several key system features. The status of each feature is described as Good, Fair, or Down.
For video, audio, and web sharing, monitoring is performed on each client-server connection based on a threshold defined for the corresponding parameters used to determine status of a meeting. An alert is sent to from the meeting monitoring agent to a meeting monitoring receiver if one of corresponding parameters from a client connection goes beyond the threshold. Most of the settings are measured in milliseconds.
For web sharing, additional criteria is added to determining meeting status. This criteria includes a minimum of three alerts from the same connection within three minutes with one third or more of the total number of participants experiencing the same issues.
For telephony issues, the meeting status is based on the severity of the error.
Good—All services on your system are operating.
Fair—Your system is operating at reduced capacity. Periodically recheck your system. If it is still displaying a status of fair after 48 hours, contact the Cisco TAC for assistance. See Using the Support Features for more information.
Down—All services on your system are not running. Contact the Cisco TAC for assistance. See Using the Support Features for more information.
Note | Only appears if you have configured a storage server. |
System—Displays the maximum number of users on your system, the version number, product URL, and the number of user licenses. If you are using a free-trial edition of Cisco WebEx Server, this section also indicates how many days are remaining in your trial period when there are 30 days or less. Select View More to go to Configuring Your System.
Settings—Displays your current system settings including the maximum number of participants allowed in each meeting, audio type, whether or not video and mobile features are enabled, and Single Sign-On (SSO) status. Select View More to go to Configuring Settings.
Step 1 | Sign in to the
Administration site.
In a Multi-data Center system, the DNS determines which data center Dashboard appears. All data centers can be managed from this Dashboard. | ||||||||||||||||
Step 2 | Select the alarm icon. | ||||||||||||||||
Step 3 | To modify the
alarm thresholds or activate/deactivate alarm thresholds, select
Edit.
The Edit Alarms page appears. Select Percentage % to view the alarm threshold as a percentage or Number # to view the alarm threshold as a number. The default setting is Percentage %. | ||||||||||||||||
Step 4 | Select the check
boxes for the alarms that you want enabled and select the interval for each
enabled alarm.
An email is sent to administrators when an alarm exceeds a threshold. The interval is used to suppress multiple alarms within the specified time to avoid sending too many emails about the same issue. | ||||||||||||||||
Step 5 | Select
Save.
Your alarm settings are saved and the Alarms page is updated with your changes. |
Your resource history contains detailed graphs for each alarm configured on your system. The current values for system status, meetings, participants, and storage are shown in the right-side panels. See Viewing and Editing Alarms for more information on the alarms you can configure.
You can view your resource history by selecting an alarm CPU, Memory, or Network link on the Dashboard window. For example, select the CPU link and the Resource History window appears.
If you have configured a storage server, you can view your storage history by selecting the Storage link on the Dashboard window. The Storage History page shows how much space has been used on your storage server and displays a graph showing the storage space used over the past six months. Mouse over the blue usage graph to see the percentage of space used for particular days and times during the six-month period.
See Viewing the Meetings List to view more information about a meeting.
See Finding a Meeting for more information about using the Meeting Search tab.
When you receive an email indicating that there are issues with meetings, perform the following steps to determine the cause.
Step 1 | Select the link in the meeting issue email that you received. |
Step 2 | Sign in to the
Administration site.
In a Multi-data Center system, the DNS determines which data center Dashboard appears. All data centers can be managed from this Dashboard. |
Step 3 | On the
Dashboard, select the
CPU,
Memory, Network or
Storage link.
Resource History or Storage History appears. |
Step 4 | On the right side panel, select the Meetings in Progress link. |
Step 5 | Select a View option or the calendar icon to display meetings for a specific period of time. |
Step 6 | Select the Show future meetings check box to include future scheduled meetings in the Meetings list. |
Step 7 | Click a data
point on the
Participants or
Meetings graph to display meeting information.
You can use the detailed information presented in the table to help determine the cause of the issue described in the email you received. The meetings list shows the details for meetings corresponding to the select data point. Meetings with performance issues are displayed in the Status column in red or yellow. Enter search terms in the field above the table to filter the meeting list. The meeting list can be sorted by selecting the header of the key column. |
Step 8 | The current
system status is displayed in the right column of the page. Select this line to
return to the Dashboard.
System status
can be:
|
Step 9 | Select an alarm status box in the right column to see the Resource History for the alarms. See Viewing Your Resource History for more information. |
Step 10 | If a storage server was configured, the amount of storage space is displayed in the right column of the page. See Viewing and Editing Alarms for more details. |
Many configuration changes require that you put your system into Maintenance Mode. Maintenance Mode shuts down all conferencing activity on a data center, so you should alert users by scheduling the maintenance windows (see Scheduling a Maintenance Window).
