Investigating capacity and performance issues in systems

Investigate enables you to generate charts or tables to view and monitor the performance issues by using the required metrics. You can save these charts or tables as an investigate study. 

You can launch the study to view the related metrics in charts or tables. You can drill down to specific systems and metrics of interest, and perform  root-cause analysis for any capacity or performance issues. Typically investigate is used to analyze near real-time data, and short-term history data to address any capacity and performance bottlenecks in your environment.

To view Investigate study groups and studies

1. Log in to the Helix Capacity Optimization Dashboard.

2. From the left pane, select  > Capacity > Investigate.
   The Investigate page is displayed that contains the following details:

   • Study group: The name of an Investigate study group. You can expand and collapse the associated Investigate studies. Click the study group name to view and analyze the studies of the study group.
   • Study name: The name of an Investigate study. Click the study name to view the study details.

   • Owner: The name of the user who created the study group. 
   • Access groups: The name of the access group for the study group owner. (Only administrators can view this column.)

   Administrators can provide read-only access to users to view the Investigate studies created by other users. This access can be granted at a Study group level. Authorized users can view the studies of the Study groups for which the access is granted.

   A non-administrator user can view the following study groups:

   • Study groups that the user created.
   • Other study groups for which access is granted by administrators.
   • Study groups that are accessible to all users.

3. (optional) To grant access to Investigate study groups, perform the following steps as an administrator:

   • Ensure that the appropriate access is configured for the Investigate administrator to view study groups. 

     To configure study group access for an Investigate administrator

     1. Complete the following steps in the Helix Single Sign-On:
        1. Log in to the Helix Single Sign-On.
        2. Create a new user.
        3. Create a new group (role) and assign the user that you created to it.
     2. Log in to the Helix Capacity Optimization Dashboard and complete these steps:
        1. In the left pane, expand Administration > Roles, and click : beside Roles and click Create.
        2. Specify a role name and select the required permissions:
           
           • For an Investigate admin: Add and Edit Capacity views, View Investigate, and Edit Investigate
           • For an Investigate editor: View Investigate and Edit Investigate
           • For an Investigate user: View Investigate
        3. In the left pane, click Authorization Profiles, and click : beside Authorization Profiles, and then click Create.
        4. Add the user that you created in Helix Single Sign-On and the role that you created to the new profile.
     3. Log in to the BMC Helix Capacity Optimization console and complete these steps:
        1. Click Administration > USERS > Roles > Add role.
        2. Specify a role name and a description, and associate it to the external group that you created in the Helix Single Sign-On.
        3. For Activities, select Investigate section - view and Investigate section - edit in the Available list, and move them to the Selected list.
        4. Save the updates.
        5. In the left page, click Access groups.
        6. Do one of the following:
           
           • To permit access to all study groups, edit *ALL* access group, and add the group that you created in the Helix Single Sign-On to the external names.
             This association grants access of all study groups to the Investigate user.
           • To grant access only to specific access groups, edit the required access groups, and add group that you created in the Helix Single Sign-On to the external names.

     For more information about managing access, see Managing-users-and-access-control.

   1. Click the Investigate study group for which you want to grant access to other users.
   2. Click : besides the study group name, and select Edit access rights.
   3. Select the access groups of users to which you want to grant access, and click Apply.
      The users of the selected access groups can now view the studies of this Investigate study group.
   4. Repeat these steps for other study groups to grant access to other users.
4. (Optional) To change the table or chart view on a study group or a study page, do the following:
   • To change to the chart view, select the required rows for the required systems, and click View charts. Select the required columns and click Select. 
     The operation might take a few seconds to retrieve the data. 
     Chart for the selected systems and metrics is displayed in the Investigate study. By default, the chart for data points in the last one hour is displayed. You can also click Define period to view the chart for other time intervals.
   • To change to the table view, click View table.

To view granular (one second) data in study or study group

You can configure a system to collect granular (one second) data by modifying the value of the SAMPLING INTERVAL parameter to 1 in the Repository.cfg file. For more information, see Configuring-the-Capacity-Agent-to-collect-data-at-a-greater-granularity.

When you select such system in the study, the pagination is applied in the chart, and data is displayed in multiple pages. Use the arrow buttons to navigate between pages. You can configure the interval span for pagination using the study group Settings page. For example, if you have set the interval span as 60 minutes, the 3600 data points are displayed on each page.

If you select multiple systems in the study, the pagination is applied based on their configurations:

• All or at least one system with the one second configuration, the pagination is applied. 
• All systems with ten second data, the pagination is not applied.  

Related topics

Setting-up-and-using-the-Investigate-tool

Creating-and-managing-Investigate-studies

Where to go from here