Managing Metric Data
Managing Metric Data
Available in HQ Open Source unless marked by * for HQ Enterprise only
You can customize the way HQ collects and displays metric information: which metrics to display, how often to collect the metrics, over what length of time to display data, and more.
- Categories of metrics collected
- Where to view metrics
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Metric Categories
A metric can measure one of the following categories of information:
Availability Metrics
In HQ, a resource is "available" when it is ready to service requests. More specifically, a platform is available if the HQ Server can reach it. For other inventory levels, HQ issues a query or a request to the resource to determine its availability. If a resource that is part of an application is unavailable, Hyperic HQ considers the entire application to be unavailable. A managed resource's availability is displayed as follows:
Availability Status Table
| Green |  |
100% availability |
| Red |  |
0% availability |
| Yellow |  |
Availability between 0% to 100% |
| Orange |  |
Resource is paused |
| Gray |  |
No availability was collected in the specified time frame |
When HQ notifies you that an application is unavailable, you can drill down into the resources that make up that application in order to determine which resource (such as a web server, application server, or database) is causing the availability problem.
Throughput Metrics
HQ can measure throughput for each managed resource. For Web servers and application servers, throughput is typically measured as bytes served, bytes received, number of requests, and number of responses over a user-specified period of time (minutes, hours, days). For databases, throughput is typically measured as the number of requests processed or active connections over a specified period of time.
Performance Metrics
HQ provides end-to-end response time for components of your infrastructure that deal with end-user perception. HQ measures requests originating with the end user and then presents the information in a segmented format that separates out the response times of multiple tiers of the transaction, including end user, Web server, and application server.
HQ measures response-time measurement passively by monitoring high-resolution access logs rather than invasive filters that interfere with inbound requests. Because this measurement takes place outside of the process of the application being measured, it provides an accurate performance measurement with no impact on application performance — a critical requirement for applications in production. In addition, the collected information reflects real-time transactions rather that synthetic or simulated transactions, providing a high level of visibility into production issues as they arise.
HQ shows response-time data in seconds, and it shows low, average, and peak values, as well as the number of requests.
Utilization Metrics
Hyperic HQ can measure utilization rates for the platforms and servers that make up an Application. Examples of utilization include number of sessions created and destroyed, number of loaded or reloaded servlets, JVM total, used, and free memory, EJB creates, removes, loads, stores, and so on.
You can examine the capacity of an entire platform and measure individual utilization of the servers on those platforms. Using Hyperic HQ, you can pinpoint underutilized resources by establishing minimum utilization thresholds on a per platform basis. You can also determine where Application bottlenecks occur by examining utilization rates between disk, memory, CPU, and network, and then apply capacity appropriately.
Where to View Metrics
Metrics for a single resource or for multiple resources (in the guise of a compatible group or autogroup) can be viewed on the 
tab on the "Current Health" screen. The tab displays all metrics currently being collected for the resource or group resources. The metrics are displayed with their lowest and highest observed values, average of observed values, last observed value, and collection interval, as well as alerts and out-of-bounds counts, for the user-specified metric-display time range.
You can also chart the metric data, set baselines for metrics, change the metric collection behavior of metrics, and change how metrics are displayed. Instructions for many of these tasks are enumerated on the "Current Health" help page.
A resource's "default" metrics are displayed in the UI. Hyperic determines which metrics are "default." To see which metrics for a resource type are considered default, view the resource type's metric template via the "HQ Administration" screen.
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