Managing Cisco CMX System Settings

Overview of the System Service

The Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences (Cisco CMX) System service comprises the following tabs, which help you perform a variety of system-related tasks, including, but not restricted to, those listed here:

  • Dashboard —Enables you to have an overall view of the system.
  • Alerts —Enables you to view live alerts.
  • Patterns —Enables you to detect patterns of various criteria, such as Client Count, CPU Usage, Memory Usage, and so on.
  • Metrics —Enables you to view system metrics.

Viewing Overall System Health

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page, which contains the following sections, is displayed:

The Cluster table and the Controllers table are shown in Figure 6-1.

 

Figure 6-1 System At A Glance Page Sections

1

Gear icon for setting cluster services and metrics
4

Controller table
2

Cluster table
5

Legend of status indicators for the Cisco WLCs in the Controller table
3

Legend of status indicators for the Cluster table service
 

 

Using the Clusters Table

The Clusters table in the System at a Glance page contains the following information:

  • Node —Lists all associated CMX nodes.

– Click a node name to view its metrics. See the “Viewing CMX Node Metrics” section.

  • Services —Lists all the services for each Cisco CMX node.

– The colors of the icons pertaining to these services indicate the status of these services. Ensure that the services are in green color; this indicate a healthy status.

– Click a service icon to view the corresponding service or system metrics.

  • Memory —Shows the load on the memory, in percentage.

Click it to view the Live Alerts page. See the “Viewing Live System Alerts” section.

  • CPU —Shows the load on the CPU, in percentage.

Click it to view the Live Alerts page. See the “Viewing Live System Alerts” section.

  • Actions —Enable and start all the services for a node.

Understanding the Controllers Table

The Controller table in the System at a Glance page lists the Cisco Wireless Controllers (Cisco WLCs) that are sending Network Mobility Services Protocol (NMSP) data to Cisco CMX. The table displays the following details for each controller:

  • IP Address —The color of the table border to the left of each IP address indicates whether the Cisco WLC is active or not.
  • Version —Cisco WLC software version.
  • Bytes In and Bytes Ou t—Number of bytes received from and sent to the Cisco WLC.
  • Last Heard —Number of seconds since a communication was received from the Cisco WLC.

Viewing the Cluster Table Name and Nodes

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose System > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the page.

The Default Cluster Settings window is displayed with the General tab already selected. The following details of the node are displayed:

    • Name —Cisco CMX node name.
    • Associated Nodes —Cisco CMX nodes associated with this node.
    • Available Nodes —Cisco CMX nodes available.

 

Viewing CMX Node Details

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose System > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the page.

The Default Cluster Settings dialog box is displayed.

Step 4 Click the Node Details tab.

Step 5 Click a node name to view its details, including Node ID, Name, Hostname, and Type.

 

Setting Device Tracking Parameters

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose System > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the page.

The Default Cluster Settings dialog box is displayed.

Step 4 Click the Tracking tab.

The Tracking Parameters table is displayed.

Step 5 In the Elements column, check the check box of each device that you want to track.

Note To track Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacon tags, check Interferers. For BLE beacon-enabled devices to be tracked, you require a Cisco Wireless Controller with software Release 8.0.115.0 or later.

Step 6 Click Save.

 

Setting Filter Parameters

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose System > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the page.

Step 4 Click the Filtering tab.

Here, you can configure the following filtering parameters:

    • Duty Cycle Cutoff —This is a percentage value. Interferers with a Duty Cycle that is less than the specified Cutoff will not be tracked.
    • RSSI Cutoff —This is the radio signal strength cutoff for filtering. The default is -85 dBm.
    • Exclude probing clients —Check this check box to filter out clients that are only probing. This enables the system to track only connected clients.
    • Enable Locally Administered MAC filtering —Check this check box to filter out self-assigned MAC addresses. This parameter is checked by default. This discards Apple iOS8 random MAC addresses.
    • Enable Location MAC filtering —Check this check box to filter out specific MAC addresses. For example you can use to this to filter out MAC addresses of employees’ devices. After checking this, you can either specify a MAC address that you want to allow or disallow, or choose to allow, disallow, or delete previously entered MAC addresses.

Step 5 Click Save.

 

Setting Location Calculation Parameters

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose System > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the page.

The Default Cluster Settings dialog box is displayed.

Step 4 Click the Location Setup tab.

