Data Visualizations and Nagios XI

Andy Brist

abrist@nagios.com

About This Presentation

A high level overview of data visualizations

A short breakdown of the philosophy and psychology of visualizing data.

Nagios XI is used for most of the examples

Sneak peak at some of the upcoming visualizations in XI

Interacting with Data

You have data, what should you do with it?

Alert/notify

Interact with a ticketing system

Run event handlers/restart services

Send reports

Etc.

Automation > Visualizations?

Most tasks acting on the data, or due to the data, is automated.

Script logic handles large data sets much better than the average human.

Condensed dashboards adequately represent state of data, all intensive data manipulation is handled by the backend.

UI != Visualizations

Most "Visualizations" are actually UI in disguise.

Purpose of UI is to interact with the views of data.

These views are some form of rudimentary data visualization, but are often too particular:Only correlates one metric for many objects the "single value syndrome"

Shows all metrics for one object

Then what are Proper Visualizations?

The "main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. It doesnt mean that data visualization needs to look boring to be functional or extremely sophisticated to look beautiful. To convey ideas effectively, both aesthetic form and functionality need to go hand in hand, providing insights into a rather sparse and complex data set by communicating its key-aspects in a more intuitive way. Yet designers often fail to achieve a balance between form and function, creating gorgeous data visualizations which fail to serve their main purpose to communicate information"

Vitaly Friedman (2008) "Data Visualization and Infographics" in: Graphics, Monday Inspiration, January 14th, 2008.

Key Points of a Visualizations

It must be communicative of data

It should reduce large, complex data sets to manageable sizes and simplicity

Information must be displayed in a more intuitive way than tables or single values.

Form and function are inextricably linked

Well suited for explaining the relationships between sets of objects.

Efficiency

Primary Visual Cortex: "It is the simplest, earliest cortical visual area. It is highly specialized for processing information about static and moving objects and is excellent in pattern recognition."

Grokking and Your Lying Eyes

Visualizations, in a nutshell are optimizations for a different architecture that when offloaded to, process certain types of problems better.

Imagine your brain as a multicore computer, with the Prefrontal Cotex as one CPU and the Primary Visual Cortex as another. Visualizations should aim to be a more efficient means to display the relationships between data points or sets.

Goals of a Data Visualization

Provide the visual "glue" between the particular and the general.

Provide a more efficient means to view and understand data correlations

Help identify multifaceted trends

Simplify the understanding of the complex without losing the complexities.

Back to Earth

Ignoring the philosophy and psychology of visualizations, why should we care?

What real world impact do visualizations provide?

Benefits to the End User

Converts raw data into usable information

Can cleverly reveal relationships in data that would otherwise be obfuscated by the size of the data set

Presents technical data to the non-technical user

Meaningful visualizations scale better than tables or single value metrics

Forms and Functions

Visualizations can make use of a number of aesthetic qualities to express the data:

Length & width (& depth?)

Color / gradient

Relative position & distance

Movement

Size

Shape

Standard Details Pages

Standard Summary Pages

BBMap

BPI

Network Status Map

Hypermap

Network Replay

Google Map Component

pnp4nagios

Metrics

Alert Cloud

Alert Heatmap

Alert Stream

Graph Explorer

Graph Explorer

Graph Explorer

Nagvis

Nagvis

Nagvis

Nagvis

Operations Center

Nocscreen

In Development

Multiple data source stacked graphsThe ability to alter the y-axis ratios per data source to compensate for normalization issues of different metric types

GLMap3D UI webgl based (three.js)

Realtime check information

Leverages the XI XML Backend currently

Plans for Integration with the JSON CGI

Stacked Graphs

GLMap Cube3d

GLMap Cube3d

GLMap Cube3d

GLMap Cube3d

GLRRD

GLRRD

Custom Visualizations

Learn the API(s)!!

Understand the requirements or goals

More metrics != betterIt must do at least one thing well

Adding metrics without a purpose may interfere with the clarity of the data

Flashy is not necessary, but helps when raises and promotions are handed out

Finishing Up

Visualizations must assist the understanding of data

Use as many of the available graphical qualities (size,shape,color,etc) as possible while still retaining clarity

If all else fails, maybe management will still like it

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