Note: Be sure to exercise the “lightbulb” and “index tab” slider menus at the edges of
pages and follow the links in the menus to get the full view of the demo
Suggestion - Go See The Software First
Click your upper right browser Maximize box
then click the button below and go to the AwareView
demonstration software which is a self contained AwareView environment within this website.
Return here to read about what the AwareView Model is, what to expect, how to navigate, how
it can be used, etc.
Note, linking to the AwareView software results in a change of navigation buttons from what
this part of the website has. This means top row buttons and all links will be active for
the AwareView environment, leading you through the customer experience. Each primary page in
the environment has a "Home" link back to this page re-establishing you in the context you entered
from here.
AwareView Software Basics
AwareView software is oriented to showing customers the whole picture of their enterprise in
themed sequences, and in providing the ability to view static reports as well. More on this is
covered in the Usage section below. Customer administrators control the default analysis and
reporting themes. Customers/users can control their own themes and reporting views as needed
during each session to understand the whole service delivery picture, solve problems, etc.
AwareView consists of a number of elements which include high level single-scaled processing
and analysis, comparative analysis and ActiveDisplay Reporting.
AwareView software integrates a number of things in a number of ways. First, it integrates
data from customer's exisitng reporting systems into single composite Enterprise Service
Indexes for each application. Second, the AwareView user interface software integrates
the customer's reports from exisitng reporting systems with the Enterprise Service Indexes to
provide a single high level, drillable view of the enterprise.
Service Index information is also summarized into traditional interval time segments that
match the timeviews used by the customer in their summarization scheme to establish and
maintain a flow with customer reporting.
AwareView sofware is at its best when a full array of data sources feeds it and it can
produce complete integrated analytics and reporting like those that can be seen in the samples
in the self-contained AwareView website. The array of data sources is vast, but can easily
include Candle ETEWatch/eBA/SM (response time/service level management software) and other
Candle products, BMC products, CA products (e.g., NeuMICS), SAS/ITRM, MXG, , network sources,
etc. AwareView is flexible software and can be tailored to lesser data sources and still be
effective. The process and display model build on existing data sources and add intelligence
layers to the whole reporting picture.
Navigation
The AwareView user interface was designed using a maximized browser image with an 800 x 600
screen size. Its design allows the full basic display page to fit on the screen without
needing to be scrolled. There should not be a lower scrollbar on your display - only a
right hand scrollbar. You should also be able to see the bottom two rows of "tickers". If
you cannot, you need to go to the upper right corner of your browser and click the "Maximize"
box.
There are 6 primary pages in the user interface. They are AwareOverview, Service Indexing,
Health, Quality of Service, Comparisons and Administration. AwareOverview contains a blend
of both Enterprise Service Index reporting and reports from existing customer systems.
Service Indexing, Health, Quality of Service and Comparisons address Enterprise Service
Index reporting. Each of these pages contains a set of 5 slider menus. Two of the sliders,
the “lightbulbs”, provide descriptive information and page-level controls. The remaining 4
“index tab” sliders provide Performance, Capacity, Service Level and Exceptions links to
existing customer reporting systems or to reports from existing customer systems that have
been pointed to. The format for each page is the same, but the content is different.
The Administration page contains site wide controls, an Administrative Reporting Facility
and Help Facilities.
Each AwareView web page presents a dual navigation view with Enterprise Service Index analysis
and reporting choices across the top and right side along with reporting choices from other
vendors on the left side of the page via index tabs. In addition to navigation to static
reporting pages, AwareView ActiveDisplay software constantly scrolls drillable reports and
graphs through reporting panes in theme-oriented sequences customers can control. The large vertical
scroller can be stopped for viewing and/or printing by moving the mouse into its pane. This process
facilitates maximum exposure to information and is a hypothesis-generating technology that
frees customers from having to manually search for answers at the first step in analysis.
Each AwareView page contains a link to its own context-sensitive Help facility. The complete Help
Faciltiy is available through the Administration page (not available in the demo).
Expanded Description
We face a continuous process to look at the whole picture but are generally compartmentalized
into the following areas which can be characterized by the primary measurement questions :
The Big Four
We face the following problems :
How's it going?
Where's it going?
Who done it?
Where do we go next?
Performance Management
Capacity Planning
Chargeback
Strategic Planning
So much data
So little space to display it in
+
Simplifying complexity
+
Unifying related but disconnected data
AwareView addresses the problems and requirements to answer "The Big Four" by providing an
information consolidation and display technology that combines the wide variety of
application-related data into Enterprise Service Indexes and an active display technology
to present them along with the existing reporting systems customers have. The user interface
blends traditional reporting (i.e., response time, availability, service level, exceptions
and infrastructure [CPU, I/O, etc.]) with Enterprise Service Index reporting.
AwareView has been created using the philosophy that successful enterprise service quality
management requires a perspective that has application response time and availability as a
primary focus and relates component infrastructure measures to those in a meaningful way.
The next sections discuss the logic for how that takes place.
The logical display model:
Monitors exposed us to the first active display technology and for their purpose they do fine.
The historical/analytic arena has not had the benefit of a monitor-type approach.
