Cisco Prime Network Registrar 11.1 Caching and Authoritative DNS User Guide
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The Cisco Prime
Network Registrar server status dashboard in the web user interface (web UI)
presents a graphical view of the system status, using graphs, charts, and
tables, to help in tracking and diagnosis. These dashboard elements are
designed to convey system information in an organized and consolidated way, and
include:
Significant
protocol server and other metrics
Alarms and alerts
Database
inventories
Server health
trends
The dashboard is best
used in a troubleshooting desk context, where the system displaying the
dashboard is dedicated for that purpose and might be distinct from the systems
running the protocol servers. The dashboard system should point its browser to
the system running the protocol servers.
You should interpret
dashboard indicators in terms of deviations from your expected normal usage
pattern. If you notice unusual spikes or drops in activity, there could be
communication failures or power outages on the network that you need to
investigate.
Opening the
Dashboard
The Dashboard feature is available on the regional cluster also. It provides System Metrics chart by default. It allows you
to display the server specific (DHCP, DNS, and CDNS) charts for various clusters. This can be configured in the Chart Selections
page.
To open the dashboard
in the web UI, from the
Operate menu,
choose
Dashboard.
Display
Types
Provided you have DNS and Caching DNS privileges through administrator roles assigned to you, the preset display of the dashboard
consists of the following tables (See the table below for an example):
System Metrics—See the "System Metrics" section in Cisco Prime Network Registrar 11.1 Administration Guide.
These are just the preset selections. See Selecting Dashboard Elements to Include for other dashboard elements you can select. The dashboard retains your selections from session to session.
Figure 1. Preset Dashboard Elements
Each dashboard
element initially appears as a table or a specific panel chart, depending on
the element:
Note the green
indicator in the Server State description in the above image. This indicates
that the server sourcing the information is functioning normally. A yellow
indicator indicates that server operation is less than optimum. A red indicator
indicates that the server is down. These indicators are the same as for the
server health on the Manage Servers page in the regular web UI.
Graphic Indicators
for Levels of Alert
Graphed lines and
stacked areas in the charts follow a standard color and visual coding so that
you can immediately determine key diagnostic indicators at a glance. The charts
use the following color and textural indicators:
Highalertsorwarnings—Lines or areas in red, with a hatched
texture.
Allotherindicators—Lines or areas in various other colors
distinguish the data elements. The charts do not use green or yellow.
Magnifying and
Converting Charts
You can magnify a chart in a separate window by clicking the Chart Link icon at the bottom of the panel chart and then by clicking the Magnified Chart option (see the image below). In magnified chart view, you can choose an alternative chart type from the one that comes up
initially (see Other Chart Types).
Figure 2. Magnifying Charts
Note
Automatic refresh is turned off for magnified charts. To get the most recent data, click the Refresh icon next to the word Dashboard at the top left of the page.
To convert a chart to a table, see the Displaying Charts as Tables section. You cannot convert tables to a graphic chart format.
Legends
Each chart includes
a color-coded legend by default.
Tables
Dashboard elements
rendered as tables have data displayed in rows and columns. The following
dashboard elements are preset to consist of (or include) tables:
DHCP DNS Updates
DHCP Address Current Utilization
DHCP General Indicators
DNS General Indicators
Caching DNS General Indicators
Note
If you view a table
in Expert mode, additional data might appear.
Line Charts
Dashboard elements
rendered as line charts can include one or more lines plotted against the x and
y axes. The three types of line charts are described in the following table.
Lines plotted
against the difference between two sequential raw data.
DNS Inbound Zone Transfers
DNS Outbound Zone Transfers
Rate line
chart
Lines plotted
against the difference between two sequential raw data divided by the sample
time between them.
DHCP Server Request Activity (see the image below)
DHCP Server Response Activity
DHCP Response Latency
DNS Query Responses
DNS Forwarding Errors
Tip
To get the raw data for a chart that shows delta or rate data, enter Expert mode, go to the required chart, click the Chart Link icon at the bottom of the panel chart, and then click Data Table . The Raw Data table is below the Chart Data table.
Figure 3. Line Chart Example
Area Charts
Dashboard elements
rendered as area charts have multiple related metrics plotted as trend charts,
but stacked one on top of the other, so that the highest point represents a
cumulative value. The values are independently shaded in contrasting colors.
(See the image below for an example of the DHCP Server Request Activity chart
shown in
Line Chart Example
rendered as an area chart.)
Figure 4. Area Chart Example
They are stacked in
the order listed in the legend, the left-most legend item at the bottom of the
stack and the right-most legend item at the top of the stack. The dashboard
elements that are pre-set to area chart are:
DHCP Buffer Capacity
DHCP Failover Status
DHCP Response Latency
DHCP Server Leases Per Second
DHCP Server Request Activity
DHCP Server Response Activity
DNS Inbound Zone Transfers
DNS Network Errors
DNS Outbound Zone Transfers
DNS Queries Per Second
DNS Related Server Errors
Other Chart
Types
The other chart types
available for you to choose are:
Line—One of the line charts described in Line Charts.
Column—Displays vertical bars going across the chart horizontally, with the values axis being displayed on the left side of the
chart.
