EXPLOITING WEB PUBLISHING
TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE
PERFORMANCE REPORTING
Claude Aron
Chevron Information Technology Company
San Ramon, CA
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AGENDA
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Introduction
Environment
Using frame-based pages for report retrieval
Exception reporting with embedded hyperlinks
Server health reporting using color-coded table cells
Server configuration reporting with query capability
Summary
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AGENDA
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Introduction
Environment
Using frame-based pages for report retrieval
Exception reporting with embedded hyperlinks
Server health reporting using color-coded table cells
Server configuration reporting with query capability
Summary
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Introduction
• Web-based reporting is the information delivery standard
• Out-of-the box advantages over paper publishing:
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Timeliness - delivery can be virtually instantaneous
Universal accessibility - no need to predefine recipients
Dynamic - content can be modified at any time
Interactive access - users can select subsets of data
Environmentally friendly - saves trees!
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Introduction
• But, merely converting existing paper reports to web
format (e.g. HTML or GIF files) is NOT sufficient:
– The increased exposure to increasingly sophisticated internet
content has raised user expectations of usability
– The volume of performance reports in a distributed environment
with hundreds of servers requires:
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An efficient user interface for navigating to specific content
A method for identifying exceptions & thresholds
A method for drilling down to increasing levels of detail
A help facility to define & explain reports & metrics
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Introduction
• Assumptions:
– You don’t have the luxury of assigning or hiring an experienced
web application developer to design and implement a performance
reporting application
– The volume of your data & capabilities of your hardware/software
preclude dynamic report generation
– You have a basic understanding of programming principles
– You have some experience with SAS programming
– You have some experience with VBScript programming (optional)
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AGENDA
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Environment
Using frame-based pages for report retrieval
Exception reporting with embedded hyperlinks
Server health reporting using color-coded table cells
Server configuration reporting with query capability
Summary
7
Environment
• 400+ monitored NT servers:
– File (54), Print (46), Domain Control (61), SMS (41),
MSExchange (80), Shared Apps (47), RAS (16), Lotus Notes
(14), SAP (17), Misc Apps (24)
• 22 HP-UX servers & 14 Sun Servers
• Performance Data Repository is SAS IT Service Vision
• Data collectors are NTSMF (DataCore Software) &
Measureware (HP)
• Hardware: HP-UX K430, 4 CPUs, 768 MB memory,
13 GB disk space
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AGENDA
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Environment
Using frame-based pages for report retrieval
Exception reporting with embedded hyperlinks
Server health reporting using color-coded table cells
Server configuration reporting with query capability
Summary
9
Frame-based pages for reports
• The “frame wars” are over
• Frames provide an excellent UI structure for report retrieval
– Form with selection criteria in one frame
– Report output in second frame
– User navigational interaction is kept to a minimum
• Sample frameset syntax:
<frameset rows=“15%,85%”>
<frame src=“xxx.html”>
<frame src=“yyy.html” name=“reportwin”>
</frameset>
• Sample form syntax:
<form method=“POST” action=“zzz.asp” target=“reportwin”
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Frame-based pages for reports
• Best practices:
– Establish a strict naming pattern for report files, to minimize
complexity of server scripts. Example:
servertype.servername.reporttype.interval.outputtype
– Use the report output frame to display useful information when the
page is first displayed, e.g. a high-level summary report or a help
page that explains report contents or selection criteria.
– Minimize the screen real estate used by the report selection frame to
maximize the viewing area for reports.
– Include a link to the site home page & to a help page in the report
selection frame.
– If you have multiple report framesets, include links to them in the
report selection frame (use javascript routines to create dropdowns).
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AGENDA
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Environment
Using frame-based pages for report retrieval
Exception reporting with embedded hyperlinks
Server health reporting using color-coded table cells
Server configuration reporting with query capability
Summary
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Exception reporting / hyperlinks
• Exception Report Design
– Large number of servers in a distributed environment
makes exception reporting imperative.
– Try to design exception reports so that all exceptions
appear on a single web page.
– Highlight exceptions that exceed thresholds (e.g. by
color-coding) so that they stand out clearly.
– Provide hyperlinks to detailed reports that provide
additional data on exceptions (length, severity, potential
causes, etc.)
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Exception reporting /hyperlinks
• SAS HTML Data Set Formatter
– SAS HTML Data Set Formatter converts SAS data into html tables.
– Invoked via %ds2htm macro call.
– Specify input SAS data set, output html file, variables to display in table
& optional formatting parameters.
– Example: %ds2htm(htmlfile=abc.exceptions.20001231.html,
data=mysas.exception.data,
var=server1 metric1 server2 metric2 server3 metric3,
clsize=1, vsize=1, caption=Server Exception Report)
– Complete documentation at
http://www.sas.com/rnd/web/intrnet/format/index.html
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Exception reporting /hyperlinks
• Embedding hyperlinks
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Build SAS variables formatted into html hyperlink syntax.
