Cisco Prime Network Registrar 9.0 Caching and Authoritative DNS User Guide
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The Cisco Prime
Network Registrar server status dashboard in the web user interface (web UI)
presents a graphical view of the system status, using graphs, charts, and
tables, to help in tracking and diagnosis. These dashboard elements are
designed to convey system information in an organized and consolidated way, and
include:
Significant
protocol server and other metrics
Alarms and alerts
Database
inventories
Server health
trends
The dashboard is best
used in a troubleshooting desk context, where the system displaying the
dashboard is dedicated for that purpose and might be distinct from the systems
running the protocol servers. The dashboard system should point its browser to
the system running the protocol servers.
You should interpret
dashboard indicators in terms of deviations from your expected normal usage
pattern. If you notice unusual spikes or drops in activity, there could be
communication failures or power outages on the network that you need to
investigate.
Opening the
Dashboard
Starting from Cisco
Prime
Network Registrar 9.0, the Dashboard feature is
available on the regional cluster also. It provides System Metrics chart by
default. It allows you to display the server specific (DHCP, DNS, and CDNS)
charts for various clusters. This can be configured in the Chart Selections
page.
To open the dashboard in the web UI, from the
Operate menu,
choose
Dashboard.
Display Types
Provided you have DNS and Caching DNS privileges through administrator roles assigned to you, the preset display of the dashboard
consists of the following tables (See the table below for an example):
System Metrics—See the "System Metrics" section in Cisco Prime Network Registrar 9.0 Administrator
Guide.
These are just the preset selections. See Selecting Dashboard Elements to Include for other dashboard elements you can select. The dashboard retains your selections from session to session.
Each dashboard element initially appears as a table or a specific chart type, depending on the element:
Note the green box next to each dashboard element name in the above image). This box indicates that the server sourcing the
information is functioning normally. A yellow box indicates that server operation is less than optimum. A red box indicates
that the server is down. These indicators are the same as for the server health on the Manage Servers page in the regular
web UI.
Graphic Indicators for Levels of Alert
Graphed lines and stacked areas in the charts follow a standard color and visual coding so that you can immediately determine
key diagnostic indicators at a glance. The charts use the following color and textural indicators:
Highalertsorwarnings—Lines or areas in red, with a hatched texture.
Allotherindicators—Lines or areas in various other colors distinguish the data elements. The charts do not use green or yellow.
Magnifying and Converting Charts
If Magnified Chart is the selected Chart Link, you can magnify a chart in a separate window by clicking the chart. In magnified
chart view, you can choose an alternative chart type from the one that comes up initially (see Other Chart Types).
Note
Automatic refresh is turned off for magnified charts. To get the most recent data, click the Refresh icon next to the word Dashboard at the top left of the page.
To convert a chart to a table, see the Displaying Charts as Tables section. You cannot convert tables to a graphic chart format.
Legends
Each chart initially includes a color-coded legend. Removing the legend renders the graphic chart size relatively larger,
which can be helpful if you have many charts displayed. You cannot remove legends in magnified views.
Tables
Dashboard elements
rendered as tables have data displayed in rows and columns. The following
dashboard elements are preset to consist of (or include) tables:
System Metrics
DHCP DNS Updates
DHCP Address Current
Utilization
DHCP General Indicators
DNS General Indicators
Caching DNS General
Indicators
Note
If you view a table
in Expert mode, additional data might appear.
Line Charts
Dashboard elements
rendered as line charts can include one or more lines plotted against the x and
y axes. The three types of line charts are described in the following table.
Lines plotted
against the difference between two sequential raw data.
DNS Inbound Zone Transfers
DNS Outbound Zone Transfers
Rate line
chart
Lines plotted
against the difference between two sequential raw data divided by the sample
time between them.
DHCP Server Request Activity
(see the image below)
DHCP Server Response
Activity
DHCP Response Latency
DNS Query Responses
DNS Forwarding Errors
Tip
To get the raw data for a chart that shows delta or rate data, enter Expert mode, set the Chart Link to Data Table, then
click the chart. The Raw Data table is below the Chart Data table.
Stacked Area
Charts
Dashboard elements
rendered as stacked area charts have multiple related metrics plotted as trend
charts, but stacked one on top of the other, so that the highest point
represents a cumulative value. The values are independently shaded in
contrasting colors. (See the image below for an example of the DHCP Server
Request Activity chart shown in
Figure 1
rendered as a stacked area chart.)
They are stacked in
the order listed in the legend, the left-most legend item at the bottom of the
stack and the right-most legend item at the top of the stack. The dashboard
elements that are pre-set to stacked area charts are:
DHCP Server Request Activity
DHCP Server Response Activity
DHCP Response Latency
DNS Outbound Zone Transfers
DNS Inbound Zone Transfers
Other Chart
Types
The other chart types
available for you to choose are:
Pie—Shows a single percentage pie chart of the
data averaged over the time sampled.
Bar—Multiple related current value metrics plotted
side by side as groups of bars that show the actual data sampled.
