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The TrafficDirector Trend Reporter application lets you generate a wide range of reports that you can use to do the following:
| Identify usage patterns | Segment and multisegment summaries, usage reports, and host and conversation reports help you get a clear idea of the percentage and nature of network utilization. |
| Gauge network health | Network availability, WAN usage, router backbone usage, and network response time reports are a few of the reports you can use to diagnose the well-being and typical activity of your network. |
| Count the cost | With billing reports, you can see how much your organization is spending with a host-by-host or departmental breakdown of cost per kilobyte for a specified period of time. |
You select and use report templates (defined with the TrafficDirector Report Editor application) to generate reports in Trend Reporter. Report Editor is a separate application that you use to edit and define report templates that determine how information is presented in a report. The report title, headers and footers, sort order, and exception parameters are defined in a report template file. To use report templates to generate reports, you must first specify an additional set of report parameters called Report Details in Trend Reporter.
You can use Trend Reporter to specify the following report details: report start and end times, display resolution, report database, and report output format. For history reports, you can also specify time intervals.
Before you can use Trend Reporter to generate reports, several agent and server configuration tasks must be completed to ensure that the data you want is logged and stored to an SQL database that Trend Reporter can access and read. You will find more information about agent and SQL server configuration tasks in Chapter 31, Alert Monitor.
This section describes some of the steps that go into getting ready for network trend reporting.
Report templates are report configuration files that contain parameters that define what information will be included in a report, and how that information is presented. Several predefined report templates are available when you install TrafficDirector. Using the Report Editor application, you can create new report templates that contain display, sort, or other parameters specific to your monitoring needs.
The following list of report types gives you an idea of what you can expect from each report type for the interval you specify.
| Segment Summary | Three individual graphs that show packet type, packet size, and errors in reference to total utilization for one segment. |
| Segment History | Historical view of packet type and utilization, packet size, and errors for one segment. |
| Multi-Segment Summary | Individual statistics for one or more segments of the same topology. |
| Multi-Segment History | Historical view of individual statistics for one or more segments of the same topology. |
| Multi-Segment History Mix | Historical view of individual statistics for one or more segments of mixed topologies. |
| Protocol Usage | Historical view of packets or utilization for one or more protocols or applications running on the segment. |
| Protocol Distribution | Packet, octet, and utilization statistics on the protocols defined in a hierarchical protocol tree. |
| Conversation Summary | Packet or utilization statistics for the conversations on one segment. |
| Conversation History | Historical view of packet or utilization statistics for the conversations on one segment. |
| Host Summary | Packet or utilization statistics for the hosts or departments on one segment. |
| Host History | Historical view of packet or utilization statistics for the hosts or departments on one segment. |
| Host Outbound | Detailed packet and utilization statistics on outbound traffic of hosts or departments on one segment. |
| Host Verbose | Detailed packet, error, and utilization statistics on hosts or departments on one segment. |
| DLCI Usage | Packet or utilization statistics for the DLCIs on a Frame Relay link. |
| WAN Usage | Packet or utilization statistics, in both directions over the WAN link. DLCIs are shown individually for a Frame Relay link. |
| VLAN Usage | Packet or utilization statistics for VLAN ports on two switches connected by a Fast Ethernet link. |
| Router Backbone Usage | Packet and utilization statistics for all interfaces of the router. For use with NetFlow option. |
| Billing | Amount and cost of outgoing traffic for each department, host, or both, on a segment. |
| FR Network Availability Summary | Percentage of Frame Relay link down time. |
| FR Network Availability History | Historical view of the percentage of Frame Relay link down time. |
| Round Trip Delay History | Historical view of the response time of one or more nodes on one segment. |
Certain report types, like certain TrafficDirector real-time monitoring applications, are valid only for particular agent and domain combinations. Some reports reflect statistics for only a single agent, switch port, or DLCI. Other reports are designed to show statistics for multiple segments; for these reports, you can specify multiple agents. Still other reports let you look at statistics logged against a number of generic domains or protocol domains. Table 40-1 lists the valid agent and domain combinations you can specify for each report type available in Trend Reporter.
| Report Template | Number of Agents | Number of Domains |
|---|---|---|
| Segment Summary/History | 1 | One generic domain only |
| Multi-Segment Summary/ History | 20 | One generic domain only |
| Multi-Segment History Mix | 20 | One protocol or RMON domain only |
| Protocol Usage | 1 | Up to 20 protocol domains |
| Protocol Distribution | 1 | References domains defined in the domtree.inf file |
| Conversation History/Summary | 1 | One domain, either protocol or generic |
| Host Summary/History/ Outbound/Verbose | 1 | One domain, either protocol or generic |
| DLCI Usage | 1 | One domain, either protocol or generic |
| WAN Usage | 10 | One protocol domain or RMON domain only |
| VLAN Usage | 1 | One domain, either protocol or generic |
| Router Backbone Usage | 1 | One generic domain |
| Billing | 1 | One domain, either protocol or generic |
| FR Network Availability History/Summary | 20 | One generic domain only |
| Round Trip Delay History | 1 | RMON domain only |
An exception report shows you, for a selected statistic, only the instances above or below a value you specify. You can use exception reports to determine what, if any, thresholds you may want to set and monitor. For example, you might want to view utilization only when it exceeds or falls below a certain percentage.
