IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center V3.1: The Next Generation

422 IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center: The Next Generation

Arrangement of entities within a group (sort order) can also be modified so that an ordering of

entities is provided that best suits your current tasks.

By clicking on the upper right corner (plus/minus sign) of an Entity Group, the group can be

expanded or collapsed.

In the graphical topology view as well as in the tabular view, a default grouping is applied so

that collections of entities are shown as groups whenever possible.

9.1.4 Information Overlays

With Information Overlays, interactive displays can be created that provide information in

various overlays that become activated when the user performs an operation. Information

Overlays is another technique used in topology design to enrich the visual display of the

environment with information relevant to their tasks, such as system health and performance.

While this technique is used traditionally in geographical maps, it is very well suited to the

visualization of complex systems.

Within the Topology Viewer, user tasks are supported by status overlays such as colored and

iconic overlays of information such as:

 Health status of entities or group of entities

 Performance overlays

 Policy compliance/violations

An Entity with enabled health (upper square) and performance overlay (bar chart) is

presented in the graphical view of the Topology Viewer as shown in Figure 9-11.

Figure 9-11 Overlays graphical view

Overlays are also displayed in the tabular view. The same Overlays as shown in Figure 9-11

are shown in in the tabular view in Figure 9-12.

Figure 9-12 Overlays Tabular View

In TotalStorage Productivity Center V3.1 Health Overlays are also applied to Connections by

displaying them in different colors, see 9.1.6, “Connections” on page 424. This may be

expanded to other overlays in future releases.

Overlays can be turned on and off by setting the specific option in the Background Context

Menu. This menu is available at all times for the background of the graphical views. The

background is any part of the graphical view that is not displaying a group entity, individual

entity, or connection. To invoke the context menu, right-click in the background. By selecting

the Global Settings the overlay options are displayed.