Click here to display Turning Maintenance Mode On or Off for Version 2.5 and Later.
Putting a data center in Maintenance Mode does the following:
Disconnects users and closes all meetings. If you put a data center that is part of a Multi-data Center (MDC) system into Maintenance Mode, meetings in progress fail over to the active data center.
Prevents users from signing in from web pages, the Outlook plug-in, and mobile applications. Emails are automatically sent when the system is taken out of Maintenance Mode.
Stops access to meeting recordings.
Users cannot schedule or host new meetings.
The system will continue to send automatic notification emails to users and administrators.
A system reboot might take approximately 30 minutes, depending on the size of your system. A restart might take 3 to 5 minutes. The system monitors the modifications and automatically makes the determination.
Use the following table to help determine which tasks require you to turn on Maintenance Mode and the action your system performs after you turn off Maintenance Mode, so you can plan the downtime. When Maintenance Mode is required, the system provides reminder messages if you attempt to perform a task without turning on Maintenance Mode.
Task |
Reference |
Maintenance Mode Required |
Reboot or Restart |
---|---|---|---|
Adding or removing High Availability |
Y |
Reboot |
|
Adding or removing public access |
Adding Public Access to Your System by using IRP or Removing Public Access |
Y |
Restart |
Change the system default language |
Y |
Restart |
|
Changing your host or admin account URLs |
Y |
Restart |
|
Changing your mail server |
N |
N/A |
|
Changing your virtual IP address |
Y |
Reboot |
|
Configuring and changing branding settings |
N |
N/A |
|
Configuring and changing many of the audio settings |
Y |
Restart |
|
Configuring and changing the Call-In Access Numbers, Display Name, and Caller ID audio settings. |
N |
N/A |
|
Configuring and changing quality of service settings |
N |
N/A |
|
Configuring and changing SNMP settings |
Y |
Restart |
|
Configuring certificates |
Y |
Restart or Reboot |
|
Configuring disaster recovery settings |
Y |
Restart |
|
Configuring FIPS-compatible encryption |
Y |
Restart |
|
Configuring storage servers |
Y |
Restart |
|
Configuring virtual machine security |
Y |
Reboot |
|
Expanding system size |
Y |
Restart |
|
Performing updates or upgrades |
Preparing to Update an Existing System or Preparing to Upgrade a Data Center |
Y |
Restart |
Updating shared keys |
Y |
Restart |
|
Using the System Resource test |
Y |
Restart |
Each of your virtual machines has a console window that indicates when it is in Maintenance Mode. You can open the console windows in the vCenter inventory bar (for navigation). The console windows provide the URL of the system, type of system (primary, high availability, or public access), type of deployment (50 user, 250 user, 800 user, or 2000 user system), and current system status including whether Maintenance Mode is on or off and the time and date of the status change. The time displayed is configured in your Company Info settings. See Configuring Company Information for more information.
When you are finished modifying your system configuration you can turn off Maintenance Mode. Depending on the tasks you performed, your system:
When Maintenance Mode is off, the Dashboard page refreshes. Your system is ready for users to successfully start meetings when all the virtual machines listed on the System Properties page display a status of Good (green) and Maintenance Mode is off. See Turning Maintenance Mode On or Off for Version 2.0 and Before for more information.
If Maintenance Mode is off but the scheduled maintenance window is still in effect, users will be able to host and attend previously scheduled meetings, but will not be able to schedule new meetings until the maintenance window has ended.
Turning on Maintenance Mode on all active data centers shuts down conferencing activity and prevents users from signing in to the WebEx site, scheduling or joining meetings, and playing meeting recordings. Some actions do not require that all data centers in a Multi-data Center (MDC) environment be put into Maintenance Mode. If all data centers are put into Maintenance Mode, meetings in progress will end. When you turn off Maintenance Mode, the system determines if a restart (takes approximately 3 - 5 minutes) or a reboot (takes approximately 30 minutes) is required and displays the appropriate message. See About Maintenance Mode for information about which system tasks require Maintenance Mode to be turned on.
Schedule a maintenance window and notify users about the scheduled system maintenance time. See Scheduling a Maintenance Window for details.
Step 1 | Sign in to the
Administration site.
In a Multi-data Center system, the DNS determines which data center Dashboard appears. All data centers can be managed from this Dashboard. |
Step 2 | From the Dashboard, select Manage Maintenance Mode. The Manage Maintenance Mode dialog displays. |
Step 3 | Select the data center to be put into Maintenance Mode. Deselect the data center to be taken out of Maintenance Mode. |
Step 4 | Select Save. |
Step 5 | (Optional) Back up your virtual machines. |
Step 6 | (Optional) To determine if
the system is fully operational, select
(in the System section).
Conferencing activity can resume when the Status for all the listed virtual machines is Good (green). |