Syntax is <a href=URL>text string</a>.
Set length of SAS variable to a large value (e.g. 90).
Concatenate literal strings to variables, e.g.:
cellval=“<a href=&pfx..” || trim(servname) || “.” || trim(date) ||
“.gif>” || servname || “</a>”;
– If a SAS macro variable needs to be followed by a period, you
need to insert an extra period, e.g. %pfx..
– Use the SAS trim function to remove trailing blanks.
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Exception reporting /hyperlinks
• Highlighting thresholds
– Same method as embedding hyperlinks - build SAS variables that
contain html syntax for specifying color properties.
– Syntax for specifying font color is <font color=colorname>
– Test threshold value when building variables:
if thresh=0 then exval = put(val,7.2);
else exval = “<font color=red>” || put(val, 7.2) || “</font>”;
– The SAS put function formats numeric variables as character
strings.
– If you don’t assign a <font color>, the default font color for that
page is used.
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AGENDA
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Environment
Using frame-based pages for report retrieval
Exception reporting with embedded hyperlinks
Server health reporting using color-coded table cells
Server configuration reporting with query capability
Summary
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Server health reporting
• Server Health Report Design
– Green light, yellow light, red light paradigm:
• Green = Normal range, no action required
• Yellow = Exceeds normal range, but may be acceptable
• Red = Extreme range, should be investigated
– Metrics for availability, processor utilization, available memory, &
disk space.
– Analyze your own historical data to determine thresholds & be
prepared to tune & adjust if necessary. If you have a lot of red
lights, either you’re in serious trouble or your thresholds are not set
correctly!
– Metrics are hyperlinks to detailed reports; column headings are
hyperlinks to metric definitions (javascript popups).
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Server health reporting
• Coding techniques
– Due to cell-coloring logic & javascript popups, we can’t use the
%ds2htm macro - so we use standard SAS put statements instead.
– Output file is “.asp”, to allow server-side includes.
• Include syntax: <!--#include file=your.filename-->
– Select/when statements are used to test metric values, determine
what color cells should be, & build variables.
– Syntax for hyperlinking to a javascript function:
• <a href=javascript:void(functionname())>text string</a>
– Javascript function definition must be placed above the function
call!
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AGENDA
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Environment
Using frame-based pages for report retrieval
Exception reporting with embedded hyperlinks
Server health reporting using color-coded table cells
Server configuration reporting with query capability
Summary
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Server configuration queries
• Server Configuration Query Design
– Be able to answer questions such as:
• What are the hardware/software configurations of a class of servers?
• Are there any servers that haven’t been upgraded to Service Pack n?
• Which servers are configured with over 1 GB of memory?
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Can use flat file or database table.
Use form input boxes to allow text or numeric input.
Pre-fill with values that retrieve all servers IF that’s practical.
Allow case-insensitive input.
– Disregard leading or trailing blanks.
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Server configuration queries
• Form Processing Coding Hints
– Form input statement syntax:
Text: input type=text size=n maxlength=n name=“fieldname”
Numeric: input type=number size=n maxlength=n value=nname=“fieldname”
– Processing form input in Active Server Pages / VBScript:
• To read values:
x=Request.Form(“fieldname”)
• To eliminate trailing/leading blanks & convert to upper case:
x=Trim(Ucase(Request.Form(“fieldname”)))
• To test for numeric input:
if not IsNumeric(x) then ...
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Server configuration queries
• File Processing Coding Hints
– To open a file for processing:
• Set Sobj=Server.Create.Object(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)
• Set Sfil=sobj.OpenTextFile(ServerMapPath(“your.file”))
– To read data from a file:
• SrvTemp=sfil.ReadLine
• SrvVar=Split(OneRec,”,”,-1,1)
– To test for presence of a character string:
• if Instr(1,SrvVar(0),SrvString,1) > 0 then ...
– To write output records:
• Response.Write “……”
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Server configuration queries
• File Processing Coding Hints
– To close a file:
• Sfil.Close
– Next two statements free memory & system resources - very
important!
• Set Sfil=Nothing
• Set Sobj=Nothing
– To send all the generated output to the browser:
• Response.Flush
• Needed only if Response.Buffer=True was set. Response
buffering is recommended in most cases to optimize network
transmission.
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AGENDA
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Environment
Using frame-based pages for report retrieval
Exception reporting with embedded hyperlinks
Server health reporting using color-coded table cells
Server configuration reporting with query capability
Summary
25
Summary
• Internet publishing of performance data has some
intrinsic advantages.
• With a little thought & effort, it’s possible to
design reports & report interfaces that enhance
the user experience.
• You don’t need to be a professional web
developer - even performance analysts
can do it!
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