Technical Blog Post
Abstract
Long term history collection and reporting in APM V8
Body
One of the frequently asked questions from IBM Tivoli Monitoring V6.3 (ITM) user community is about reports functionality in APM V8 (IBM Cloud Application Performance Management). The objective of this blog entry is to answer these questions and provide references to get more information on this topic.
Objective
We will discuss the following questions in this blog entry:
1) Does APM provide long term history collection for agent data?
2) Does APM have views and reports similar to the historical views of Tivoli Enterprise Portal (TEP) and Tivoli Common Reporting (TCR) reports?
3) Can we use ITM TCR reports to generate reports for APM V8 agents?
4) What are the limitations of long term history and reporting through integration with Tivoli?
Environment
1) Does APM provide long term history collection for agent data?
APM retains up to 8 days of performance data for agents by default. Starting with APM V8.1.4 this retention period is configurable to up to 32 days.
This historical data can be used to display in the dashboard in following ways:
1.1 Dashboard "Compare to" option
To compare current data with data from prior dates in agent widgets. This is done by using "Compare to" from dashboard and selecting a day from last 8 days (configurable to 32 days) from the calendar presented. A screenshot (1) of this feature is included below, it shows calendar that allows you to select one of prior 8 days to compare with.
Screenshot 1: "Compare to" a prior date example
1.2 Custom Views can be used to display up to 24 hours of data for last 8 days (up to 32 days):
As shown in the screenshot, you can create custom views to select a prior date (8 to 32 days prior as per configuration), select (end) Time and select interval of up to last 24 hours. Custom view can be exported to a pdf or in a raw data format.
Screenshot 2: Custom View example
1.3 References
Refer to following documentation links for additional information on APM functionality discussed in this section:
Managing historical data retention values
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSHLNR_8.1.4/com.ibm.pm.doc/install/admin_history_config.html
Historical data retention scripts
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSHLNR_8.1.4/com.ibm.pm.doc/install/admin_history_scripts.html
Adjusting and comparing metrics over time
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSHLNR_8.1.4/com.ibm.pm.doc/install/dash_timeselector_change.html
Custom Views
2) Does APM have views and reports similar to the historical views of TEP and TCR reports?
As discussed in section 1), the historical data retention is limited to 32 days and display is possible in a limited way using comparison and custom views.
Unlike ITM V6.3 views where user can select the time span, the APM V8 product does not provide a trending of attributes over multiple days. Also, ITM provides TCR reports for agents, but there are no APM provided reports for APM agents.
3) Can we use ITM TCR reports to generate reports for APM V8 agents?
You can integrate APM with ITM and then enable long term history collection for certain APM agents . This allows the APM agents to send data to the Warehouse Proxy Agent (WPA) and WPA writes to Tivoli Data Warehouse database (TDW).
After this you will be able to use ITM TCR reports to get reports for the APM agents. Please review information below for steps involved and the limitations.
NOTE: Integration with ITM for long term history collection through Tivoli Data Warehouse is only available in APM on-premise environments. This feature is not available for APM SaaS environments.
3.1 APM package apm_advanced_8.1.4.0 (Part number CNM44ML) includes following three reports:
Response Time Monitoring Agent Reports (not available in IBM® Cloud Application Performance Management, Base Private)
Monitoring Agent for WebSphere® Applications Reports
Monitoring Agent for Synthetic Playback Reports (not available in IBM Cloud Application Performance Management, Base Private)
To install these reports use procedure documented at following link:
Configuring historical data collection for Performance Management agents
3.2 Documentation for integrating APM with ITM 6.3 for long term history collection can be found at links provided below:
Tivoli Data Warehouse for historical reporting
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSHLNR_8.1.4/com.ibm.pm.doc/install/integ_tdw_intro.html
Eligible Cloud APM agents for historical data collection
4) What are the limitations of long term history and reporting through integration with Tivoli Data Warehouse?
The long term history collection is limited to the agents which also exist in ITM. Some important points are listed below:
4.1 Configuration of history data collection for APM agents must be done manually, GUI not available.
Configuring historical data collection for Performance Management agents
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSHLNR_8.1.4/com.ibm.pm.doc/install/integ_tdw_config.html
4.2 The TDW integration is available only for agents that also exist in Tivoli Monitoring. Only the data sets (attribute groups) that are also available in Tivoli Monitoring can be sent to Tivoli Data Warehouse.
Eligible Cloud APM agents for historical data collection
4.3 Minimum supported and verified releases are: ITM 6.3 FP2 and APM 8.1.3.
4.4 APM Agents must have connectivity to ITM Warehouse Proxy Agent server.
4.5 APM v8 only columns will get added to existing TDW table by WPA.
4.6 ITM6.3 TCR reports will NOT include APM V8 only attributes
4.7 Refer to following instruction video of this feature:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLanXhuDCRA
This concludes discussion of this topic.
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