Reporting
- Michael Pirker
- Thomas Sikora
- Dominik Karch
BVQ offers you the feature of reporting.
If you like to create a report, you need a template. This will be used as a blueprint for created reports. BVQ will be delivered with ready to use templates for the supported platforms.
These are basically overview reports for storage capacity and performance.
If you like to create a report, login to the BVQ-Server and by clicking on the Reporting-tab.
Using the subtabs you can
- manage generated reports
- administrate the templates, that are used to create a report
- schedule the reports
Reports
By selecting the Reports-tab, you have access to all generated Reports.
Here, you see the information of currently running and generated Reports.
With the action buttons, you can download a Report (1), create a new one (2), edit the template of a self created Report (3), get the information about a Report (4) or delete a single one (5).
Templates
If you like to manage your reporting templates, just choose the Templates-tab.
Here you can create a new template (1), see alle generated Reports of a template (2), generate a new report out of a template (3), create a schedule for the report (4), edit a self created template (5), clone an existing template (6) or to delete a self created template (7) .
Scheduling
In this tab, you see all created schedules for the different templates.
You have now the possibility, to see a list for all created reports out of a template (1). If you didn't changed the default for the TTL during the installation,the oldest report can be created before 30 days. Also you can edit a single schedule (2), get a link to the latest generated report where you also get the option to download that report (3) or to delete a single schedule (4).
We want to build a more complex report that should consist of tables, charts and loops.
- With this link you can download the template that we want to create in this document.
Please remember that this is just an example.
Testreport for BVQWIKI.json
- Use this document to learn how to import and export report templates.
Only templates that do not use favorites for charts or tables can be exported!
BVQ thus prevents dependencies between installations.
Export a reporting template- Go to Reports → Templates and find the report template
- use the button
to download the reporting template
Import a reporting template
- Go to Reports → Templates
- use the button
to import a reporting template
We will use snippet loops in this report so some words about this!
Reports with Loops
A loop is an iteration over an object type. A classic report could be.
- Tables across all vCenter
- Aggregated charts across all vCenter
- Loop over all vCenter iterates over each individual vCenter
- vCenter table
- vCenter charts
Or more complex
- Tables across all vCenter
- Aggregated charts across all vCenter
- Loop over all vCenter iterates over each individual vCenter
- vCenter table
- vCenter charts
- Tables across all VMCluster in vCenter
- Aggregated charts across all VMCluster in vCenter
- Loop over all vmCluster iterates over each individual VMCluster in vCenter
- VMCluster table
- VMCluster charts
- Tables across all VMHosts in VMCluster
- Aggregated charts across all VMHosts in VMCluster
- Loop over all VMHosts iterates over each individual VMHosts in VMCluster
- VMHost table
- VMHost charts
- ...
As you can see, loops can be nested inside each other.
This can lead to very long reports that also have a long computing time. But the advantage is obvious.
These reports are calculated overnight, can have long periods of time, and the next day all measured values are available in a PDF file.
Some considerations about loops:
- Always plan with loops - this makes reports much more flexible
- Actually we cannot drag and drop snippets across loops. So it is not an option to start without a loop and add it later. This will change in future.
Start the example report with a loop
Create a report template
To create a new report template, go to Reporting -> Templates (1) and click on the Create new template (2) button.
You now have to give the report a name (1) and also provide a description (2) of the report in the description field.
Create a reporting table
Some knowledge beforehand
- Topology values a counters like number of hosts in cluster or number of VM in hosts
- Attributes are non numeric values like code level
- Performance and capacity are the other typical kinds of data types
- Topology tables can include all these types of information (it is possible that we rename this in future)
We create the widget and the the table
We have to do the following (1) create the widget - (2) set the selectiopn path (the base of the table) - (3) define columns - (4) reorder colums and sort the table
Step 2 and 3 need several clicks so we provided videos for this - the videos are repeating endlessly so we put them into the expand sections - it is best to reload the page when you want to see it from the beginning.- Create the widget
See in video under 2 Set the selection path to vCenter
Please recognize that this operation ends with the save button which is not saving the widget but the selection path
Define the columns
We want to add columns from different types. Attributes, topology and capacity information.
This video will end with the preview of the table
Change the order of the columns and the sequence of sorting and the maximum number of rows
Use drag and drop to change the order of the columns
Use Drag&Drop to reorder table columns. Use the arrows to sort a column. To sort multiple columns, use Shift&Click or Alt&Click.
Note: Sorting is only available for flat tables!
Use Max rows to cut the table after a specific number of rows. This is useful for top 10 tables
Create a reporting chart
Start with add snippet and select Charts → Performance charts (1)
Select the right Object type (like in the table but now for the chart)
(2) + (3)
Choose the metric for the chart
Open Metric tab, click on field field (2) to open Metric chooser and find the right metric (3)
Add Metric and object legend if wanted
Use preview to check results
Create a snippet loop
You can use snippets if you want to repeat sections in a report based on the enumeration of objects.
For example:
Create a table and a chart for every VMware Host in a VMware vCenter
This is a snippet across VM hosts objects
- Start with Add snippet and select Snippet loops → Snippet loop object type (1)
Select the right object to loop across click on (2) to open the object selector and find VM Host (3)
You now have created the snippet loop all snippets inside this loop have to be placed here (4)
- Start with Add snippet and select Snippet loops → Snippet loop object type (1)
Add labels to our reporting project and finish the project
The structure of the report is looking like this
(1) VMware Cluster Table
(2) VMware vCenter CPU usage chart
(3) The lop across all Hosts of the vCenters
(4) Nothing in the loop
We want to add some things
Big header above Cluster table with the words "VMware vCenter table"
Add Snippet General Layout Elements → Header
Take care to add the snippet from the bottom of the snippet list and drag and drop i8t into the right place
Rich text above performance chart with the words "VMware vCenter CPU % usage"
Add Snippet General Layout Elements → Text
Take care to add the snippet from the bottom of the snippet list and drag and drop it into the right place
Snippet Loop header inside the loop
Add Snippet Snippet Loop → Snippet loop header
Header level 2
This shall give us the name of the host so choose Attribute Info → Object Name
Prefix text "VM Host: "
- Table and chart inside the snippet loop
Take care to place these items inside the loop
Check out the following documents for details how to create chart and tables
Create a reporting table
Create a reporting chart
The template shows how it looks like after adding all snippets
(1) Header in the beginning
(2) Rich text between table and chart
(3) Snippet loop heard in the loop
Create a report from the template
There are already some predefined templates in the system so it might be the best idea to sort by last change to get you new template to the top of the list.
Action Buttons from left to right
- show reports from template
- create a new report
- define report schedules
- edit template
- duplicate template
- download template
- delete template
You can use the "play" button from the left to create the report.
- choose pdf or html as output format
- choose the date for the report which is typically today but reporting cam also create historical reports if you want to monitor changes
If you have charts in the report you have to provide start and end date - You can choose systems to limit the scope of the report
Please select only systems types which are parrt of the report template Run the report!
After some time the report can be downloaded from the reports section
Schedule a report
Export a reporting template
- Go to Reports → Templates and find the report template
- Start the scheduler with the button
- (1) Scheduler name
- (2) Output format HTML or PDF
- (3) Schedule - enter a crontab or create a crontab with the dialog
- (4) describes the range of the charts
End time is always the actual time and start time is actual time - Range - (5) Select systems - which systems shall be covered by the report
- (6) Notification - what to do with the report
Create a link to the lades report
- Go to Reports → Scheduler and find the schedule
create a link with this button