If a particular segment shows utilization consistently greater than 85 percent, you may want to take a closer look at the source, shift traffic to another resource, and set utilization traps on that particular segment. You can run exception reports using the Multi-Segment History report template.
You generate exception reports using Trend Reporter just like you would any other report--the difference is you must define a report template that contains the exception variables you want to use.
In addition to displaying report results, Trend Reporter gives you the option of outputting the report in several different ways. You can output to a file, append to a file, and print the report results directly to a printer. You can also output reports directly to electronic mail. When you finish, you can save the report file for later use, generate it now, or add it to the Auto Report Scheduler to be generated at regular intervals in the future.
To launch Trend Reporter from any level of the TrafficDirector main window, take the following steps:
Step 1 Launch TrafficDirector, if you have not already done so.
Step 2 Click the Trend Reporter icon.
Step 3 Select the agent or segment for which you want to generate the report by doing the following:
Step 4 Select the domain(s) that you want to report against from the Domains list.
Step 5 Select the report template from the Report Templates list.
Step 6 Click Database and select one of the following:
Step 7 To control the number of intervals displayed in History reports, click the Display Resolution and select a resolution interval.
Step 8 Click Output to and select from the following output options:
Step 9 Click Name to display the Output Name dialog, then enter a new or existing filename in the Save field to save or append the report to a file.
Step 10 Do the following:
Step 11 To save the report, select File>Save As.
The Save As dialog opens. Enter a name for the report file in the Name field. Trend Reporter automatically appends a *.rr extension to the filename you specify.
Step 12 Click OK to save the file, or click Cancel to close the Save As dialog without saving the file.
The procedures in this section describes how to use Trend Reporter to define, save, and generate reports. To generate a report, select the agent, domain, report template, report detail information, and start and end times that you want, and run the report. Trend Reporter lets you select resolution, database table, and report output format.
Use the Auto Report Scheduler to quickly set up the reports that you want to run on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Add the reports to the auto report job schedule, and Trend Reporter automatically runs the reports (or "jobs") at the interval you specify until you remove them from the schedule.
To define, generate, and save reports, take the following steps:
Step 1 Click the Trend Reporter icon to launch Trend Reporter, if you have not already done so.
Step 2 Define the report. See "Choosing Predefined Report Templates."
Step 3 Select Run Report>Generate Now.
Trend Reporter generates the report and outputs in the manner you selected.
Step 4 Do either of the following:
You may want to save report detail files and run them again from the command line. When you save report files, Trend Reporter automatically appends an *.rr extension to the filename to distinguish it from report template files that end in a *.rt extension. Report files are saved to the $NSHOME/usr directory by default.
To save any ready-to-run report file, take the following steps:
Step 1 Select File>Save As.
Step 2 Enter a name for the file in the Name field.
Step 3 Click OK to save the file, or Cancel to close the Save As dialog without saving the file.
You can use the Trend Reporter Auto Report Scheduler to automatically run reports at regular intervals. Regular and consistent reports help you establish long term plans for network expansion and resource allocation. The auto report schedule is in the autorpt.cfg file. All auto reports begin and end at midnight. In other words, daily reports run for 24 hours from 12:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m, weekly reports start at 12:00 a.m. Sunday and end at 12:00 a.m. the following Sunday, and monthly reports start at 12:00 a.m. on the first day of the month and end at 12:00 a.m. on the first of the following month.
Every time you add a report to the schedule, Trend Reporter saves the report template name, the report details that you specified, and the run intervals to the autorpt.cfg file. This file is used by the auto reporter daemon to generate reports for the intervals you select.
To view currently scheduled reports, take the following steps:
Step 1 Click the Trend Reporter icon to launch Trend Reporter, if you have not already done so.
Step 2 Select AutoReport>View Schedule>Remove Job.
The Auto Report Schedule window opens. Currently defined auto report jobs are displayed in the upper list box.
Step 3 Do one of the following:
When adding reports, you can choose from daily, weekly, or monthly intervals. To add any report to the Auto Report Scheduler, take the following steps:
Step 1 Launch Trend Reporter, if you have not already done so. See "Launching Trend Reporter".
Step 2 Define the report file parameters. See "Choosing Predefined Report Templates."
Step 3 Enter a filename in the Name field.
Step 4 Select Auto Reports>Run.
The Auto Report Generation window opens.
Step 5 Select daily, weekly, or monthly as the intervals for this report to be generated.
Step 6 Click Add to add the report file to the auto report schedule then click OK to confirm.
To remove a report from the auto report schedule, take the following steps:
Step 1 Launch Trend Reporter, if you have not already done so. See "Launching Trend Reporter."
Step 2 Select AutoReport>View Schedule>Remove Job.
The Auto Report Schedule window opens.
Step 3 Select a report from the upper list box.
Step 4 Click Delete.
Step 5 Click Yes to delete the report, or click No to close the box without deleting the report.
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