InterMapper and Reporting - Take 2
Folks: A few weeks ago, I sent a request to the InterMapper-Talk list asking for your thoughts on reporting facilities that you would like to see in future versions of InterMapper. Thanks to all who responded. I have summarized the responses on this page: http://www.intermapper.com/featurerequests/reporting.html I want to give a second chance to people who didn't have time to respond the first time. Please read the original request (below), and respond to this list. We'll add your thoughts to our list. In addition, I have asked a colleague, Carl Pedersen, to follow up with people who have replied. He'll contact you through e-mail or phone to ask some in-depth questions about what you'd like to see. Thanks! Rich Brown Dartware, LLC = Original call for comments = We are beginning to think about enhancements to future versions of InterMapper. One frequent request we hear is for better reporting capabilities. Now that strip charts are implemented in InterMapper Remote/Console, InterMapper can provide a certain measure of historical information. But it's likely that you would like to see InterMapper could collect, format and display lots of other data. We'd like to know what kinds of reports or historical data that would be useful. Use the questions below as starters, and send your thoughts back to this list to spur further comments. -Do you need daily, weekly, monthly reports? Of what kinds of information? -Do you want reports of outages, traffic trends, utilization? -Do you care how the data is saved? Would text files suffice? Is an SQL database required? -If the data were saved in a SQL database, would you want direct access to the DBMS? -How would you use this data? To help improve service? To look for trouble spots? To convince your boss you're doing a good job? :-) We look forward to your thoughts. Many thanks! Rich Brown Dartware, LLC List archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/intermapper-talk%40list.dartware.com/ To unsubscribe: send email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
InterMapper and Reporting - Take 2
Folks: A few weeks ago, I sent a request to the InterMapper-Talk list asking for your thoughts on reporting facilities that you would like to see in future versions of InterMapper. Thanks to all who responded. I have summarized the responses on this page: http://www.intermapper.com/featurerequests/reporting.html I suspect that a number of people didn't have a chance to respond to the initial request. Please read the original request (below), and respond to the list. We'll add your thoughts to our list. In addition, I have asked a colleague, Carl Pedersen, to follow up with people who have replied. He'll contact you through e-mail or phone to ask some in-depth questions about what you'd like to see. Thanks! Rich Brown Dartware, LLC = Original call for comments = We are beginning to think about enhancements to future versions of InterMapper. One frequent request we hear is for better reporting capabilities. Now that strip charts are implemented in InterMapper Remote/Console, InterMapper can provide a certain measure of historical information. But it's likely that you would like to see InterMapper could collect, format and display lots of other data. We'd like to know what kinds of reports or historical data that would be useful. Use the questions below as starters, and send your thoughts back to this list to spur further comments. -Do you need daily, weekly, monthly reports? Of what kinds of information? -Do you want reports of outages, traffic trends, utilization? -Do you care how the data is saved? Would text files suffice? Is an SQL database required? -If the data were saved in a SQL database, would you want direct access to the DBMS? -How would you use this data? To help improve service? To look for trouble spots? To convince your boss you're doing a good job? :-) We look forward to your thoughts. Many thanks! Rich Brown Dartware, LLC List archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/intermapper-talk%40list.dartware.com/ To unsubscribe: send email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: InterMapper and Reporting - Take 2
- Do you need daily, weekly, monthly reports? Of what kinds of information? It would be nice to be able to simply input a range of time... instead of selecting from a pre made list. When sifting through data its hard to know ahead of time what you are going to need. Sometimes you want to look at two days worth... sometimes youneed want to see 3 weeks worth. Maybe you could make it so you could select the time range from a pre-made list, but also have a custom option, where the user can specify exactly what time range they want to see. That would cover all options. As for what kinds of information... everything. Being able to chose from any type of "event" that InterMapper is capable of recording would be best. If its worth monitoring for with a probe, or being graphed on a chart,then its worth being available for reporting. - Do you want reports of outages, traffic trends, utilization? Again, creating a pre made list always boxes the user in, and there will always be times where the user wants something that isn't on the list. Again, being able to chose from any type of "event" that InterMapper is