exploiting web publishing

8/7/2019 Exploiting Web Publishing

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AGENDA

Introduction

Environment

Using frame-based pages for report retrieval

Exception reporting with embedded hyperlinks

Server health reporting using color-coded table cells

Server configuration reporting with query capability

Summary

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Introduction

Web-based reporting is the information delivery

standard

Out-of-the box advantages over paper publishing:

Timeliness - delivery can be virtually instantaneous

Universal accessibility - no need to predefine recipients

Dynamic - content can be modified at any time Interactive access - users can select subsets of data

Environmentally friendly - saves trees!

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Introduction

But, merely converting existing paper reports to web

format (e.g. HTML or GIF files) is NOT sufficient:

The increased exposure to increasingly sophisticated internetcontent has raised user expectations of usability

The volume of performance reports in a distributed

environment with hundreds of servers requires:

An efficient user interface for navigating to specific content

A method for identifying exceptions & thresholds

A method for drilling down to increasing levels of detail

A help facility to define & explain reports & metrics

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Introduction

Assumptions:

You dont have the luxury of assigning or hiring an experienced

web application developer to design and implement aperformance reporting application

The volume of your data & capabilities of your

hardware/software preclude dynamic report generation

You have a basic understanding of programming principles

You have some experience with SAS programming You have some experience with VBScript programming (optional)

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AGENDA

Introduction

Environment





Summary

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Environment

400+ monitored NT servers:

File (54), Print (46), Domain Control (61), SMS (41),

MSExchange (80), Shared Apps (47), RAS (16), LotusNotes (14), SAP (17), Misc Apps (24)

22 HP-UX servers & 14 Sun Servers

Performance Data Repository is SAS IT Service Vision

Data collectors are NTSMF (DataCore Software) & Measureware(HP)

Hardware: HP-UX K430, 4 CPUs, 768 MB memory, 13 GB

disk space

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AGENDA

Introduction

Environment





Summary

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Frame-based pages for reports

The frame wars are over

Frames provide an excellent UI structure for report retrieval

Form with selection criteria in one frame

Report output in second frame

User navigational interaction is kept to a minimum

Sample frameset syntax:

Sample form syntax:


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Frame-based pages for reports

Best practices:

Establish a strict naming pattern for report files, to minimizecomplexity of server scripts. Example:

servertype.servername.reporttype.interval.outputtype Use the report output frame to display useful information when the

page is first displayed, e.g. a high-level summary report or a helppage that explains report contents or selection criteria.

Minimize the screen real estate used by the report selection frameto maximize the viewing area for reports.

Include a link to the site home page & to a help page in the reportselection frame.

If you have multiple report framesets, include links to them in thereport selection frame (use javascript routines to createdropdowns).

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AGENDA

Introduction

Environment


Exception reporting with embedded hyperlinks Server health reporting using color-coded table cells


Summary

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Exception reporting / hyperlinks

Exception Report Design

Large number of servers in a distributed environment

makes exception reporting imperative.

Try to design exception reports so that all exceptions

appear on a single web page.

Highlight exceptions that exceed thresholds (e.g. by

color-coding) so that they stand out clearly.

Provide hyperlinks to detailed reports that provide

additional data on exceptions (length, severity,

potential causes, etc.)

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Exception reporting /hyperlinks

SAS HTML Data Set Formatter

SAS HTML Data Set Formatter converts SAS data into html tables.

Invoked via %ds2htm macro call.

Specify input SAS data set, output html file, variables to display in table &optional formatting parameters.

Example: %ds2htm(htmlfile=abc.exceptions.20001231.html,

data=mysas.exception.data,

var=server1 metric1 server2 metric2 server3 metric3,

clsize=1, vsize=1, caption=Server Exception Report) Complete documentation at

http://www.sas.com/rnd/web/intrnet/format/index.html

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Embedding hyperlinks

Build SAS variables formatted into html hyperlink syntax.

Syntax is text string.

Set length of SAS variable to a large value (e.g. 90).

Concatenate literal strings to variables, e.g.:

cellval= || servname || ;

If a SAS macro variable needs to be followed by a period, you need to

insert an extra period, e.g. %pfx.. Use the SAS trim function to remove trailing blanks.

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Highlighting thresholds

Same method as embedding hyperlinks - build SAS variables that

contain html syntax for specifying color properties. Syntax for specifying font color is

Test threshold value when building variables:

if thresh=0 then exval = put(val,7.2);

else exval = || put(val, 7.2) || ;

The SAS putfunction formats numeric variables as character

strings.

If you dont assign a , the default font color for that

page is used.

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AGENDA

Introduction

Environment




Summary

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Server health reporting

Server Health Report Design

Green light, yellow light, red light paradigm:

Green = Normal range, no action required Yellow = Exceeds normal range, but may be acceptable

Red = Extreme range, should be investigated

Metrics for availability, processor utilization, available memory, &disk space.

Analyze your own historical data to determine thresholds & be

prepared to tune & adjust if necessary. If you have a lot of redlights, either youre in serious trouble or your thresholds are notset correctly!

Metrics are hyperlinks to detailed reports; column headings are

hyperlinks to metric definitions (javascript popups).

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Server health reporting

Coding techniques

Due to cell-coloring logic & javascript popups, we cant use the

%ds2htm macro - so we use standard SAS put statements instead.

Output file is .asp, to allow server-side includes.

Include syntax:

Select/when statements are used to test metric values, determine

what color cells should be, & build variables.

Syntax for hyperlinking to a javascript function:

text string Javascript function definition must be placed above the function call!

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AGENDA

Introduction

Environment




Summary

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Server configuration queries

Server Configuration Query Design

Be able to answer questions such as:

What are the hardware/software configurations of a class of servers?

Are there any servers that havent been upgraded to Service Pack n?

Which servers are configured with over 1 GB of memory?

Can use flat file or database table.

Use form input boxes to allow text or numeric input.

Pre-fill with values that retrieve all servers IF thats practical.

Allow case-insensitive input.

Disregard leading or trailing blanks.

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Form Processing Coding Hints

Form input statement syntax:

Text: input type=text size=n maxlength=n name=fieldname

Numeric: input type=number size=n maxlength=n value=nname=fieldname Processing form input in Active Server Pages / VBScript:

To read values:

x=Request.Form(fieldname)

To eliminate trailing/leading blanks & convert to upper

case:x=Trim(Ucase(Request.Form(fieldname)))

To test for numeric input:

if not IsNumeric(x) then ...

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File Processing Coding Hints

To open a file for processing:

SetSobj=Server.Create.Object(Scripting.FileSystemObj

ect)

Set

Sfil=sobj.OpenTextFile(ServerMapPath(your.file))

To read data from a file:

SrvTemp=sfil.ReadLine

SrvVar=Split(OneRec,,,-1,1)

To test for presence of a character string:

if Instr(1,SrvVar(0),SrvString,1) > 0 then ... 23


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File Processing Coding Hints

To close a file:

Sfil.Close Next two statements free memory & system resources - very

important!

Set Sfil=Nothing

Set Sobj=Nothing

To send all the generated output to the browser:

Response.Flush

Needed only if Response.Buffer=True was set.

Response buffering is recommended in most cases

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AGENDA

Introduction

Environment




Summary

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Summary

Internet publishing of performance data has

some intrinsic advantages.

With a little thought & effort, its possible todesign reports & report interfaces that

enhance

the user experience.

You dont need to be a professional web

developer - even performance analysts

can do it!26

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