Defining a SmartMIB Graph

Defining a SmartMIB Graph

To define a SmartMIB Graph; from the main GUI window the user needs to start the “Graph’s List” window. There are two possible ways of doing this; first is from the Reports menu item and then choosing “Graph’s Definition”. The second way is by clicking on the “Graphs” menu bar button. Figure one below shows the main GUI and the menu items and menu buttons.

A Graph instance should be displayed per device and per management process running. There is no need for displaying Graphs produced by multiple different management processes. This in fact is the reason why SmartMIB and only SmartMIB is capably of producing meaningful, focused, and highly specialized and relevant Graphs.

Figure (1):

After starting the “Graph’s List” window, the user needs to click on the add button in this window’s menu to start the “Graph’s Information” window shown on Figure (2) below. It is essential to specify the following data in the appropriate fields:

The Graph Description; as this description will be the title of the window containing the particular graph to be displayed.

The managed network element Device.

The Table Object; which represents the higher layer placement in the hierarchy of the database of the particular variable (database Object) being plotted in the particular graph. This is designed to match the standard SNMP Table MIB Object types.

The Branch Instance; is the layer second to the Table Object layer in the database. The Branch Instances belonging to the chosen Table Object are then listed after being leant from the managed network device chosen above. Figure (2-1) shows an example of the Table Object (in this case it’s the ifTable) and the Branch Instances of the table are the Ethernet and the software loopback interfaces as identified by the management process.

The Object to monitor; is the list of all MIB objects and database objects detected to have been directly or indirectly acquired by the managing process(es).

Please Note:

Reported data information (or managed objects) could be any one of the following:

A directly acquired object from the Managed Element, or an indirectly acquired object from learning about an Managed Element (Learned object), or in fact calculated by combining two or more of those Elements (Calculated object). Furthermore, Reported objects could also be directly solicited by a Management Process or conditionally solicited; the later is achieved by acquiring a managed object directly and testing its value first before deciding on obtaining other objects.

It is important to mention here that not all managed object (whether directly or indirectly acquired) have to be reported.

Figure (2):

Figure (2-1):

It also important to note that the User access to the Graph could also be assigned by clicking on the User Access button in a manner similar to what is described in Defining the Report’s User Access.

After completing the “Graph’s Information” details; the “Graph Type” details have to be completed next. The supported graph types are History and Real-History graphs. History graphs are static graphs that displays the stored data from the database from a fixed starting time to a fixed end time. Real-History graphs on the other hand are dynamic ones as they display the stored data from the database from a selectable fixed starting time and they continue refreshing newly acquired values as they are polled by the managing process(es). Figure shows the “Graph Type” details.

Figure (3):

Real-History graphs’ Recent History option (if Checked) allows the administrator to configure graph’s display for the recent data specified by the hourly or the daily periods while continue refreshing newly acquired data from the network. Otherwise the administrator could simply specify the ‘Start Date and Time’ of the Real-History graph.

The final set of data to be completed is the “Graph Format” information. The graph’s display resolution could be influenced by the Graph Scale. This scale represents the graph’s value Calculation which could be used to perform any arithmetic operation on the whole set of Object displayed values. The way this is done is by assigning the handler ‘X’ to take on each of the actual values to be displayed and then performing the operation on ‘X’. in Figure (4) below each of the Object values to be displayed are to be divided by 10 first.

Other “Graph Format” information includes the x- and y-axis labels, chart type, and the displayed graph’s different component colours.

Among the supported Graph types are: the 2 and 3 dimensional pie, line, and area types and in different combinations giving the user a wide range of graph display selections to either display the same set of Objects differently or to display different Objects in a way that fits each of them. Figures 5 through 7 below shows sample graphs.

Figure (4):

Figure (5):

Figure (6):

Figure (7):

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