IBM Tivoli Monitoring > Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2 > Administrator's Guide > Prepare your dashboard environment
IBM Tivoli Monitoring, Version 6.3 Fix Pack 2
Create custom dashboard pages that display monitoring data
IBM Dashboard Application Services Hub allows you to create custom dashboard pages. A page is an arrangement of one or more widgets in the work area of the console. A widget is a user interface component that displays information in a console dashboard. Dashboard Application Services Hub provides a set of predefined widgets. Each widget is configured to retrieve information from a data provider that has a connection defined in Dashboard Application Services Hub. Each data provider divides its information into data sets.
For detailed information on predefined widgets, how to edit and customize each widget type, and how to create catalogs and pages with widgets, see the Dashboard Application Services Hub online help or the Jazz for Service Management Integration Guide in the Jazz for Service Management Information Center.
You can add the predefined widgets to dashboard pages or you can customize the predefined widgets to change their appearance. There are widgets for tables, lists, gauges, bar charts, pie charts, topology, and more. Widgets can also be logically organized by placing them in catalogs.
The IBM Tivoli Monitoring dashboard data provider's data sets correspond to agent attribute groups. These are the same attribute groups that you create queries for when customizing Tivoli Enterprise Portal workspace views. The dashboard data provider also has topology data sets if they are provided by a monitoring agent such as the IBM Tivoli Monitoring for VMware monitoring agent. Refer to the agent user guides to see a description of the agent's attribute groups and to determine if the agent provides a topology data set.
When you create or edit a page, you choose the widgets and their placement on the page. You edit each widget to choose a data set and select what information from the data set should be displayed in the widget. When editing a widget, provide the following information:
Procedure
- Choose a data set.
When you edit a widget, you choose a data set from the list of data providers configured in Dashboard Application Services Hub. You can either elect to see all data set names or enter search criteria for the data set name. If you list all of the data set names, you see the data sets for all agents whose application support is installed in the Tivoli Enterprise Portal Server as well as data sets available from other data providers. Since this can be a large list of data sets, you can filter the data sets by searching on a portion of the data set name. For example, to see all of the data sets (attribute groups) for the Linux OS agent, enter "Linux" in the search field.
- Map the data set columns to the widget visualization attributes.
Depending on the widget type, you might be asked to specify which column(s) from the data set you want displayed in the widget. For example, if you are editing an analog gauge widget to show disk utilization from a Linux OS agent, select the Disk Used Percent column for the gauge value.
- Configure the widget visualization options.
You can also configure the visualization options of the widget such as, labels, units of measure, and so forth.
- Specify the data set configuration parameters.
If you selected a data set that maps to an agent's attribute group, you must enter the name of the managed system or managed system group from which the data is retrieved. You can also specify a time filter value to retrieve historical data if the widget supports showing data over a time frame and you have configured historical data collection.
The data set may have other configuration parameters to further filter what information is displayed in the widget. For example, if you are editing a widget such as a gauge that displays values from a single row in an agent attribute group, the data set configuration parameters allow you to specify other data set columns (attributes) that uniquely identify which row of data is displayed in the widget. For example, if you are displaying disk utilization for a Linux OS agent, in a gauge widget the Linux Disk data set configuration parameters allow you to specify which disk and mount point to show the utilization of.
You can also specify how often the dashboard data provider provides refreshes of the data if the widget supports auto-refresh and you have not selected the events data set.
Many of the Dashboard Application Services Hub widgets can support connections, or wires, between widgets so that they can exchange messages with each other. When an action occurs in a source widget, it creates an event, which contains information that can be sent to other widgets. The dashboard data provider only supports incoming connections when the source widget has the managed system name in either an ORGINNODE or NODE property.
Dashboard Application Services Hub uses roles, for users or user groups, to control which users can create pages and work with widgets and which pages a user can display. However, the dashboard data provider performs the authorization of the monitoring resources that are displayed in a widget that uses one of the data provider's data sets. Custom dashboard pages use the authorization type that is configured for your monitoring dashboard environment, either authorization policies or Tivoli Enterprise Portal event permission and monitoring application assignments.
What to do next
For examples of how to create custom dashboard pages with monitoring data, see Create custom monitoring dashboard pages in the IBM Tivoli Monitoring Wiki.
Parent topic:
Prepare your dashboard environment