Scatter—A scatter plot is a type of plot or mathematical diagram using Cartesian coordinates to display values for typically two
variables for a set of data.
Tip
Each chart type
shows the data in distinct ways and in different interpretations. You can
decide which type best suits your needs.
Getting Help for the
Dashboard Elements
You can open a help
window for each dashboard element by clicking the help icon on the table/chart
window.
Customizing the Display
To customize the dashboard display, you can:
Refresh the data and set an automatic refresh interval.
Expand a chart and render it in a different format.
Convert a graphic chart to a table.
Download data to comma-separated value (CSV) output.
Display or hide chart legends.
Configure server chart types.
Reset to default display
Each chart supports:
Resizing
Drag and drop to new cell position
Minimizing
Closing
Each chart has a help icon with a description of the chart and a detailed help if you click the link (more...) at the bottom
of the description.
Note
The changes made to the dashboard/chart will persist only if you click Save in the Dashboard window.
Refreshing Displays
Refresh each display so that it picks up the most recent polling by clicking the Refresh icon.
Setting the Polling Interval
You can set how often to poll for data. Click the Dashboard Settings icon in the
upper-right corner of the dashboard display. There are four options to set the
polling interval of the cached data, which polls the protocol servers for updates
(See the image below).
Figure 5. Setting the Chart Polling Interval
You can set the cached data polling (hence, automatic refresh) interval to:
Disabled—Does not poll, therefore does not automatically refresh the data.
Slow—Refreshes the data every 30 seconds.
Medium—Refreshes the data every 20 seconds.
Fast (the preset value)—Refreshes the data every 10 seconds.
Displaying Charts as Tables
Use the Chart Link icon at the bottom of the panel chart to view the chart link options (see the image below). You can choose to display a graphic
chart as a table by clicking the Data Table option.
Figure 6. Specifying Chart Conversion to Table Format
Exporting to CSV Format
You can dump the chart data to a comma-separated value (CSV) file (such as a spreadsheet). In the Chart Link controls at the
bottom of the panel charts (see the above image), click the CSVExport option. A Save As window appears, where you can specify the name and location of the CSV file.
Selecting Dashboard
Elements to Include
You can decide how many dashboard elements you want to display on the page. At times, you might want to focus on one server
activity only, such as for the DHCP server or the DNS server, and exclude all other metrics for the other servers. In this
way, the dashboard becomes less crowded, the elements are larger and more readable. At other times, you might want an overview
of all server activities, with a resulting smaller element display.
You can select the
dashboard elements to display from the main Dashboard page by clicking the
Dashboard Settings icon and then clicking
ChartSelections in the Dashboard Settings dialog.
Clicking the link opens the Chart Selection page (see
Selecting Dashboard Elements).
Configuring Server
Chart Types
You can set the
default chart types on the main dashboard view. You can customize the server
charts in the dashboard to display only the specific chart types as default.
To set up default
chart type, check the check box corresponding to the Metrics chart that you
want to display and choose a chart type from the
Type drop-down
list. The default chart types are consistent and shared across different user
sessions (see the image below).
Note
You can see either
the CDNS or DNS Metrics in the
Dashboard
Settings >
Chart Selection
page based on the service configured on the server.
Tip
The order in which
the dashboard elements appear in the Chart Selection list does not necessarily
determine the order in which the elements will appear on the page. An algorithm
that considers the available space determines the order and size in a grid
layout. The layout might be different each time you submit the dashboard
element selections. To change selections, check the check box next to the
dashboard element that you want to display.
Figure 7. Selecting Dashboard Elements
The above image displays the Charts Selection table in the regional web UI. The Clusters column is available only in regional dashboard and it displays the list of local clusters configured. You can add the local
cluster by clicking the Edit icon and then by selecting the local cluster name from the Local Cluster List dialog box.
To change selections,
check the check box next to the dashboard element that you want to display.
Specific group controls are available in the ChangeChartSelection drop-down list, at the top of the page (see the image above). To:
Uncheck all check boxes, choose None.
Revert to the preset selections, choose Default. The preset dashboard elements for administrator roles supporting DHCP and DNS are:
Host Metrics: System Metrics
DHCP Metrics: General Indicators
DNS Metrics: General Indicators
Select the DHCP metrics only, choose DHCP (see the "DHCP Metrics" section in Cisco Prime Network Registrar 11.1 DHCP User Guide).
Select the DNS metrics only, choose DNS (see the "Authoritative DNS Metrics" section in Cisco Prime Network Registrar 11.1 Authoritative and Caching DNS User Guide).
Select the DNS metrics only, choose CDNS(see the "Caching DNS Metrics" section in Cisco Prime Network Registrar 11.1 Authoritative and Caching DNS User Guide)
Select all the dashboard elements, choose All.
Click OK at the bottom of the page to save your choices, or Cancel to cancel the changes.
You can change the chart type by clicking the Chart Type icon at the bottom of the panel chart and then by selecting the required chart type (see the image below). The different
types of chart available are: Line Chart, Column Chart, Area Chart, and Scatter Chart.
Figure 8. Selecting the Chart Type