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Creating a dashboard NOC

Would you like to build your very own Network Operation Center — a virtual NOC — for centralized surveillance over your network, visibility over bandwidth, CPU, memory, critical processes, and more?

One of the easiest ways to create a dashboard NOC is to build and save searches. This page explains how to search for useful information, save the results in a chart or table, and then display it on a dashboard NOC like this one, to monitor your own IT environment:

Start by creating a GoToAssist dashboard

To create a GoToAssist dashboard NOC:

1. In the Monitoring pull-down menu, click Dashboards:



2. In the Dashboards pull-down menu, click Create a new dashboard:



3. In the Dashboard Configurator, choose from the following options:



• Use this dashboard - You can choose a complete dashboard from the library of available dashboards.
• Add this panel to this dashboard - You can choose individual panels to build your own dashboard panel-by-panel, and then customize.
  Note: You can also convert any search you run into a panel by choosing Add to Dashboard from the Search menu.

Populate your new dashboard with saved searches

The way to build dashboards is to build and save good searches, such as:

• How much free space?
• What are the top running processes?
• What's the hourly memory usage?
• What's the hourly network traffic?
• What are the most installed software?
• Inventory every system on my network



How much free space?

Let's conduct a simple, click-to-keep search for how much free space your main servers have:

1. In the search field, type freespace, and click Go to search:



2. In the results, click Tools > Show details:



3. In these secondary results, click the data terms you want included in your dashboard panel, such as name, size, and freespace, and click Add to Search:



4. In the Table Builder, click Create Table.



5. In the one-node table that appears, expand the search by deleting the WHERE clause from the search query (WHERE node id = X), and then click Go again.



Note: The result of this action shows all devices. You can narrow it again by adding your own where clause, such as: where drivetype = 3.

6. In the results, you can click Chart to choose a display format: bar chart, pie chart, step chart, or spline chart.



7. Click the Search menu button, and choose Add To Dashboard.



8. In the Add to Dashboard dialog box, select the new dashboard, give the chart a name, and click Add to Dashboard.



The first panel of the dashboard NOC is done. That's all there is to it! Just add as many searches as you want, in the formats that work best for you.



To continue with this example, we'll add these searches:a search for the Top Running Processes:

• What are the top running processes?
• What's the hourly memory usage?
• What's the hourly network traffic?
• What are the most installed software?
• Inventory every system on my network



What are the top running processes?

Add another saved search: What are the top running processes:

1. In the search field, type running process, and click Go.
2. In the results, click Tools > Show details.
3. In these results, click the subnodes of the data you want displayed in your dashboard. For this example, we'll use name again, and workingsetsize.
4. When you have collected all the subnodes you want, click Create Table.
5. Since this table shows only one node, expand it by cutting out the where clause, and Go again.
6. To narrow it, add your own where clause, such as: where WORKINGSETSIZE > 10000000 and csname = the main server, and click Go.
7. Click Chart and indicate a chart type.
8. Click the Search menu button, and Add To Dashboard.
9. Select a new dashboard, name the chart, and post it:






What's the hourly memory usage?

Now I'll show you how to benefit from searches you saved in the past. We'll find a saved search that tracks Hourly Memory Usage:

1. Click Actions => Add Saved Search, and choose a search from the list. For this example, we'll use hourly Memory Usage.
2. Click the Search menu button, and click Add To Dashboard.
3. Select the new dashboard, name the chart, and post it to your new dashboard.



Note: To get hourly statistics like that, you need to set your GoToAssist Crawler, like this:

1. Click the Crawler icon in the systray, the lower right corner of your monitor.
2. Click Configuration.
3. In the Crawler Plugins tab, set Rescan Hosts.
4. Type in the IP address of the server you want 24-hour coverage on.
5. And click Add to Dashboard as described above.



What's the hourly network traffic?

You can also benefit from searches that others have saved. Here's one in the Community searches that tracks hourly network traffic:

1. In the Search menu, click Show All Searches.
2. For this example, I selected Network Traffic over the last 24 hours.

Node: For hourly statistics, set the Crawler Rescan Hosts plugin , as described above.

3. Click the Search menu button, and click Add To Dashboard.
4. Select the new dashboard, name the chart, and click Add to Dashboard as described above.






What are the most installed software?

You get the picture. Building and saving searches is easy. Creating and populating dashboards is easy. But this dashboard NOC needs a bit more. So for this example, I'll show you how to use the filter to search for a specific saved search.

1. In the GoToAssist menu, click Home > Find Searches, and type a search term such as software:



2. In the resulting list of saved searches, choose a saved search, such as Installed Software:



3. Click the Search menu button, and click Add To Dashboard.
4. Select the new dashboard, name the chart, and click Add to Dashboard as described above.






Inventory every system on my network

For the last example, I repeated the steps above and selected Systems Inventory.

1. In the GoToAssist menu, click Home > Find Searches, and type a search term such as systems:



2. In the resulting list of saved searches, choose a saved search, such as Systems Inventory.
3. Click the Search menu button, and click Add To Dashboard.
4. Select the new dashboard, name the chart, and click Add to Dashboard as described above.



Now you can arrange the dashboard as you like:

1. Click the green Refresh button to force an Update.
2. Click the blue Reword button to edit this chart.
3. Click the white Raw data button to see the search query and results in its raw form.

Done! Monitor your network easily from this dashboard NOC. As your Crawler sends new data, your dashboard is updated. Create as many dashboards as you want. Save useful searches in the most meaningful formats.




Related topics

If you’re curious, there are lots more examples of GoToAssist searches. If you’re new to GoToAssist, get acquainted with the basic search capabilities. If you’re a power user, check out the advanced search options. Or simply find out all about GoToAssist.