Accessing Web Dashboard

User needs to follow the below mentioned steps to access the Web Dashboard.

  1. Open the product login window.

2. Enter the Username and Password and click Login. The user logs-in into the system and Product UI window is displayed.

User Permission (Capabilities) Indication

This enhancement indicates the capabilities, which is assigned to a user so that user can have access to this information from all screens. For example, one of the capabilities in which guest user falls in is “ReadOnly”.

Now, the user is able to see the assigned capabilities in the Logged-in user’s button tool-tip.

If that user has multiple capabilities, it is displayed in a comma-separated format. The list of capabilities is also displayed for the Multi DC environment as well.

Product Home Page Description

The product home page consists of a left pane and a right pane. The left pane contains a menu from where a user can view details on test runs, scenarios, monitors, and various other sections. Using this menu, users can access further sections of the web dashboard and can perform various operations, such as comparing test runs, generating reports, accessing various features of the web dashboard, and so on. In the right pane, a summary of the important aspects is displayed, be it a release version, CPU usage, memory utilization, or alerts generated in the system.

Left Pane

It contains the following menus / sub-menus, and menu items:

  • View

    • Dashboard: This displays the current Dashboard.
    • Test Runs: Shows the test runs window.
    • Scripts: To launch script manager and create a script.
    • Scenarios: To create scenarios.
    • Run Time Progress: This shows the run time progress of the test. This is only available when the test is running currently.
      • Scenario: It shows the status of the Running test, which means at which phase it is present.
      • RunLogic Progress: To monitor the User flow according to flows added in Run Logic.
    • Virtual User Trace: This is used for tracing the users for the different group(s).
    • Transactions: This displays a detailing of all transaction(s) in a current test run.
    • System Logs: To view system-related logs, such as Kubernetes logs, RBU access logs, peripheral device logs, and system events.
    • Logs
      • Test Output: This shows the test output in the browser as well as on the panel.
      • Debug Trace Log: These displays debug trace logs if Debug feature is enabled in the scenario.
      • Pause Resume Log: This is used to view the logs for paused/resumed test schedules (if any).
      • Execution Trace Log: This window displays total test cases along with the number of executed, passed, and failed. This displays a table with details for test cases and their corresponding results.
      • Run Time Changes Logs: This window displays details for Runtime changes logs that include details, such as source, status, date / time, owner, applied by, and description.
    • Stats: It shows the TCP connection information and is available if test is running currently.
    • Health: This section displays the health of the appliance and Cavisson services.

    DB Monitoring: This is a powerful feature to measure the performance of each query contributing in a session execution. It provides complete monitoring of MSSQL queries with insights into SQL activity, wait for statistics, databases, support services, Temp DB, and high availability. It enables a user to detect such queries, which are consuming more resources as compared to normal ones. Once identified, the user can diagnose the issue and perform corrective measures.

Analytics
  • Compare: This feature is used to compare two test runs. Users can perform further actions for post-compare operation:
    • Disable Compare: To disable the comparison applied and back to the original form.
    • Update Compare: To update the inputs provided for comparison.
    • Scenario Difference: This displays the scenario difference between current and baseline test runs.
    • Script Difference: This displays the script difference between the current and baseline test runs.
    • Server Signature Difference: This displays the server signature used in the current test.
  • Derived Metrics: This feature is used to create a derived graph from two or more graphs.
Favorites

Favorite allows a user to save current view of Real Time Graphs (RTG). User can create a new profile by saving current view of RTG UI as a profile. If user wants to see current view of graphs next time in Web Dashboard, then user needs to add graphs in favorite. When user loads saved favorite, then all graphs of favorite are displayed in Web dashboard’s graph panel.

