Logging and Aging Data for Reporting

Config Rollup lets you define the number of days that different kinds of report data is stored in the SQL report database before it's automatically deleted by the Rollup and Aging daemon "dbrolld". In this chapter you'll find out how to edit aging parameters to suit your reporting and database administration needs.

Understanding Database Aging

The Aging parameters you define determine two things: the minimum utilization percentage required to log information to the database, and the number of days protocol, segment, host, and conversation information resides in the detail and summary database tables.By specifying a minimum utilization percentage parameter, you define what level of protocol usage must reach or exceed for information is logged to Host and Conversation databases. This way, you can define the utilization percentages that are significant to you.

Modifying Aging and Minimum Utilization Parameters

You can specify the number of days you want to keep detail and summary data for each statistic type--protocol, summary, host, and conversation-- before it's automatically deleted by the dbrolld daemon. For example, you may want to keep daily or monthly summary data to use for long term trend monitoring; to do this you would specify 365 days for summary aging. On the other hand, you may only want to keep detail data for several days and delete it on a weekly basis; to do this, you'd specify 7 days for detail aging. You can customize these parameters for each statistic type using the following procedure.

Step 1 Launch TrafficDirector, if you haven't already done so. Click the Admin radio button to display the Admin level of the TrafficDirector main window.

Step 2 Click the Config Rollup icon.

The Configure Rollup window (Figure 50-1) is displayed. Note that all fields are set to the TrafficDirector default values.

Figure 50-1: Configure Rollup Window

Step 3 Under the Detail Aging heading, specify the number of days (greater than or equal to 1) that you wantTrafficDirector to save the information in the following database tables:

• Protocol.

• Segment.

• Host.

• Conversation.

Step 4 Under the Summary Aging heading, specify the number of days (greater than or equal to 1) that you want TrafficDirector to save the information in the following database tables:

• Protocol.

• Segment.

• Host.

• Conversation.

Step 5 Under the Minimum Utilization% for inclusion in heading, do the following:

• In the Host field, specify a minimum utilization value that must be reached or exceeded to log host information to the Host database.

• In the Conversation field, specify a minimum utilization value that must be reached or exceeded to log conversation information to the Conversation database.

Step 6 Click Apply to save and apply these aging parameters, or click Cancel to cancel and reset all fields.

Daemons and Database Administration

Daemons are the processes used by TrafficDirector to collect raw data from your network probes, process it into usable data for reporting, and sort it into tables in the SQL report database.

• Snapshot daemon. This daemon retrieves snapshots of raw statistics from agents and stores them in a snapshot table. The kind of information the snapshot daemon collects and the rate that it collects it are determined by logging parameters that you configure in the agent.

• Extraction daemon. This daemon retrieves information from the snapshot table and uses it to create rows in the details table.

• Rollup & Aging daemon. This daemon gets information from the details table to create new rows in the summary table, and it also deletes or "ages out" obsolete information from the detail and summary tables at intervals that you define using Config Rollup.