Reducing the Number of Metrics

You can reduce the number of metrics used with services in the NetProfiler in the following ways:

Reducing locations - You can reduce the number of locations you monitor to reduce the number of metrics in use. The following methods reduce the number of locations:

You can reduce the number of groups in the group type used for identifying end-user locations, for a reduction across all services.

You can reduce the number of locations you use for a specific service. Figure 8‑5 shows how to reduce the number of locations during discovery for any service by choosing a subset of the end-user locations to monitor.

Figure 8‑5. Reducing the Number of Locations on the Customize Monitoring on the Locations Page

Both methods cause a reduction in the number of configured policies.

Not tracking by groups - You can turn off by-group tracking and track all front-end metrics as one item instead of a detailed breakdown by groups. This might make sense if all sites or groups have similar characteristics (for example, response time) when attaching to the front end of the application. To turn off by-group tracking, edit and clear the Track By End-User checkbox on the front-end end-user component.

You continue to receive a list of clients that have an impact if an analytic has an error.

Reducing monitoring - You can reduce the number of metrics being monitored by eliminating a metric per end-user location and a metric for each back-end segment in the service. Figure 8‑6 shows four metrics configured by default and four additional metrics you can configure. Turning off only one of these metrics, particularly if there is a large number of end-user locations, can result in a large reduction in metrics you use.

Figure 8‑6. Default and Configurable Metrics on the Customize Monitoring on the Metrics Page

As mentioned earlier, you can aggregate locations into regions. You do not reduce the number of metrics you have, but you can more easily manage the Services Dashboard. If you have hundreds of locations in the ByLocation group, you can create a ByRegion group type instead. Specify the group type to represent the end-user locations on the General Settings page. The default setting specifies the ByLocation group type.