Running playback mode

Use playback mode to run a retrospective analysis of your data to see what caused problems that you had in the past.

When you run playback, all of the displays in BMC AMI Ops Insight reflect the results based on the historical data. 

Warning

If you run playback, it erases all real-time scoring in your system.

To avoid data loss, BMC recommends that you run playback mode on a separate instance of BMC AMI Ops Insight.

Before you begin

To run playback mode you must meet the following requirements:

  • You must have administrator privileges.
  • Create a playback file. See Creating-a-playback-file for more details.
  • BMC AMI Ops Insight cannot be running projections on real-time data. If you are running real-time projections, playback is disabled.

To run playback

  1. Click the Administration icon Gear Icon.PNG in the title bar. 
  2. Click Playback Mode > Playback Scoring in the menu on the left side.

  3. Enter the following details:

    Field

    Description

    Playback File

    Complete file path of the file that contains the historical SMF data

    Tip

    To get the file path of the playback file, go to the Create Playback File and click the Copy File Path button Copy_File_Path_Button.png for the playback file you want. You can then paste the file path here.

    Ingestion rate & Interface refresh rate

    Rate at which the application processes data and refreshes the display

    Note

    Each ingestion cycle processes 1 minute of data regardless of the selected speed.

    Default: 20 seconds

    Note

    The value you use here depends on the amount of data you are processing and the resource availability of the machine you are using.

  4. Click Start_Playback_Button.png.

On the Playback Scoring page, the following details are displayed:

Field

Description

Playback File

Complete file path of the file that contains the historical SMF data

Playback Initiated on

Date when the current run of playback mode started

Playback Initiated by

User who started the current run of playback mode

Playback Speed

Rate at which the application processes data and refreshes the display

Note

Each ingestion cycle processes 1 minute of data regardless of the selected speed.


While playback is running:

  • All of the displays in the application reflect the results based on the historical data.
  • Playback Active is displayed on the Playback Mode page.
    Playback_Active_1.png
  • Playback Active is displayed in the footer of all pages throughout the application.
    Playback_Active_2..png

To pause playback

You can pause playback while it's running to temporarily stop its progress and analyze the results.

You can use the Pause and Play buttons in the footer of the application, or you can use the following procedure:

  1. Click the Administration icon Gear Icon.PNG in the title bar. 
  2. Click Playback Mode > Playback Scoring in the menu on the left side.
  3. Click the pause button (Pause button.PNG).
    • Playback Active changes to Playback Paused on the Playback Scoring page and in the footer.
    • The pause button  (Pause button.PNG) changes to a play button(Play Button.PNG). Click the play button to continue playback.
  4. Click Done.png.

Notes

  • If there is data that has already been processed but hasn't been displayed yet when you pause playback, the displays update with the new data after you click pause.
  • When you click the play button (Play Button.PNG) to resume playback, it resumes from where it paused.

To stop playback

When you are finished with your playback, use the following procedure to stop it:

  1. Click the Administration iconGear Icon.PNG in the title bar. 
  2. Click Playback Mode > Playback Scoring in the menu on the left side.
  3. Click stop_playback.png.
  4. Click Done.png.

Note

If you click Stop Playback, it stops entirely. You cannot resume from where you stopped. If you intend to resume, use pause.

 

Tip: For faster searching, add an asterisk to the end of your partial query. Example: cert*