Web Activities (Time View)

PerformanceGuard normally collects data on a TCP packet-basis, but if your organization has defined Web Applications, you can dig further down into web requests and return information about specific elements, such as URLs, cookies, etc.

Tip

This graph is useful because … you can check how long it takes for computers on all or individual parts of your organization to get responses when they make web requests. This can help you verify how efficiently users are able to work with web-based applications.

The Transactions graph (ANALYZE > Graphs > Time View > Transactions) helps you with this.

• Transaction filter: Select required transaction filter.

Important

What's a transaction filter?

It’s a definition of things to look out for in a web request—for example images so that you can measure how long it takes before all images on a web page are available for the user to view in his or her browser. Transaction filters are very flexible: PerformanceGuard administrators can define more or less any element of a web request as a thing to look out for.

Important

What does the prefix mean?

The prefix tells you about the type of transaction filter: IE is aimed at Internet Explorer. It monitors web requests as they are experienced in that browser. HTTP monitors directly on the network interface rather than in the browser. Response times for the HTTP type are thus often slightly lower than for the IE type.

• Server & Port: Select required server and port combination. You can only select server/port combinations for which the selected transaction filter is defined.
• Agents: Select the group of computers that the graph should be based on. Super groups, that is groups of groups, are enclosed in <>.
• Y-axis Min and Max: Enter the required range for the graph’s vertical axis. If you leave the fields empty, the range will automatically reflect the minimum and maximum values found in the data.
• Type: Determines which type of data the graph will contain. You can view descriptions of the available types in Graph Terms and Definitions.
• Hide thresholds …: Only relevant for one type of data: Transaction response time.

For such data, a threshold—that is a baseline that the displayed values must ideally be below—can be displayed as a horizontal line in the graph when:

1. • Your PerformanceGuard administrator has defined such thresholds
   • You have selected one tag in the Transactions field (if you have selected multiple tags, threshold display is not available, because thresholds can be different across tags)

You may sometimes see more than one threshold on a graph. This is because your PerformanceGuard administrator is able to set up multiple thresholds for the same type of data. This can be useful in order to indicate different severities, for example if values above 80 are acceptable for short periods of time, whereas values above 90 require immediate attention.

On the graph each threshold has a name, so it is easy for you to see what the threshold is about.

Display of thresholds is by default on. When you generate or view a graph, you can toggle threshold display off by selecting Hide thresholds. This can be useful, for example if you think that  a threshold blocks your view of the graph’s data points.

If a graph has thresholds, the thresholds will also appear if you use the graph in a report, except when they’re hidden.

Caution

Displayed thresholds are always the currently valid ones.

• Transaction: Select one or more transaction tags from the selected transaction filter. To select multiple tags, press CTRL on your keyboard while you select.

Important

What's a transaction tag?

The PerformanceGuard agents installed on your organization’s computers look out for the things that your transaction filter specifies. When an agent detects one of those things, it generates a transaction tag and sends it to PerformanceGuard so that you are able to select it when you want to view a transaction graph or create SLA items. In other words, a transaction tag is a thing to look out for that one or more agents have positively found.

Important

What if there are no tags to select?

If there are no tags to select, it’s simply because none of the selected computers have made a web request that matches the selected transaction filter. When no computers have made such web requests, the PerformanceGuard agents on the computers have not yet generated any transaction tags, and that’s the reason why there are not any tags that you can select.

• Interval: Select the period of time that the graph should cover. If the predefined intervals don’t suit you, select Custom to Custom Time Periods on Graphs.
• Disconnect samples: The samples in the graph will by default be Automatic. If you don’t want this you can select Connect All  or set them to Disconnect All .
  
  Connected samples
  
  Disconnected samples

Caution

When you view the graph, you’ll also see a Statistics table below the graph. Note that the Statistics table shows the weighted average for the graph’s samples. That means that each value to be averaged is assigned a weight based on the number of occurrences of that value.

Tip

In the PerformanceGuard web interface you can also Web Activities (Time View) in transaction response times, availability, etc. Furthermore, you can Compare Web Activities.