capable of recording would be best. Why limit your reporting engine? - Do you care how the data is saved? Would text files suffice? Is an SQL database required? Using a database of some sort would make a lot of sense from my point of view. Using something like mySQL or PostgreSQL would allow you to utilize an open standard that already has a large user base, and therefore a large support base. In addition, storing the information in database like this allows third partyreports to be written that could sift the data in ways that Dartware doesn't have time to write, or didnt foresee the need for. It seems to me that it would make a lot of sense to have InterMapper write back pretty much everything that it sees happen on a map back to a database (or make it a customizable option for what gets recorded, and what doesnt). When you write everthing back, then everything is available for reporting. And reporting is a fundamental need of a network monitoring system. The stronger the reporting system is, the better. - If the data were saved in a SQL database, would you want direct access to the DBMS? Yes. There are users out there that are always going to want to access the data in ways that Dartware didn't/couldn't foresee. Making it so that people can access the raw data themselves helps alleviate the problem. If the need is great enough for the user, they will simply write the tool themselves, and hopefully make the tool available to others. This just makes InterMapper a better product for everyone. Leveraging the user base to write custom reports makes a lot of sense, just like you have done with custom probes. - How would you use this data? To help improve service? To look for trouble spots? To convince your boss you're doing a good job? :-) All of these. I would primarily use it for trend analysis. Being able to see and quantify things like outages, traffic patterns, server utilization, etc. etc.is a powerful tool to help account for them in the future. Jonathan ShermanNetwork AdministratorHudsonville Public Schools
RE: InterMapper and Reporting - Take 2
Hi, I too am very appreciative of your efforts to extend and enhance Intermapper's abilities. It's truly refreshing to see. I'm starting to use the notification schedule mechanism in InterMapper to forward notifications of SNMP traps using the Notify Via: Electronic mail (SMTP) option. It does exactly what I need it to for the link up/down traps that we receive from our Catalysts but there's one thing that I would like to see: - Currently when it sends the email it tells you the ifIndex of the interface that has gone up/down and in many cases that isn't always intuitive or easy to identify. It would be nice if there was a way to change that flag such that it forwards the Port Name instead of the ifIndex. For example, in Cisco CatOS it would be nice to translate it to mod/port or in Cisco IOS interface ATM#/#/#.#, GigabitEthernet #/#, etc Thanks a million, David Visick -Original Message- From: Richard E. Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 8:00 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: InterMapper and Reporting - Take 2 Folks: A few weeks ago, I sent a request to the InterMapper-Talk list asking for your thoughts on reporting facilities that you would like to see in future versions of InterMapper. Thanks to all who responded. I have summarized the responses on this page: http://www.intermapper.com/featurerequests/reporting.html I want to give a second chance to people who didn't have time to respond the first time. Please read the original request (below), and respond to this list. We'll add your thoughts to our list. In addition, I have asked a colleague, Carl Pedersen, to follow up with people who have replied. He'll contact you through e-mail or phone to ask some in-depth questions about what you'd like to see. Thanks! Rich Brown Dartware, LLC = Original call for comments = We are beginning to think about enhancements to future versions of InterMapper. One frequent request we hear is for better reporting capabilities. Now that strip charts are implemented in InterMapper Remote/Console, InterMapper can provide a certain measure of historical information. But it's likely that you would like to see InterMapper could collect, format and display lots of other data. We'd like to know what kinds of reports or historical data that would be useful. Use the questions below as starters, and send your thoughts back to this list to spur further comments. -Do you need daily, weekly, monthly reports? Of what kinds of information? -Do you want reports of outages, traffic trends, utilization? -Do you care how the data is saved? Would text files suffice? Is an SQL database required? -If the data were saved in a SQL database, would you want direct access to the DBMS? -How would you use this data? To help improve service? To look for trouble spots? To convince your boss you're doing a good job? :-) We look forward to your thoughts. Many thanks! Rich Brown Dartware, LLC List archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/intermapper-talk%40list.dartware.com/ To unsubscribe: send email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/intermapper-talk%40list.dartware.com/ To unsubscribe: send email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
