Warning Triangle: Number of issues

Impact Meter: Percent of total tile elements with issues (see examples below)

Examples
Explanation	1 amber issue	at least 1 red issue, 3 total issues	at least 1 red issue, 3 total issues
Number of issues	1	3	3
Total elements	many (50)	6	3
Percent of total	approx. 2%	50%	100%

These tiles are created by adding watches to a container and setting it to display as a tile.

Service Tile Example

A service tile for email could comprise the summary status of:

• TCP tests from the local router to the server listening ports (application status)
• Link Health watches for the Internet service
• WAN tests from remote locations to the Data Centre (to assess impact of network)

Read more about creating service tiles
Watch our Video: Service tile description

The mechanism works on the principle that if an error condition is encountered in any element then a fuel gauge type counter is decreased. In all other circumstances it’s increased. When the counter goes below pre-set thresholds, Highlight signals an amber condition, and then a red. Please see below the conditions when the various counters are decreased, associated with Stability, Load, or Health which we refer to as level 3 metrics.

Watch the Intro to heat tiles video

How quickly a heat tile changes colour is governed by the sensitivity settings. Find out more about changing the sensitivity of heat tiles or contact us for details.

Stability

Decrease the counter if any of the following conditions are met, which we refer to as level 2 metrics affecting stability:

• The device loses connection with either of the Highlight pollers
• The monitored interface is down or indicating a brief outage or has been taken out of service or no longer exists
• There has been a device restart
• A switch port designated as critical is down
• Performance tests: ICMP Ping, UDP Echo and TCP Open: 100% packet loss of all tests in a sample
• Performance test: MOS: Application failure, MOS is less than 1.0
• Performance test: Precision Delay: 100% packet loss of all tests in a sample. Health index is also affected.

Load

Decrease the counter if any of these conditions are met, which we refer to as level 2 metrics affecting load:

• Link utilisation (traffic in or out) exceeds threshold (default is 80% )
• Tunnel utilisation (traffic in or out) exceeds threshold (default is 82% )
• Traffic in or out on a dormant watch exceeds threshold (default is 1000 Kbps )
• CPU for a router exceeds 60%
• Client Count exceeds threshold (default is 30 client devices )
• Wireless Utilisation exceeds threshold (default is 50% )

Health

Decrease the counter if any of these conditions are met, which we refer to as level 2 metrics affecting health:

• Link errors exceed threshold (default is 1% or 10,000 packets per million )
• Link congestion occurs:
  • Queue length exceeds 0
  • Discards exceed threshold (default is 1% or 10,000 packets per million )
  • Class drops exceed 0 ()
• Broadband Clarity:
  • Connection speed of the broadband service drops below the speed threshold, which is auto-learned or manually set
• Cellular Clarity:
  • Signal strength score of the cellular service drops below the threshold, which may be set (default is 0 )
• WiFi:
  • Congestion (discards) exceed threshold (default is 1% or 10,000 packets per million ) or
  • Signal Problems exceeds threshold (default is 25% )
• Performance tests - ICMP Ping, UDP Echo and TCP Open:
  • Any one of the tests in a sample shows response exceeds target ()
  • At least one test in a sample fails to respond (lost packet)

  Note: One sample can contain up to six test results; if all tests in a sample fail it affects stability and health

Alert generation

Note that each level 2 metric above can trigger an alert so for example you may get an alert when a heat tile goes red caused by Inbound Link utilisation, then another alert caused by Outbound Link utilisation even though the tile is already red. The tile colour represents the worst case of all level 2 metrics associated with it.

Refresh Options

The Status Heat tiles page refreshes every 180 seconds by default, with auto refresh on.

Alternatively, switching auto refresh off will keep the page in view constant until you select a different position in the network explorer tree.

Use the options panel for services and locations to display only certain colour tiles, adjust the size of your tiles, or group, arrange or filter tiles.

Open the options panel using the button.

When the options panel is open the button changes to bright blue. If you close this panel, it will be closed when you next log in.

If any settings have changed from default, the "Reset all filters" button is enabled. These options revert to default when you next log in but tile size remains as previously set.

Services

Refer to the Tile colours displayed and Tile resizing sections below for details on these features.

Only selected folder

By default all service tiles are shown which contain any watch from the currently selected folder or below. By checking this option only services defined in the selected folder are displayed. This setting resets to unchecked when you next log in.

A to Z     Service tiles are sorted alphabetically by the container description (if available, otherwise by the container name)

Locations

View

Tiles and Grid buttons are available if grid view has been enabled on the selected folder in the tree. Otherwise, the buttons are hidden and you see location tiles only.

Tiles

By default show location tiles

Grid

Optionally view locations in a grid - find out more about grid view

Your selection of Tiles or Grid will be remembered when you next log in

Arrange

Refer to the Tile colours displayed and Tile resizing sections below for details on these options.

Group by folder

By default all locations below the selected folder are shown unless this option is checked. When checked, multiple location tiles are shown as a single, stacked folder tile, which simplifies the location tile view for large networks. The overall number of issues is shown and can be filtered by stability, load or health. Click a stacked tile to drill down to subfolders and locations.

Sort options

Sort A to Z

By default tiles are arranged alphabetically.

Sort by duration

Tiles are displayed in three groups: Now → 24 hours, 1 → 7 days and 7+ days. The newest issue in each section is in the top left. By default, stability, load and health issues are included, deselect one or more to change this (see Issues below). Note: As green tiles do not have any issues, they are not included when arranging by issue duration.

Issues

By default, all issue types are shown: stability, load and health. Use these icons to hide or show one or more issue types. These buttons have no effect on green tiles.

React to issues: Any or All

Refer to the section below for details on these options.

A count of heat tiles in each state (red/amber/green) is displayed in the panel header at all times and adapts to the Any/All and Group by folder settings
Use the check box on each colour to hide or show those tiles in the display

The "Reset all filters" button returns colour settings to their default
The display resets to show all colours each time you log in

Heat tiles are size small by default. Tile widths are:

Small

150 pixels wide (location tiles) or 185 pixels wide (service tiles)

Medium

280 pixels wide

Large

400 pixels wide

Your selected tile size will be remembered when you next log in

Watch-centric (React to issues: Any)

With this default setting, Highlight's location tiles change colour based on the worst case of any single watch in the location. This view enables service provider operations teams to quickly see locations with issues to be resolved but can occasionally result in a sea of red tiles for relatively minor issues.

With Any selected on the "React to issues" toggle, location tiles are:

Green

No issues

Amber

Some watches are in a transitional (amber) state

Red

Some watches are in a degraded (red) state

Location-centric (React to issues: All)

Highlight provides an alternative view which is based on the location as a whole, rather than on any single watch. In this view an amber tile indicates a location with degraded connectivity which is still online. This view is beneficial to enterprises and service providers wanting a higher-level overview of the entire network.

With All selected on the "React to issues" toggle, location tiles are:

Green

No issues

Amber

Some watches have issues and some are green, or all watches are amber

Red

All watches have issues with at least one red

Any All

This setting is remembered when you next log in

The count of heat tiles in each state (red/amber/green) adapts to the Any/All setting

Example

There is one watch in the Cellular Test location with a health issue which has been ongoing for 1 hour.

With "react to ANY issues" set,
the Cellular Test location tile is red.

With "react to ALL issues" set,
the Cellular Test location tile is amber.

The tile will only turn red if all 4 watches at the location are amber or red.

Refer to troubleshooting location colour for a more detailed explanation of certain scenarios with this functionality.