StackedBar—Addition total of the actual samples. This
chart shows more distinct data points than the stacked area chart.
Tip
Each chart type
shows the data in distinct ways and in different interpretations. You can
decide which type best suits your needs.
Getting Help for the Dashboard Elements
You can open a help window for each dashboard element by clicking the title of the element.
Customizing the Display
To customize the dashboard display, you can:
Refresh the data and set an automatic refresh interval.
Expand a chart and render it in a different format.
Convert a graphic chart to a table.
Download data to comma-separated value (CSV) output.
Display or hide chart legends.
Configure server chart types.
Reset to default display
Each chart supports:
Resizing
Drag and drop to new cell position
Minimizing
Closing
Each chart has a help icon with a description of the chart and a detailed help if you click the chart title.
Note
The changes made to the dashboard/chart will persist only if you click Save in the Dashboard window.
Refreshing Displays
Refresh each display so that it picks up the most recent polling by clicking the Refresh icon.
Setting the Polling Interval
You can set how often to poll for data. Click the Dashboard Settings icon in the upper-right corner of the dashboard display. There are four options to set the polling interval of the cached
data, which polls the protocol servers for updates. (See the image below)
You can set the cached data polling (hence, automatic refresh) interval to:
Disabled— Does not poll, therefore does not automatically refresh the data.
Slow— Refreshes the data every 30 seconds.
Medium— Refreshes the data every 20 seconds.
Fast (the preset value)— Refreshes the data every 10 seconds.
Displaying Charts as Tables
You can choose to display a graphic chart as a table when you magnify the chart by clicking it. At the middle of the top
of the dashboard display are the controls for the chart links (see the image below)
Click the Data Table radio button. When you click the chart itself, it opens as a table. The preset display format is Magnified Chart.
Exporting to CSV Format
You can dump the chart data to a comma-separated value (CSV) file (such as a spreadsheet) when you magnify the chart by clicking
it. In the Chart Link controls at the top of the page (see the above image), click the CSVExport radio button, then click the chart. A Save As window appears, where you can specify the name and location of the CSV file.
Displaying or Hiding Chart Legends
You can include or exclude the color-coded legends for charts on the main dashboard page. You might want to remove the legends
as you become more familiar with the data and track it on a slightly larger chart display. In the upper-right of the dashboard
display are the controls for the legend display (see the image below). The preset value is Visible.
Selecting Dashboard
Elements to Include
You can decide how
many dashboard elements you want to display on the page. At times, you might
want to focus on one server activity only, such as for the DHCP server, and
exclude all other metrics for the other servers. In this way, the dashboard
becomes less crowded, the elements are larger and more readable. At other
times, you might want an overview of all server activities, with a resulting
smaller element display.
You can select the dashboard elements to display from the main Dashboard page by clicking ChartSelections in the Dashboard Settings dialog. Clicking the link opens the Chart Selection page (see Figure 1).
Configuring Server
Chart Types
You can set the
default chart types on the main dashboard view. You can customize the server
charts in the dashboard to display only the specific chart types as default.
To set up default
chart type, check the check box corresponding to the Metrics chart that you
want to display and choose a chart type from the
Type drop-down
list. The default chart types are consistent and shared across different user
sessions (see the image below).
Note
You can see either
the CDNS or DNS Metrics in the
Dashboard
Settings >
Chart Selection
page based on the service configured on the server.
Tip
The order in which
the dashboard elements appear in the Chart Selection list does not necessarily
determine the order in which the elements will appear on the page. An algorithm
that considers the available space determines the order and size in a grid
layout. The layout might be different each time you submit the dashboard
element selections. To change selections, check the check box next to the
dashboard element that you want to display.
The above image
displays the Charts Selection table in the regional web UI. The Clusters column
is available only in regional dashboard and it displays the list of local
clusters configured. You can add the local cluster by clicking the Edit icon
and then by selecting the local cluster name from the Local Cluster List dialog
box.
To change selections,
check the check box next to the dashboard element that you want to display.
Specific group
controls are available in the drop-down list,
ChangeChartSelection, at the top of the page. To:
Uncheck all check boxes,
choose
None.
Revert to the preset
selections, choose
Default. The
preset dashboard elements for administrator roles supporting DHCP and DNS are:
Host Metrics: System Metrics
DHCP Metrics: General
Indicators
DNS Metrics: General
Indicators
Select the DHCP metrics
only, choose
DHCP (see the
"DHCP Metrics"
section in
Cisco Prime
Network
Registrar 9.0 DHCP User
Guide).
Select the DNS metrics only,
choose
DNS (see the
"Dashboard and
Authoritative DNS Metrics" section in
Cisco Prime
Network
Registrar 9.0
Authoritative and Caching DNS User Guide).
Select the DNS metrics only,
choose
CDNS(see the
"Caching DNS Metrics" section in
Cisco Prime
Network
Registrar 9.0
Authoritative and Caching DNS User Guide)
Select all the dashboard
elements, choose
All.
Click
OK at the
bottom of the page to save your choices, or
Cancel to
cancel the changes.