When you sign in to Navigator for i on a partition that is running the 7.3 release, you will discover a new option to display the dashboard.
The dashboard consists of six graphs that are updated in real time, providing a quick overview of the health and status of your IBM i partition.
Within Navigator for i, you have extensive features to analyze the health and performance of your system with System Monitors and the Performance Data Investigator. The dashboard provides a simple starting point where you can easily launch into these other interfaces for more detailed information.
The screen capture in the figure below is an example of what the dashboard looks like:
You can configure the refresh rate for the dashboard as well as the thresholds for each metric. The default is to automatically update the data every minute, but you can change the refresh interval. You can also choose to manually update the graphs.
For automatic update, there are two parameters you can configure:
* Interval
The interval toggles how frequently the graph data is updated.
* Duration
The duration is the length of time the data is collected in the interval. The duration can never be larger than the interval.
If you click on a metric, you will see basic information about that metric. For example, with CPU Utilization, you can see the top contributing jobs; with page faults, you can view the fault rates for each memory pool.
You can configure the thresholds at which the graphs change colors. The colors are the standard “stoplight” colors of green, yellow, and red. While IBM ships default threshold values, one size never fits all and changing the thresholds is simple: click on the slider icon in the bottom left of the graph. The icon will expand to allow you to specify the levels at which the metric changes from green to yellow to red. The following screen capture shows an example of what it looks like to configure the threshold:
As I mentioned earlier, you can launch into system monitors or the investigate data tasks directly from a dashboard graph. Simply right-click in the graph area to display a pop-up menu. For example, from CPU Utilization, you can view system monitors, investigate monitor data, or investigate CPU data, as the screen capture below shows.
The dashboard is also available on iAccess Mobile; the screen capture in below is an example of what the dashboard looks like on my iPhone.
The following articles are useful if you want to learn more about the dashboard or other enhancements in Navigator for i.
- Dashboard is an article on the IBM I Technology Updates site that explains the features of the dashboard in greater detail.
- Navigator 7.3 Content and Changes provides an overview of additional enhancements in the 7.3 release for Navigator for i.
This blog post was edited to fix broken links on April 15, 2020.
This blog post was originally published on IBMSystemsMag.com and is reproduced here by permission of IBM Systems Media.