The sheer volume of possible analytic combinations needs a revolving display technology to
assist in concept identification and hypothesis generation. A theme-oriented automatic
circulation of analytic results is an assistive technology that can provide viewers useful
frames of reference for understanding their data. For first level analysis, removing the burden
of manual navigation can free viewer (analyst) cycles for critical thinking.
Stock market television technology uses active display reporting. Parallel views are
simultaneously presented in sequence. A lot of information is imparted continuously.
AwareView presents theme and time-oriented continuously updated reporting as a mechanism to
free viewers (analysts, etc.) from the some of the mechanics of manually chasing reports. The
medium allows full drilldown from any cell in a rolling display, and that drilldown can be to
more passive (static) page/views giving the viewer time to analyze, digest and further process
reports of interest. The themes presented are geared to the viewer’s business role (e.g.,
capacity planner, performance analyst) and desires.
The primary requirement for analysis is to provide the most information in the least space.
The means to accomplish this involves integrating diverse measures into singular indexes.
Since the end results of processing are response time and/or turnaround time, AwareView indexes
are primarily scaled response and/or turnaround times with availability and infrastructure
component fractional contributions added to them. AwareView uses a scaling methodology and
an approach that takes the whole statistical distribution into account for each measure and
integrates scaled measures to build a single Enterprise Service Index for each application.
The indexes can be used in all aspects of computer measurement including performance management,
capacity and strategic planning and can be combined into families of indexes for profiling a
whole enterprise.
A note on indexing:
Indexes provide useful performance information that profile many attributes of underlying
measures. We are all familiar with various indexes such as the Dow Jones, NASDAQ Composite,
A.C. Nielson, etc. An issue with most indexes is that they lack common simple scaling and can
be hard to understand. The AwareView software addresses this issue by relating all data values
to a base 10 scale. The approach allows separate indexes to be constructed for any combination
of measures for any application, family of applications (i.e., products) and for the enterprise
in general. Common scaling facilitates comparisons of “like” values even though the data has
different distributions. These separate indexes can be summarized upward to higher level
summaries if desired. A family of these indexes can be used as a high level awareness center
for an enterprise.
The logical processing model:
Enterprise Service Index reporting has both descriptive and analytic components. Service
Indexes are primarily oriented to an important end result measure, i.e., response time or
turnaround time. Other measures in the service delivery mix are then related to the response
time or turnaround time result. Service Indexes are single composite descriptive indicators
based on a weighted combination of scaled values derived from original measured raw values.
Scaling is done with critical statistical distribution values for each measure to derive a
common numeric base that can be used to relate what would otherwise be disparate data in a
common framework. The scaled values are then combined in weighted equations to form a single
composite index. Once combined, each index can then be used in descriptive reporting and further
used in advanced analytic reporting.
Service Indexes are descriptive in nature whereas Quality of Service (QoS) and Health indicators
are value judgments. QoS and Health indexes are based on analyses of Service Indexes, Service
Index variation and the number and size of outliers. They extend the value of the basic Service
Index.
All Service Index, QoS and Health values are between 1 and 10. Service Index values simply
describe where the composite runs on a scale of 10. QoS indicators reflect the natural or
essential character that distinguishes the whole picture of the underlying measures and the
degree or grade of excellence of overall quality of the service delivered on a scale of 10.
Health indicators reflect the state of service delivery well being or progress with respect
to function, disease and abnormality at any given time on a scale of 10.
The model starts with response time as the prime measurement indicator, works its way down in
weighted service equations through availability and infrastructure measures using the common
scale to yield a simple enterprise service quality index for applications. The application
service indexes are then combined and in all kinds of ways to yield quality of service, health
and comparative analyses. The indexes can also be combined into families for high level
enterprise intelligence reporting.
Usage
The "rubber meets the road" when you do a themed sequence report.
AwareView tracks applications by knowing the components that make an application up.
Application metadata is structured by System Administrator(s). This structure enables you
as a viewer to drilldown to an everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-your-application-in-one-report-grid
or in a scrolling sequence. This approach allows you to focus on what you want to know about
the application rather than on chasing reports in different places.
To see the static report grid profile in action for an application, try this:
1. From any AwareView page, click the "AwareView Page Selection Criteria"
slider menu
to open the menu (i.e., click the upper left bulb)
2. Enter 09/29/03 in the Start Date Box, and then move your cursor to the
lower right of the page to the green "Static Reports" box and
click it
A separate page should open containing a drillable report grid for that application on that date
using the chosen summary view and chosen customer viewpoint. Note you only have to select the
date in the demo.
The themed scrolling version changes the elements that scroll though the large pane when it
is activated. Themed scrolling is not active in the demo.
The goal is of this product to provide a higher plane of awareness for the enterprise. The Enterprise Service
Indexes can be used in many ways to help people understand and deal with diverse information.
The Indexes add health and QoS reporting to environments that do not have them. They are an
adjunct to Performance and Capacity management and could be used in all kinds of creative
ways (e.g., cross-organizational reporting, strategic planning, etc.). The physical display
model which integrates Service Indexes with traditional reporting can be used to synthesize
intelligence quickly yielding higher organizational capability, performance and capacity.