Alerts
  • Alert Maintenance Window: This window provides alert maintenance configuration to disable the generation of alerts at the time of maintenance or server goes down.
  • Alert Settings: To enable/disable alert configuration, such as alert mail, capacity alert, and thread dump.
  • Alert Policy: To create a policy for specified conditions and rules.
  • Alert Actions: To create actions, such as alert mail, thread dump, and TCP dump.
  • Rules: To activate/deactivate/add/delete/update rules.
  • Active Alerts: To see generated alerts, such as capacity  alerts.
  • Alert History: To see the alerts generated in the past.
  • Active Alert Graphs: To generate graphs for active alerts.
  • Alert Stats Report: To generate stats report for alerts.
  • Alert Action History: It contains details of action taken by alerts, such as SNMP Trap Sent / Email Sent / Cisco Spark Chat sent and so on.
Configuration
  • Monitors: To configure the monitors.
  • Topology: To configure topology. Topology is the arrangement of various elements (Tier, server, and instance) of an application.
  • Batch Jobs: To configure batch group and batch jobs.
  • Tier Group: To configure the tier group list.
  • Tier Assignment Rules: To configure tier names based on rules (such as Pattern of Server Name, Server List, Server IP range)
  • Agent Config: For ND agent configuration.
  • Configuration Settings: For various settings, such as dashboard settings, and multi-node configuration, show vector in the title, and graph tree.
  • Color Management: To define the color of the graphs according to the selected hierarchy level.
  • Manage Catalogue: It provides a common platform for the selection of graphs and storing them as a catalog.
Reports

The reports menu is used to create various types of reports, such as stat reports, compare/trend reports, hierarchical reports, and so on. These reports are generated using templates and have other advanced options to include all or selected metrics. The reporting format may be selected as Word, HTML or Excel. It includes tabular data with or without graphical illustration. It also provides links for Drill Down Report, Ready Reports (PageDump, ProgressReport etc.) .

Actions
  • Thread Dump: To take thread dump, analyse thread dump, and schedule thread dump.
  • Heap Dump: A heap dump is a dump of the state of the Java heap memory. This is useful for analysing the use of memory i.e.an application is making at some point in time so handy in diagnosing some memory issues, and if done at intervals handy in diagnosing memory leaks. User can take heap dump from here.
  • Process Dump: A dump file is a snapshot that shows the process that was executing and modules that were loaded for an app at a point in time. A dump with heap information also includes a snapshot of the app’s memory at that point.
  • TCP Dump: TCP Dump is a package analyzer tool, which is used to capture or filter TCP/IP packets that received or transferred over a network on a specific interface.
  • Mission Control: It is a property through which user can get thread JVM information for JRocket. This includes two features – Memory Analyzer and Flight Recorder.
  • Java Flight Recording: Flight Recorder is a profiling and event collection framework which allows Java administrators and developers to gather detailed low level information about how the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and the Java application are behaving.
  • Run command: This is used to run commands on a server from UI, without using backend access.
  • Download File: To download a file from the system.
  • Import data from Access Log file: This imports data from access log file.
  • Update:
    • Update User/Session Rate: This updates user/session rate (Online mode only).
    • Update Data File: To update data file, it is supported in online mode only.
    • Update Running Scenario: To update running scenario (in online mode only).
  • Manage Vusers: To manage Vusers, such as start, stop, pause, and so on.
Admin
  • Projects: Displays the Project Administration window to add, delete, rename a project / sub-project.
  • LDAP Server Settings: To configure LDAP Server settings.
  • Servers: DisplaysServer Administration window to configure a server.
  • Settings: To configure module tab settings.
  • Manage Controllers: To manage controller with details, such as appliance name, controller name, controller URL, and Service End point IP.
  • GIT Settings: To perform GIT Remote Server settings.
  • Retention Policy: To configure the data retention / data backup policy (NDE Purge)
  • Second Level Authorization: To avoid unwanted hits on the server.
  • Access Control: To perform identification, authentication, and accountability of entities through login credentials including passwords.
  • Agent Info: To view machine agent status and application agent status.
  • Sample Apps: To access sample applications for testing purposes.
  • NetHavoc: A feature to implement resilience testing.

Advanced

  • Automation: This constitutes Test Suite, Test case, and Test Reports.
    • Test Suite: Test Suite is the NetStorm entity to control the execution of tests together with the comparison of actual outcome to predicted outcome (SLA).
    • Test Case: Test Case provides an automated way to run a Test scenario.
    • Test Reports: HTML report generated after test execution.
  • Script Conversion: A user can convert a JMeter script, Load runner script, and HAR script into Cavisson Script using the script convertor provided by Cavisson. Post this, user can view the converted script in NetStorm Script manager and can view the Scenario via NetStorm’s Scenario UI. This section is covered in NetStorm Script Manager User manual.

