Macintosh WATCHER 4.1

Device Reporting

WATCHER stores a variety of information for each network device and AppleTalk zone. This includes information you enter when defining devices and zones, information from both normal and enhanced reporting of status, and network device performance information.

Access to performance information is discussed in the chapter Network Performance with SNMP. You can access other types of device and zone information through the Get Info dialog box.

About the Get Info dialog box

To view the Get Info dialog box, select a device from the main test list, or a zone from the Zones List, then either click Get Info in the main test list or select Get Info from the File menu or double-click the Get Info button. The dialog box is shown in Figure 11-1.

Figure 11-1 Get Info dialog box

Device Name

At the top of the dialog box you'll find the device's name, or the zone's name.

Status

The device or zone status: Up, Down, On Hold or Not Tested is displayed. (A zone can also be New.)

The Condition field shows detailed information about device status, when available.

The device and zone information is arranged like index cards, with tabs labeling each category. The information categories are:

Key Device

Shows any key devices related to the selected device or zone.

Notification

Shows the current notifications attached to the selected device or zone, and their status.

Test Results

Provides statistics on test results.

Note

A text window lets you append notes to the device or zone record.

More Info

Displays system-supplied information on the device. The available information depends on the device type.

Next and Previous

Use these buttons to move back and forth through the device or zone list to view information on different devices or zones without having to return to the main test list or zones list.

OK and Cancel

When you're finished viewing the information dialog box click Cancel. Click OK to save your changes. (The OK button is enabled only when you make changes to the Note.)

Trace

Choose this button to display the IP addresses of devices between your workstation and the Get Info device. This feature may help you identify the location of failures in a stream of devices. The Trace option is only available with Macintoshes running OpenTransport 1.1 or later.

Test Results

By default, the first info card displayed is "Test Results", as shown in Figure 11-2.



Figure 11-2 Get Info Test Results

This card records the following information:

Last Test

The last time a device or zone was tested.

Last Up

The last time the device was returned to service after being down or the zone became available.

Last Down

The time of the last test in which the device failed to respond or the zone was unavailable.

Test Time

The total amount of time elapsed during a test on this device or zone.

Down Time

The amount of total test time on this device or zone during which the device was found to be down.

Down Count

The number of times that the device or zone went down.

Up __% of the time

The percentage of time the device or zone was up relative to the total testing time for the device.

You can reset this test result information. You may, for example, want to track the up-time on a weekly basis. In this case you would reset the information by changing the device status to Not Tested each week. To change device status select Reset Selection from the Device menu, and drag through to either Not Tested or On Hold.

Key Device

To view Key Device information, click that tab. A sample dialog box is shown in Figure 11-3.



Figure 11-3 Get Info Key Device

The name, type, zone and status information on the Key Device card identify the key device for the device or zone indicated at the top of the dialog box.

Notification

To view Notification information, click that tab. A sample dialog box is shown in Figure 11-4.



Figure 11-4 Get Info Notification

All notifications currently attached to the selected device or zone are listed here. If any of the notifications is currently in use, WATCHER will also show its status.

Notes

To view any Notes on a device or zone, click that tab. A sample dialog box is shown in Figure 11-5.



Figure 11-5 Get Info Notes

You can append personal notes or reminders to each device or zone using the Note card.

1. Click in the text box in the center of the screen and type in the note. It can contain up to 250 characters.

2. Click OK to save the note.

More Info

To view More Info on a device, click that tab. A sample dialog box is shown in Figure11-6.



Figure 11-6 Get Info More Info

The More Info card displays system-supplied information relating to the device's unique identity in the network.

Internet Trace Route

To view the Internet Trace Route of the device, click that tab. A sample Screen is shown in Figure 11-7.



Figure 11-7 Internet Trace Route option

Exporting Information

WATCHER provides a flexible data export capability that lets you transfer information on devices, zones, settings, options, notifications, and test results to any spreadsheet, database or word processor. Before exporting information, you may want to choose some options:

1. If you are planning to export information for specific devices, select the devices in the main test list. If you are planning to export information on specific zones, select the zones in the Zones List.

2. Select Export from the File menu, and drag through to Device Info (to export device information) or Zone Info (to export zone information). A dialog box similar to the one in Figure11-8 appears.



Figure 11-8 Export Info dialog box

3. You can specify the information you want to export by adding or removing fields from the horizontal "Export fields" banner.

To add information for export, select an information type from the Export Data list. The available fields appear in the Data Items list. Click on a field you want to see in your exported file and drag it from the Data Items list into the position you'd like it to appear in the Export Fields banner. (The field you drop it on will appear behind it in the exported file.)

Note: If the field you want is grayed out in the Data Items list, then the field already appears somewhere in the banner. Use the banner scroll bar to find it.

To remove a field, drag it out of the Export Fields banner.

To change the order of fields, drag the field into a different position in the banner.

4. Click Options... if you want to change the way WATCHER delimits the data, and whether the field names are exported with the data. The dialog box shown in Figure 11-9 appears.



Figure 11-9 Export Options dialog box

If you'd like the field names to be included with the data, select Write export fields header with data.

You can choose the character that will be used to delimit (separate) the fields of data. It can be a tab, a comma, or "Others". Click on the delimiter of choice. If you click Others, the character that you type into the Replace delimiter in data with field will delimit the data.

Click OK to save your changes and close the Export Options dialog box.

5. If you don't want to export any data at the moment, click OK to save the new fields and close the Export Info dialog box.

If you want to export data now, click Export... on the Export Info dialog box. Another dialog box appears, similar to the one shown in Figure 11-10.



Figure 11-10 Export Data dialog box

6. You can export data for all devices or zones, for those devices or zones that have been tested, or for the devices or zones you selected in the main test list or zones list.

7. Click OK to export your data.

8. Name the export file when prompted to do so and click Save.

The data appears in a text file. You can open the text file using a spreadsheet, database or word processing package.