Here, you can configure the following Location Calculation Parameters :

    • Enable OW Location —Check this check box to enable the use of Outer Walls (obstacles) for location calculation.
    • Enable Location Filtering —Check this check box if you want the system to use previous location estimates for estimating the current location. This parameter will be applied only for client location calculation. Enabling this parameter reduces location jitter for stationary clients and improves location tracking for mobile clients. This parameter is enabled by default.
    • Use new location algorithm —New aggregation algorithm changes how the RSSIs are aggregated before computing location. We recommend that you do not modify this parameter without the guidance of Cisco Technical Support.
    • User Default Heatmaps for Non Cisco Antennas —Check this check box to enable the usage of default heat maps for non-Cisco antennas during location calculation.
    • Chokepoint Usage —Check this check box to enable the usage of chokepoint proximity to determine the location of a device. This applies only to Cisco-compatible tags that are capable of reporting chokepoint proximity. This parameter is enabled by default.
    • Use Chokepoints for Interfloor conflicts —Use this drop-down list to specify the frequency to determine the correct floor during interfloor conflicts.
    • Chokepoint Out of Range Timeout —After a Cisco-compatible tag leaves a chokepoint proximity range, RSSI information will be used again to determine the location only after this timeout value is exceeded. Specify a timeout value, in seconds, accordingly.
    • Relative discard RSSI time —Enter the time, in minutes, after which the RSSI measurement should be considered obsolete and discarded from use in location calculations. This time is from the most recent RSSI sample, and not an absolute time. For example, if this value is set to 3 minutes, and two samples are received at 10 minutes and 12 minutes, both the samples will be retained. However, an additional sample received at 15 minutes will be discarded. We recommend that you do not modify this parameter without the guidance of Cisco Technical Support.
    • Absolute discard RSSI time —Enter the time, in minutes, after which the RSSI measurement should be considered obsolete and discarded from use in location calculations regardless of the most recent sample. We recommend that you do not modify this parameter without the guidance of Cisco Technical Support.
    • RSSI cutoff —Enter the RSSI cutoff value in dBM at which you want the server to discard AP measurements. We recommend that you do not modify this parameter without the guidance of Cisco Technical Support.

You can also set the following Movement Detection Parameters :

    • Individual RSSI change threshold —Enter a threshold in dBM beyond which you want individual RSSI movement recalculation to be triggered. We recommend that you do not modify this parameter without the guidance of Cisco Technical Support.
    • Aggregated RSSI change threshold —Specify the Aggregated RSSI movement recalculation trigger threshold. We recommend that you do not modify this parameter without the guidance of Cisco Technical Support.
    • Many new RSSI change percentage threshold —Specify the trigger threshold recalculation (as a percentage) for many new RSSI changes. We recommend that you do not modify this parameter without the guidance of Cisco Technical Support.
    • Many missing RSSI percentage threshold —Specify the trigger threshold recalculation (as a percentage) for many missing RSSI changes. We recommend that you do not modify this parameter without the guidance of Cisco Technical Support.

Step 5 Click Save.

 

Configuring the Mail Server for Notifications

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose System > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 Click the Gear icon at the top right corner of the page.

The Deault luster Settings dialog box is displayed.

Step 4 Click the Mail Server tab.

Here, you can configure the following:

    • Name —Mail server name.
    • Email Address — Email address of the mail server host.
    • Server —Mail server URL.
    • Port —Port number for the mails. The default is port 25.
    • Authentication —Option to enable or disable email authentication.
    • SSL —Option to enable or disable email security with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to prevent third-parties from potentially viewing your email messages.
    • TLS —Option to enable or disable email secured with Transport Layer Security (TLS).

Step 5 To test your settings, click Test Settings, and then click Send e-mail.

Step 6 Click Save to save your settings if the test is successful.

 

Viewing System Summary Metrics

The System Summary Metrics page displays the following information:

  • Number of Active Clients
  • Number of NMSP messages processed by the system per second, in the last one minute.
  • Overall CPU usage metrics
  • Overall memory usage metrics
  • Overall disk usage metrics

To view the System Summary metrics:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Metrics.

The System Summary tab in the left panel is selected by default, and the corresponding details are displayed.

 

Alternatively, to view the System Summary metrics from the Dashboard:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 In the Services column, click the Configuration, Location Heatmap Engine, NMSP Load Balancer, or Proxy icons to view the System Summary metrics.

 

Tip Hover your cursor over the metrics and graphs for descriptions and details.

Viewing CMX Node Metrics

The metrics page for a Cisco CMX node displays the following information:

  • Number of active clients
  • Location latency time
  • Number of incoming and outgoing NMSP messages
  • Number of controllers
  • Number of location servers
  • CPU usage metrics for each service
  • Memory usage metrics for each service
  • Disk IO metrics
  • Disk usage metrics

To view the node metrics for a Cisco CMX node:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Metrics.

Step 3 In the left panel, click the Cisco CMX node name to view the metrics for that node.

 

Alternatively, to view the node metrics from the Dashboard:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 In the Node column, click a Cisco CMX node name to see the metrics details for that node.

 

Tip Hover your cursor over the metrics and graphs for descriptions and details.

Viewing Database Metrics

The Database Metrics page displays the following metrics:

  • Database size
  • Number of open connections
  • Number of queries

To view the database metrics:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Metrics.

Step 3 In the left panel, click Database Metrics.

 

Alternatively, to view the database metrics from the Dashboard:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 In the Services column, click the Database icon.

 

Tip Hover your cursor over the metrics and graphs for descriptions and details.

