Example: comparing metric traces on the same device or interface over different time periods

Use the custom dashboard that contains the two Top Performers widgets to compare metric traces on the same device or interface over different time periods; for example, you might see a spike in the current raw data trace for a metric such as snmpInBandwidth on a specific interface. To determine if this is just an isolated spike or a more serious ongoing issue, you can, on the same dashboard, also display a trace for the same snmpInBandwidth metric on the same interface over a longer time period, such as the last day or last week, and then visually determine if there have been continual incidences of high snmpInBandwidth on this interface over the last day or week.

1. In the Network Views widget, select a network view.
   The two Top Performers widgets update to show data for the selected network view.
2. From each of the Top Performers widgets, click the Metric drop-down list and select a metric of interest; for example snmpInBandwidth. Select the same metric on both Top Performers widgets; this ensures that the top entity in both chart is always the same.
3. In one of the Top Performers widgets, click the top bar to show the trace for the entity with the top value in that chart.
   This displays a time-based trace of current raw data for the snmpInBandwidth metric.
4. In the other Top Performers widget, click the top bar to show the trace for the entity with the top value in that chart.
   You are now showing the identical time trace in both widgets.
5. In the second Top Performers widget, change the timeframe; for example, click Last Day.
   You are now showing a current raw data trace of snmpInBandwidth data in the first widget, and a trace of the last day's worth of snmpInBandwidth data for the same interface in the second widget, and you can compare the more transient raw data in the first widget with data averages over last day.