  • Postgres Stats: This displays overall connection stats that includes Max connections, reserved connections, used connections, and available connections. Apart from this, a user can view detailed connection stats based on database and application.

Right Pane

This section provides a summary of the most details related to release, memory, and CPU utilization. It contains following sections:

Release Details: This section provides release details of the product, such as release version and build number, the time when the release is installed on the server. It also provides a tabular view where the user can see the release details, such as installation date/time, release version, and build number. 

Test Execution Summary:This section provides a count of tests executed each day. The x-axis defines the date (on weekly basis) and the y-axis defines the count (in the multiple of 10). Each date is represented with the  icon. Just hover on a particular date to know the number of tests executed on that date.

Test Assets Summary:This section provides a summarized and consolidated view of the tests, scripts, and scenarios execution in the system. It contains total tests, achieved tests, locked tests, total scripts, total scenarios, and running tests.

Alert Summary:In this section, user can view a summary of the alerts, such as date/time when the alert is generated, severity of the alert, such as critical, major, minor and the description of the alert.

Tomcat Heap Memory:In this section, stats on the total heap memory is displayed. Heap memory is a memory used for dynamic allocations. Used heap memory is displayed (in GB) with blue color, and free heap memory is displayed with yellow color along with its percentage.

CPU Utilization Vs Load Average:This section displays CPU utilization vs load average in the form of a graph. Various parameters, such as user, system, I/O ae displayed with different colors. The load average among all these is displayed with black color. 

Available Memory:This section displays stats on available memory (in GB) in the form of a graph. Cached memory is displayed with blue color and free memory is displayed with black color.

Disk Space Utilization:This section provides a summary of the disk space utilization by various directories in the system. It contains information such as total space assigned to a particular directory (in GB), free space, used space, along with used percentage.

3. User can view the dashboard of an already executed test or a running test. Executed test is the test that has already been executed in the past. A running test is the test that is currently in execution.

To view the dashboard of an existing test and running test, click Total Test(s) section. The Test Run window is displayed. To view all tests, click the Show All button on the top left.

Note:

The limit to choose maximum Test Runs at a time is increased to 400.

4. Please wait for some time, the Web Dashboard is displayed after loading the details.

Layout of Web Dashboard

Web Dashboard consists of top pane, left pane, and bottom pane.

Top Pane

Top pane consists of following sections/specifications/action items:

Section Icon/Representation Description
Screen Navigation     By clicking on these icons, user can navigate to previously navigated screens, such as Home, Test run, Dashboard. User can close a screen using the  icon beside that screen name.
Current Date & Time   This is the current date and time of the system.
Theme Selection   Using this icon, user can select the theme for web dashboard as well as product UI.
Alerts This displays alerts (capacity) specification.
Logged in User Name This shows currently logged-in user name. On clicking the down-arrow, there is an option to logout or view Help.
Zoom In/Out This icon is used to zoom in/out the screen size.
Toggle Menu Navigation Panel Clicking this can enable/disable the menu navigation
Toggle Tree Navigation Panel Clicking this can enable/disable the tree navigation
Toggle Lower Tabular Panel Clicking this can enable/disable the lower tabular panel
Navigation Icons This is used to navigate between pages of the web dashboard.
Monitor Up/Down Status This is used to view the monitor up/down status
Elapsed Time It is the amount of time that passes from the beginning of an event to its end.
Last Sample Time This displays the last sample time of the graphs in mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss format.
Favorite selection This displays currently loaded favorite. User can change the favorite from the drop-down arrow.
Rewind & Forward To analyse the data from some previous time according to the time period applied.
Time Period This displays the time range of graph data as configured by the user. User can also customize the time period.
View By   This displays resolution of the samples i.e. graphs aggregated by a specified interval. User can change the view by from the drop-down arrow.
Test Run Number This denotes the current test run number.
Start/Stop/Restart This is used to start/stop/restart test. It is applicable in case test is currently running.
Pause Test Run Click this icon to pause a test run. Click it again to resume.
Pause/Resume Data Update  /  Use these icons to pause/resume data update in test run. It stops updating data in Dashboard but continue running test. Once resume, system captures all the data.
Advance Settings   There are following options within the Advanced Settings section
Monochromatic Colors User can use different shades of one color for multiple graphs.

