Graph tile

The Graph tile displays diagrams of the relationships among one or more series in the current time range. To create a graph, you specify:

• One metric and one entity, which yields one series
• One metric and the children of one entity, which yields multiple series
• One metric, which yields one series for each entity that uses the metric
• Any combination of the preceding options

For example:

• The 1-minute, 5-minute, and 15-minute CPU load averages of one Linux server
• The 5-minute CPU load average of all Linux servers in the dashboard's scope
• The arithmetic mean of memory used by all Linux servers in the dashboard's scope

In graphs of multiple series, you can aggregate all the series or display each entity's series independently. In certain combinations, all of the series must be aggregated. In graphs of multiple metrics that use different units of measurements, no vertical axis is displayed.

Tip

The dashboard tutorials include an example of creating a Graph tile. Also, you can create a Graph tile quickly from the Metric Dictionary page or any Smart View page.

For optimal performance, Zenoss recommends limiting graph tiles to two-three metrics per tile.

Example tiles

One entity, multiple metricsMultiple entities, one metric, discrete displayMultiple entities, one metric, aggregated display

Tile configuration dialog

When you click the Graph tile icon on the AVAILABLE TILES palette, the TILE CONFIGURATION dialog (a modal dialog) replaces the dashboard editor window. On opening, the dialog displays the TILE CONFIG tab.

The following image highlights the major areas of the dialog.

Use the fields in the tile information area to specify one combination of metric and entity to visualize in the tile. When no entity is specified, the tile includes the metric data points of all the entities in the dashboard's scope that use the specified metric. You can specify any number of entity and metric combinations.

Use the visualization selector to choose line chart, bar chart, stacked area chart or scatter plot.

TILE CONFIG

Tile title

The text that appears in the upper-left corner of a tile.

Entity and metric

The search field for finding entity and metric names in the dashboard's scope. If a search term matches both entities and metrics, both are shown in separate lists.

Include sub-entities

A toggle control, to display series associated with child entities of the specified entity. The series associated with the specified entity, if any, is not displayed, nor are any series associated with descendants other than child entities.

Aggregator

The arithmetic function to use to combine metric data points in the visualization, or no aggregation function.

Include empty series

A toggle control, to hide or display an empty series. A series is empty when no data points are found for a metric during the current time range. The default is to hide empty series.

Color

The color to use in the visualization. This option is only available when both an entity and a metric are specified. When only a metric is specified, visualization color is assigned automatically.

Entity types

(Optional) One or more types of entities to include in the count. Essentially, this is a sub-query of the dashboard's scope.

This option is not available when an entity is specified in the Entity and metric field.

Label format

The content to include in hover text and in the legend, if enabled.

Advanced

The Advanced area provides fields for determining the order in which series appear in graphs of multiple series of the same metric.

The default maximum number of series displayed in a graph is 16. To change the number, see CHART OPTIONS.

Show me

The ordering to use, either highest (highest to lowest) or lowest (lowest to highest). The default is highest.

Ranked by

The method to use to assign a rank to each series.

Note

Ranking is performed before alignment, which may result in graphs that appear to be ordered incorrectly. For example, if you choose the maximum ranking method and the data alignment option is set to its default, mean, then the series may appear to be out of order. To avoid confusion, set the alignment option to match the ordering method. For more information, see ADVANCED options.

mean	Use the arithmetic mean of all data points in the series.
maximum	Use the highest data point in the series.
minimum	Use the lowest data point in the series. NaN values are lower than any numeric value.
99th percentile	Use the interpolated value that is greater than or equal to 99% of the data points in the series.
95th percentile	Use the interpolated value that is greater than or equal to 95% of the data points in the series.
50th percentile	Use the interpolated median value of the data points in the series.
5th percentile	Use the interpolated value that is greater than or equal to 5% of the data points in the series.
standard deviation	Use the square root of the mean variance of all data points in the series.

Align by

The method to use to align data points in a single metric's series.

none	Do not align data points.
interpolate	Insert data points between adjacent data points around the alignment period boundary.
next older	Shift the oldest data point before the alignment period boundary to the boundary.
mean	Use the arithmetic mean of all data points in the series.
maximum	Use the highest data point in the series.
minimum	Use the lowest data point in the series. NaN values are lower than any numeric value.
standard deviation	Use the square root of the mean variance of all data points in the series.
sum	Replace all data points in the alignment period with the sum of their values. Works with numeric and distribution values.
count	Replace all data points in the alignment period with the sum of their values. Works with numeric and Boolean values.
rate	Use the average number of changes per second in the series. Values below zero are discarded. This option is useful for metrics which represent a running count and originate with a streaming data source.
delta	Use the absolute change in the series, which can be either positive or negative. This option is useful for metrics which represent a running count and originate with a streaming data source.

All Series

The All Series area provides two fields for optimizing data point alignment options. The settings in these fields apply to all metric series used in the tile.

The alignment options provide a standardized way to display data points when the amount of space for display and the time range to represent are variable. The defaults for these options are industry best practices.

Alignment

The method to use to align data points in all series.

none	Do not align; use raw data points.
interpolate	Insert data points between adjacent data points around the alignment period boundary.
next older	Shift the oldest data point before the alignment period boundary to the boundary.
mean	Replace all data points in the alignment period with the arithmetic mean of their values. When a collection gap occurs, line charts using mean show a straight line across the gap, with no selectable values between the known data points.
maximum	Discard all data points in the alignment period except the maximum value.
minimum	Discard all data points in the alignment period except the minimum value.
standard deviation	Replace all data points in the alignment period with the square root of the mean variance of their values.
sum	Replace all data points in the alignment period with the sum of their values. Works with numeric and distribution values.
count	Replace all data points in the alignment period with the sum of their values. Works with numeric and Boolean values.

Alignment period

The time interval to aggregate, used only with aggregation methods (mean, maximum, minimum, standard deviation, sum, and count).

For example, if the data to aggregate includes 60 data points in an interval of 30 minutes, selecting an alignment period of 5 minutes (5m) would yield 6 aggregated data points.

CHART OPTIONS

Legend Position

(Optional) Display a legend in the tile, on the right side or at the bottom of the tile.

• When an aggregation function is selected, the legend includes a mnemonic of the aggregation function and the number of entities included in the visualization.

• When no aggregation function is selected, the legend includes the names of the highest-scoring entities. Each entity name is a link to the entity's Smart View page.

Max series displayed

The maximum number of series to display in the tile. The default is 15.

Chart type

For bar charts and area charts, you can specify whether the data is stacked and whether the stacked presentation shows the combined totals of series on the vertical axis or the percentage of each series.

None	Do not stack data points, present them side-by-side.
Stacked	Stack all data points and extend the vertical axis to the largest sum per horizontal axis timestamp.
100% Stacked	Interpolate all data points to a minimum of 0 and maximum of 100 on the vertical axis per horizontal axis timestamp. This option is useful when data points are not aggregated, use the same units, and have common timestamps.