IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Authoring services in Integration Designer > Developing monitor models > What are monitor models?

Monitor details models

A monitor model consists of several parts describing different aspects: the monitor details model, the KPI model, the dimensional model, the visual model, and the event model. The monitor details model is a container for monitoring contexts and their associated metrics, keys, counters, stopwatches, triggers, and events. The monitor details model holds most of the monitor model information.

The following image shows the elements that can be in a monitor details model: the monitoring context definition, the inbound event definition (event subscription), the outbound event definition, the metric definition, the counter definition, the stopwatch definition, the trigger definition, and maps, which are the expressions that set the content of metrics and outbound events at run time. The arrows indicate the flow of control between these elements.

For example, an incoming event might fire a trigger which in turn controls a stopwatch; it might also increment a counter, and provide input to a map that updates a metric. Some elements, such as trigger and map definitions, carry expressions: trigger conditions control whether a trigger fires, and map expressions define a map's output as a function of its inputs. These expressions can depend on fields defined in the monitoring context (metrics, counters, and stopwatches) as well as on event attributes if their evaluation is caused by an inbound event.

Event sources send events to the Common Event Infrastructure (CEI). These inbound events are delivered to the monitor model, which in turn delivers the event to a monitoring context if they are events to which it has subscribed. Outbound events from a monitoring context are sent to the CEI, where the events are sent to interested monitor models.

Time stamps

The time stamp identifies the current monitor model and can be used to keep track of versions. The default value is the date and time of the creation of the monitor model.

• Monitoring contexts
  A monitoring context definition defines all of the data that should be collected about an entity (such as a process, customer order, or the stock level of an item in a warehouse) as the system is running.
• Event groups
  Event groups are containers for inbound events. You can use them to group related inbound events together without using a monitoring context. Monitoring contexts have keys, cubes, and so on, whereas event groups are simply containers. Event groups are purely a visual construct and are not represented in the monitor model XML file.
• Inbound events
  A monitoring-enabled application generates a series of events. To indicate the events that are of interest to the monitoring context, you define inbound events in the Monitor Model editor. These are actually subscription points or entry points for inbound events in a monitoring context. Business Monitor subscribes to the events you specify, and delivers them to all event entry points with a matching event subscription.
• Metrics
  A metric is a holder for information, typically a business performance measurement, in a monitoring context. A metric can be used to define the calculation for a key performance indicator (KPI), which measures performance against a business objective.
• Keys
  A key is a piece of information that characterizes and identifies the real-world entity that is being tracked by a monitoring context. Every monitoring context must have one or more keys. The set of these keys, together with the keys of any ancestor monitoring contexts (parent, parent's parent, and so on) are combined to uniquely define the real-world object.
• Stopwatches and counters
  Key performance indicators (KPIs) often depend on elapsed time, or on the number of occurrences of some situation or event. Stopwatches are specialized metrics that keep track of elapsed time, such as the time since the order-processing process started. Counters are specialized metrics that count occurrences, such as the number of instances of the order-processing process per day.
• Triggers
  A trigger is a mechanism that detects an occurrence and can cause additional processing in response.

  For example, you could define a trigger that causes a metric to be updated, a counter to be incremented, or a stopwatch to be halted each time a task ends. Triggers also determine when outbound events are sent.

• Outbound events
  Outbound events can be emitted from a monitoring context. They can be received by any event-processing application. They can also be received by the Monitor action services or by Business Monitor.

What are monitor models?

Related concepts:
How monitoring works