Layout Selection

 User can select layout, such as graph, data, tabular from here.
Add Widget Use this icon to add widget on the graph panel.
Add New Layout User can define the metrics (rows X columns) using this icon.
Save Layout User can save the defined layout using this icon.

Lower Pane

Lower pane displays data of all the graphs of the selected panel. The data is displayed in Tabular format. It is located at the bottom of the Dashboard GUI.

Following information is displayed in this pane:

  • Show/Hide Graph: This column represents the presence of the graph on the widget.
  • Graph Number: This column displays the graph serial number.
  • Color: This column displays the color of the graph.
  • Metric Name: This column represents the metric name.
  • Min: This column displays the minimum value of the data sample of the graph.
  • Max: This column displays the maximum value of the data sample of the graph.
  • Avg: This column displays the average value of the data sample of the graph.
  • Last: This column displays the last value of the data sample of the graph.
  • Samples: This column displays the total number of samples.

User can perform following actions on the lower panel:

  • Download the details in PDF, Excel or Word.
  • Configure the columns to show/hide.
  • Increase/decrease the size of the panel.
  • Hide pagination.
  • Filter the graph values on any column.

Rewind’ and ‘Forward’ Options

Rewind’ and ‘Forward’ options are used to view, analyze, and compare the graph data with different time frames based on the time period applied by just clicking on a button. You can move back and forward without entering the start and end time details repeatedly with clicking of the Rewind () and Forward () buttons respectively. To move to the current state, you just need to click the  button no matter how many times you have clicked the ‘Rewind’ button. It navigates you to the current position from where you have started rewinding.

This feature was needed to avoid entering the start time and end time repeatedly to see and analyze the graph data of a particular time period.

  1. You first need to apply the time period to which you need to see the graph samples. The default time period applied is displayed there. To change, click it and provide the desired time period.
  2. Once the time period is set (for example- last one hour), the graph data is displayed accordingly.
  3. Now, clicking the ‘Rewind’ button one time displays the graph data for the most recent time period. To view further previous graph data, keep on clicking the ‘Rewind’ button accordingly until you reach to the desired time period.
  4. Similarly, by clicking the ‘Forward’ button, you can navigate to next time periods when you are viewing graph data of any previous time period.
  5. After viewing the graph data of previous time periods, you can navigate to the current time period at once by just clicking the button. You don’t need to click the ‘Forward’ button (multiple times) to reach to the current time period.

Example

The current time period is Last 1 Hour, and so the current duration is 9:11 to 10:11. Therefore, when you click the ‘Rewind’ button first time, the time period becomes 8:11 to 9:11 and by clicking it again, it becomes 7:11 to 8:11. On clicking the ‘Forward’ button, it becomes 8:11 to 9:11. At last, clicking the   button, it navigates to the current state and displays the data for the current duration 9:11 to 10:11.

Action

Time Period

Graph Data

Description

No Action

The data is displayed based on the current time period

Rewind One Time

The data of previous one hour is displayed

Rewind Again

The data of one more previous hour is displayed

Forward One Time

The next data from the last state is displayed

Current State

The data is displayed based on the current time period

Key Points

  • For a continuous monitoring test, you can rewind back up to the test start time and forward to current time period. If you click the ‘Rewind’ and ‘Forward’ button beyond those limits, a message is displayed.

Clicking Rewind after reaching test Start time

Clicking Forward after reaching Current time
  • Rewind and forward buttons are disabled when the time period is ‘Whole Scenario’.
  • When while moving rewind repeatedly, and navigating back to the current state, the data for few minutes may lost. So, in that case, the data according to the current time is displayed.
  • For NetDiagnostics, the button for the current state is displayed with ‘Green’ color ( ) and for NetStorm, it is displayed with ‘Grey’ color ( ).

