Creating a summary data mart for a custom view

Create a summary data mart to collect the time series data for a specified period. This data is aggregated hourly to a single data point. Using the Summary Data Mart wizard, you can build a custom data mart to retrieve this data according to your requirements. It is simple, easy to use wizard that allows you to create data marts using the required metrics without having the knowledge of SQLs. To understand the concept of data marts, how they can be useful, and for information on creating SQL-based data marts using summary data marts, see Managing data marts for custom views.

The Summary Data Mart wizard guides you through the creation of a data mart:

• Select the type of content to be displayed by the data mart
• Select the primary entity of the data mart
• Configure the entity filter
• Select the required metrics
• (Optional) Select the tag types to be included in the data mart
• (Optional) Include the parent entity details
• Configure the time filter to be displayed 

For example, using the Summary Data Mart wizard, you can create a data mart that retrieves all virtual machines with their hosts and clusters that are deployed in your infrastructure. You can include the capacity metrics, such as CPU, memory, and storage utilization to have an idea of the status of the infrastructure capacity. You can also add a time filter to check the data utilization for a specific period. 

You can add, edit, or delete a summary data mart only if your user role is assigned to the admin_section_edit permission. For more information, see Default user roles and permissions.

To create a summary data mart

The following video (4:52) illustrates the process of creating a summary data mart.

 https://youtu.be/4CfqCC58ngI

1. In the navigation pane of the Views tab, select Views > Custom Views.
2. Access any custom view, click , and select Add Summary Data Mart. The Summary Data Mart wizard is displayed in a new page. 
   Alternatively, you can click Add Data Mart while creating a custom view using the Summary table template.
   
   

3. Select the type of content that you want to extract using this data mart, and click Next. By default, System is selected.

   Based on this selection, the system types, business driver types, or domains are displayed in the next step.
   
   
4. Select the entity type whose data you want to retrieve using this data mart, and click Next. For example, to retrieve all VMware virtual machines data, select entity type as Virtual Machine - VMware. Corresponding to the selected entity type, a list of metrics are filtered in the Metrics page. If you select multiple entity types, metrics corresponding to all entity types are displayed.
   
   
5. Select the appropriate entity filter, and click Next. You can refine entities using one of the following options:

   • Include all entities in the catalog: Includes all entities from your catalog irrespective of the entity types selected in the Entity Types page. 

   • Use an entity filter: Displays a list of predefined entity filters that you can select from. For details, see Managing entity filters.
     
     
6. Select the required metrics on which to measure the capacity of the selected entity type, and click Next. For example, to review the CPU and memory utilization of virtual machines, select CPU_UTIL and MEM_UTIL metrics.
   You can select the List the metrics from all Entity Types option to display all metrics irrespective of the entity types selected in the Entity Types page.
   The metrics list also displays the subresource (BY_**) metrics and formulas. 
   
   
7. (Optional) In the Select Tag Types list, select one or more tag types that are defined for the selected entity types. To view the tag types defined for all the entity types, select the List all the Tag Types from all Entity Types check box. The tags of the selected types that are associated with the entities are added to a data mart column. 
   
   
8. (Optional) Select the parent entity from the list. When selected, the name, description, and identifier of the selected parent entity is included in the data mart. The list displays all the parent entities of the selected entity. For example, if you have selected the entity as Virtual Machine, the parent entity list displays Virtual Host, Virtual Cluster, Resource Pool, and Datastore. You can select multiple parent entities and also include the metrics of these entities. 
   
   
   
   
9. Select the time filter on which the data will be summarized in the view. For details on time filters and configuring the global time filter, see Managing time filters.
   You can select the time filter from the following available options:
   
   • Global Time Filter: Displays a list of predefined time ranges that you can select from. For example, Last 180 days, Last 30 days, and so on. 
   • Last 1 day / 7 days/ 30 days: Displays data for either last 1 day, 7 days, or 30 days excluding the current day.
   • Last time period: Enables you to define a custom time period. The data will be displayed according to this custom period. For example, you can select 36 hours to display last 36 hours of data in the view.
   • Date range: Enables you to define a custom time range. Use the calendar to select the start and end dates for your custom time period. 
10. Specify a name and an optional description for your data mart, and click Next. 

11. The summary page contains editors that enable you to manipulate data. By default, Basic Editor is displayed. Advanced editor is a JSON editor that includes the same values as of basic editor, but in the JSON format. For details on Advanced editor, see Using the advanced editor of the summary data mart wizard.
    The basic editor consists of the following fields:  
    

    1	Data Mart Definition	Displays the preview of all options selected in the previous pages. You can choose to modify these values by clicking Back to Wizard.
    2	Editor toggle	Use the toggle button to switch between the basic and advanced editors.
    3	Materialization Task	Displays the default materialization task of the data mart. If required, you can select another materialization task to change the frequency of materialization of the data mart in the associated view. For details on configuring the materializer task, see Configuring the Data Mart Materializer task.
    4	Summary table	A table listing the data mart columns based on your selections in the Summary Data Mart wizard. These columns will be displayed in the summary table of the associated view. The table provides the default values of labels, descriptions, and statistics for the columns. It also displays the metrics for parent entities if you have configured the parent entity.
    5	Actions	You can edit the column values or delete columns by clicking the respective actions from the Action menu. To delete multiple columns, select the respective columns, and click Delete Selected. You can not delete the default system columns.
    6	Search	Specify the value that you want to search for in the table.
    7	Pagination	Displays the first 15 search results by default. You can navigate through the pages to see the results.

12. Click Finish. The message indicating that the data mart is created successfully along with the data mart identifier is displayed. 
    The new data mart is added to the Data marts page. For details, see Managing data marts for custom views.
    
    

You can now use this data mart while creating a custom view.