Viewing Cache Metrics

The Cache Metrics page displays the following metrics:

  • Blocked connections
  • Connected clients
  • Used memory
  • Evicted keys

To view the cache metrics:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Metrics.

Step 3 In the left menu, click Cache Metrics.

 

Alternatively, to view the cache metrics from the Dashboard:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 In the Services column, click the Cache icon.

 

Tip Hover your cursor over the metrics and graphs for descriptions and details.

Viewing Location Metrics

The Location Metrics page displays the following metrics for each Cisco CMX node:

  • Location counts
  • Location rates—The rate of Network Mobility Service Protocol (NMSP) messages coming in to the NMSP Load Balancer.
  • Location times—The location calculation time includes the mathematical portion of the location computation, and in most cases, is about 10 to 20 ms. The location latency is the total time of latency computation from when the message comes from NMSPLB to location, aggregation, creating cache, and calculation.
  • NMSPLB—The rate of NMSP messages outgoing from the NSMPLB to the location services.

To view the location metrics:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Metrics.

Step 3 In the left panel, click Location Metrics.

 

Alternatively, to view the location metrics page from the dashboard:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 In the Services column, click the Location icon.

 

Tip Hover your cursor over the metrics and graphs for descriptions and details.

Viewing Analytics Notification Metrics

The analytics notification metrics show the most important performance indicators relating to the Analytics service. A notification is sent from the Location service to the Analytics service when significant movement is detected from a device. Each notification contains an update on the location of a single device.

The analytics notification metrics displays the following metrics for each Cisco CMX node:

  • Notification processing time —The average time taken to process an incoming notification. This time will depend on a number of factors, but most notably the size of the network, that is, the number of buildings, floors, zones, tags, and so on. This metric is relatively stable although you can expect peaks when the system is starting up.
  • Notification queue size —The size of the queue for incoming notifications. Incoming notifications are queued before being processed. Depending on the system load, the Location service will send the notifications in batches. Therefore, you can always expect a queue of size greater than 0. This mechanism may also result in a very irregular graph at some zoom levels, that is, one with many ups and downs. This is the expected behavior.

The queue size is expected to rise when the incoming rate increases. If it continues to grow, you will begin to see dropped notifications in the Notification dropped rate metric.

  • Notification dropped rate —The size of the queue for incoming notifications is limited. Hence, if the queue gets too big, notifications will be rejected. The Notification dropped rate graph shows how many notifications are rejected per second. Ideally, you require this chart to show a flat line of 0. If it does not show 0, you should consider adding another server to the cluster for running the Analytics service. This will distribute the load over the two servers.
  • Notification incoming rate —This is the number of notifications received by the Analytics service per second. This trend should roughly equal the client count, that is, the more clients are detected by the Location service, the more notifications are expected. However, the trend is also influenced by the clients' movement rates because notifications are only sent when the location of a device changes.

To view the Analytics notification metrics:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Metrics.

Step 3 In the left panel, click Analytics Notification Metrics.

 

Alternatively, to view the Analytics notification metrics from the Dashboard:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Dashboard.

The System at a Glance page is displayed.

Step 3 In the Services column, click the Analytics icon.

 

Tip Hover your cursor over the metrics and graphs for descriptions and details.

Viewing Patterns

The Patterns page shows the pattern of a specific feature such as client count, unique devices, and so on over the week for a selected time period. For example, if you select client count for the last 1 month, it shows which days/times of the week had the most client counts in the last 1 month.

  • Client Count —Displays the total devices seen at a given time.
  • Unique Devices —Displays the cumulative count of devices seen on a single day.
  • Location Calculation Time —Displays the average amount of time, in ms, taken by the Location algorithm to calculate a client's location.
  • Incoming Rate —Displays the number of NMSP messages received from the NMSP load balancer.
  • iOS8 Devices —Displays the number of Apple iOS 8 devices.
  • CPU Usage —Displays the percentage of used CPU on a per-node basis.
  • Memory Usage —Displays the percentage of used memory on a per-node basis.
  • Dropped Notifications
  • NMSP LB Read Operations
  • Redis Connections Received

To view patterns:

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose SYSTEM > Patterns.

The Patterns page is displayed.

Step 3 From the Select Criteria drop-down list, choose the criteria for which you want to view pattern data.

Step 4 From the Select Date Range drop-down list, choose the time frame for the criteria pattern.

Step 5 Optionally, from the Select Server drop-down list, choose the Cisco CMX node for which you want pattern data to be displayed. By default, the pattern data for all the Cisco CMX nodes in a cluster is displayed.

 

Viewing Live System Alerts

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Mobile Connected Experiences (Cisco CMX).

Step 2 Choose System > Alerts.

Step 3 In the Live Alerts page that is displayed, sort the alerts By Severity, By Node, or By Service, using the drop-down list at the top right corner.

To dismiss an alert, in the Actions column adjacent the corresponding node name, click the Dismiss icon.