User Benefits

You do not need to enter the start time and end time of the test run repeatedly to see and analyze the graph data of a particular time period.

TV Mode

TV mode () is a feature used to monitor favorites in a single view. This fits the complete layout and display in a single frame. When we have a favorite with different layouts having a large number of widgets then to view all the widgets there is no need to scroll up or down, just click  button and all the widgets are displayed in a single view.

Viewing ND Dashboard at NS Side

The user can view a test run in ND Dashboard from NS Dashboard. The user can navigate from NS Dashboard to ND Dashboard via either of the following two options: 

  1. Selecting the Test Run number and clicking the NDDashboard icon at the bottom-right corner of the Test Run window. 

  1. Selecting the NDDashboard option from the top panel in the NS Dashboard window. 

Multi-Data Center Monitoring

This feature provides users the capability to monitor multiple data centers within a single dashboard. In current days, all the e-commerce applications are moving into multiple data centers to accommodate the application complexity. Now, we have enhanced monitoring capability with the evolution of multi DC in a single dashboard. This advanced technology enables a user to use a single dashboard to monitor multiple data centers. There is a master data center among all the data centers, which allows a user to view the Dashboard of all the data centers.

In the below screen, the metrics are displayed for all data centers:

To view metrics of a particular data center, go to the Data Center drop down list (at the top) and select the required data center from there.

Then, only the metrics of that particular data center is displayed.

Topology is also defined for Multi-DC environment. To view this, go to the graph tree and navigate to the data centers:

In multi-DC environment, there is a group for data centers. Within the data center, there are tiers, servers and instances.

Multi-DC environment support can also be seen in the session window as follows:

In the above image, it can be seen that same session is running at different data centers.

Other features supported in Multi DC:

  • Parametrization and Filters on Favorite.
  • Lower Panel operations, such as show/hide metrics.
  • Zoom Operation for derived Graph.
  • Open Merge with Pattern.
  • Capability name assigned to logged-in user is displayed in dashboard of Multi-DC in the Logged-in user’s button tooltip. If logged-in user is having multiple capabilities, it is displayed in comma-separated format.

Audit Log

Audit log displays the activity log details of all users. Initially, it displays number of users currently logged in.

In Audit log, entries are populated in audit log files for only those actions of users, which affects user’s object, such as add, edit, update, delete.

Audit log is a separate feature whose permission can be provided to a user, by default user has the permission to see own audit logs. If we assign audit log feature capability to any user, he/she is able to see all the activities performed by user logged in to that machine.

Audit log window displays User, Session Id, IP Address from where user has accessed, Activity Date Time, and Activity description. Every time when user logged in, then a session id is generated. ‘User’ and ‘session id’ group audit log table. Upon expanding any user, displays its multiple sessions. Upon further expansion of any session, activities for that session is displayed.

  • By default, audit log window displays logs for a particular duration (such last n hour). More logs can be filtered by applying filter for specified time.
  • Active users (which are currently performing some activities i.e. not idle in last one hour) is displayed in a section of User Management.
  • Users with Admin capability can force or log out any other user (Users are forcefully logged out if inactive for ‘n’ duration). If same user is trying to log in from different browser or from different IP (Admin can allow access) then system prompts the user about old active session. After confirmation of user, old session is logged out, this allows user to log in new session.
  • Session is not having time restrictions, user can also view Logs for specific period. Full session of user can be displayed if any activity lies between applied period.
  • System displays complete log for that session. While finding Historical data, system searches for LoggedIn activity. If not found, then user can configure N hours and search for the same. If LoggedIn activity found, then activity is displayed from there to logged out. During that applied period, if LoggedOut session is not available, then go forward N Hours and search for LoggedOut activity. If found, cover all the activities done till LoggedOut otherwise time bound activities are displayed only.
  • By default, logs are displayed for last one hour. User can apply any specified time range and view the logs.
  • There is a filter provision on each field. User can filter by user, or session id, activity time, or some text in activity description.

View Audit Log

To view the Audit log, navigate to the logged in user, and click the Audit Log option.

