Control Operations and Analyze Issues in Real Time
Information must be ready immediately in order to control operations, produce reports, and analyze system and network performance. The OpenFox™ Operator Aid product does that. The system is composed of two distinct capabilities: Graphical User Interface (GUI) Reporting and the GUI Command Interface.
Reporting
The system supports on-line monitoring as well as the creation of static reports to assist in the operation of the system and the diagnosing issues.
Performance Monitoring
The system provides the following performance monitoring facilities; CPU Usage, Message Queues, Message Throughput, Network Usage, Network Traffic as well as FLOG (Fox Log) monitoring. The system does not limit the number of performance screens that can be active at one time as they can be arranged as needed in the same computer display. The operations staff or administrators can easily determine the system’s operational characteristics and spot areas of concern immediately. An example of the performance monitoring capability is the Message Throughput screen which allows administrators to watch how many messages per second are flowing through the system. The Message Throughput Monitor screen is following:
Static Reporting
The reporting system provides a user-friendly graphical interface from a standard Windows-based system to request information related to the OpenFox™ System internal databases, statistics and statuses.
The reporting facility allows the operator to choose a wide variety of report options in an ad-hoc fashion. The Operator Aid GUI Reporting System is capable of reporting information related to Stations, Users, Message Keys, Computer Parameters, Ports, Agencies, Desktop Licenses, Message Traces, Messages Retrieval (Find), File Exceptions, Timer Settings, Queue Contents (List Mail) as well as Message History Statistics. In addition to GUI request forms, the reports created are GUI reports.
As an example, GUI reports for the Station category allow the operator to display station activity, configuration, assigned ORI’S, exception, status, and more. Following is the Station Configuration request screen and the resulting report.
Station Configuration Request
Once reports are retrieved to the screen, the Operator may alter them using standard Windows screen header controls. The following screen shows the result of the command displayed in a list format.
Since this is a GUI report the Operator can manipulate the report by: resizing columns, hiding columns, displaying columns, and rearranging the order of columns as well as sorting the report by clicking on any one of the columns. The system also supports the ability to output reports to other formats such as Plain Text(.txt), Web Page(.html), Word Document(.doc), Adobe PDF(.pdf), Excel Workbook(.xls) or as a hard copy report.
Command Interface
The command screens have the same look and feel of the reporting request screens. Commands are available to operate on the following entities; Stations, Computer Parameters, Ports, Files, Timer Settings, Users (password / disable), Set Time, Purge Messages and Backup Fox Files.