This displays the Audit log window with logged in user details, such as user name, IP, and login time. At the top-right corner, the count of active sessions and active users is displayed.

Upon expanding the record, detailed activities of the user along with the various details, such as activity time, IP address, session ID, user name, module name, activity name, description, and response time (ms) is displayed:

Columns Selection

The user can select columns to be displayed from the drop-down list.

‘Group by’ Columns

In addition, there are various options to select the “Group by” functionality, such as session Id, activity name, activity time, IP, module name, and user name.

Download Report

A user can download Audit logs (the logs of user activity performed in dashboard) in three formats – PDF/Word/Excel.

Other Actions

SR No.

Action/Icon

Description

1

Include Inactive Session

Select the check box to include inactive sessions in the Audit log report

2

To generate user session report

3

To filter / search a record

4

To refresh the Audit log list

 User Sessions Report

This report displays number of users and sessions per day, number of sessions per user and activities count of each activity and its module, done by user in between a specified period in three different tables as follows:

  1. Summary: Displays date wise number of active users and its session count. The details include Date, LOB, Environment, Application, Application URL, number of Unique Users, and number of Sessions along with Session Duration (Avg duration, Min duration, and Max duration).
  2. Top N Users: Displays number of sessions count per user (unique) between the specified period. The details include LOB, Environment, Application, Application URL, Users, and number of Sessions along with Session Duration (Avg duration, Min duration, and Max duration).
  3. Top N Activities: Displays the count of per activity performed by user in the specified period. The details include LOB, Environment, Application, Application URL, Module, Activity, and Activity Count along with Response duration (Avg, Min, and Max)

Key Pointers

  • In case of multi-dc, the tables displayed are – Summary, Top-N Users from each application, and Top-N Activities from each application.
  • For summarized table, two chart are displayed, which shows the relation between date and number of users, date and number of sessions. The first chart displays dates on X-axis and number of user count on Y-axis. The second chart displays dates on X-axis and number of session count on Y-axis.
  • Activities, such as Login attempt failed, Login attempt failed due to maximum session limit reached and its session are not counted as active user, active session for summary table, and Top-N user table. This data only come in Top-N Activities table.
  • An HTML link is provided on the number of unique users in the summary table of User session report. To see date wise user list, click or CTRL+Click the user count in summary table. A click opens an HTML in the same tab and ctrl-click opens an HTML in a new tab. This html contains the date wise user list.
  • The current date and time is displayed at the end of report URL to get the actual data when the report is generated.

Generate a User Session Report

  1. Click the icon, specify the time period for the report generation, and click the Apply button.

  1. To generate the user session report, click the icon. The report gets generated and displayed in PDF format. Few are some sample sections of the generated report.

Single Sign On (SSO) support through OKTA

With SSO, a user logs in once and gains access to different applications, without the need to re-enter login credentials at each application. There are set of configurations, which need to be done one time in the OKTA and NDE server and after that user needs to login through OKTA. Upon successful authentication through OKTA, user is not prompted to login again until the user session expires. Both Service Provider Initiated and Identity Provider Initiated modes are supported.

Upon requesting a URL, user is navigated to OKTA login UI. Post successful authentication, user is redirected to product UI home page.

Okta integration is also supported with Multi DC.

When a user, who is not part of any group, tries to login the product into the default system view, it is redirected to an error page.

For integration of different applications using OKTA, please contact your Cavisson representative.

Security Token based REST calls

This feature allows only an authorized user to access external REST API URLs. To access URLs, user needs to generate a security token, and use it in REST calls for authentication and authorization purpose. Server will validate the token and allow/discard the request. There is an expiration time associated with every security token, which is taken as input while generation of the token. Once token is expired, user will not be able to access the URL with this token. User needs to get/generate a new token for further use.

  1. To access the Generate Authentication Token window, click the  icon beside the logged in user name, and click the Generate Token option.

2. This displays the Generate Authentication Token window.

3. Enter the duration in HH: MM format and click the Generate button.

4. This generates a token, which is valid for the specified duration. User can generate multiple tokens.

5. To copy the generated token, click the Copy button.