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Product Manuals and Release notes
Analytics (also called Application Visibility and Reporting) is a module on the BIG-IP system that you can use to analyze the performance of web applications. It provides detailed metrics such as transactions per second, server and client latency, request and response throughput, and sessions. You can view metrics for applications, virtual servers, pool members, URLs, specific countries, and additional detailed statistics about application traffic running through the BIG-IP system.
Transaction counters for response codes, user agents, HTTP methods, countries, and IP addresses provide statistical analysis of the traffic that is going through the system. You can capture traffic for examination and have the system send alerts so you can troubleshoot problems and immediately react to sudden changes.
The Analytics module also provides remote logging capabilities so that your company can consolidate statistics gathered from multiple BIG-IP appliances onto syslog servers or SIEM devices, such as Splunk.
An Analytics profile is a set of definitions that determines the circumstances under which the system gathers, logs, notifies, and graphically displays information regarding traffic to an application. The Analytics module requires that you select an Analytics profile for each application you want to monitor. You associate the Analytics profile with one or more virtual servers used by the application, or with an iApps application service. Each virtual server can have only one Analytics profile associated with it.
In the Analytics profile, you customize:
The BIG-IP system includes a default Analytics profile called analytics. It serves as the parent of all other Analytics profiles that you create on the system. You can modify the default profile, or create custom Analytics profiles for each application if you want to track different data for each one.
Charts shown on the Statistics > Analytics > HTTP screens display the application data saved for all Analytics profiles associated with iApps application services or virtual servers on the system. You can filter the information, for example, by application or URL. You can also drill down into the specifics on the charts, and use the options to further refine the information in the charts.
This implementation describes how to set up the BIG-IP system to collect application performance statistics. The system can collect application statistics locally, remotely, or both. You use these statistics for troubleshooting and improving application performance.
You can collect application statistics for one or more virtual servers or for an iApps application service. If virtual servers are already configured, you can specify them when setting up statistics collection. If you want to collect statistics for an iApps application service, you should first set up statistics collection, creating an Analytics profile, and then create the application service.
The system can send alerts regarding the statistics when thresholds are exceeded, and when they cross back into the normal range. You can customize the threshold values for transactions per second, latency, page load time, and throughput.
Certain information can only be specified in the default Analytics profile: the SMTP configuration (a link to an SMTP server), transaction sampling (whether enabled or not), and subnets (assigning names to be used in the reports). To edit these values, you need to open and edit the default profile.
Option | Description |
---|---|
Syslog | Select Syslog if you want the system to send notification and alert messages to the local log system. You can view the messages on the System > Logs > Local Traffic screen. |
SNMP | Select SNMP if you want the system to send notification and alert messages as SNMP traps. You can create the trap by clicking Configuration can be found here (System > SNMP > Traps > Destination). Enabling SNMP automatically sets up Syslog notifications, too. |
Select E-mail if you want the system to send notification and alert messages to email addresses. Type each email address in the Notification E-Mails field, and click Add to create the list. This option requires that the parent analytics profile includes an SMTP configuration. |
Option | Description |
---|---|
Max TPS and Throughput | Collects statistics showing the maximum number of transactions occurring per second and the amount of traffic moving through the system (maximum request and response throughput is collected and recorded separately). In the Details table of the Analytics: HTTP Transactions screen, if you drill down into a specific entity, the system displays the maximum TPS. Drilling down in the Request Throughput details displays the maximum request throughput for each entity; and drilling down in the Response Throughput details displays the maximum response throughput for each entity. |
Page Load Time | Tracks how long it takes an application user to get a complete response from
the application, including network latency and completed page processing.
Note: End-user response times and latencies can vary significantly based
on geography and connection types.
|
User Sessions | Stores the number of unique user sessions. For Timeout,
select the number of minutes of user inactivity to allow before the system
considers the session to be over. For Cookie Secure Attribute, specify whether to secure session cookies. Options are Always, the secure attribute is always added to the session cookie; Never, the secure attribute is never added to the session cookie; or Only SSL, the secure attribute is added to the session cookie only when the virtual server has a client SSL profile (the default value). |
Option | Description |
---|---|
URLs | Collects the requested URLs. |
Countries | Saves the name of the country where the request came from, and is based on the client IP address criteria. |
Client IP Addresses | Saves the IP address where the request originated. The address saved also depends on whether the request has an XFF (X-forwarded-for) header and whether the HTTP profile accepts XFF headers. |
Client Subnets | Saves statistics for predefined client subnets. Client subnets can be added in the Subnets area of the default Analytics profile. |
Response Codes | Saves HTTP response codes that the server returned to requesters. |
User Agents | Saves information about browsers used when making the request. |
Methods | Saves HTTP methods in requests. |
Newer browsers (Internet Explorer 9 or later, Firefox 3.6 or later, or Chrome 14 or later) support viewing Analytics charts with no additional plug-in. If using older browsers (Internet Explorer 8 or earlier, Firefox 3.5 or earlier, or Chrome 13 or earlier), Adobe Flash Player (version 8 or later) must be installed on the computer where you plan to view Analytics charts.
Option | Description |
---|---|
Max TPS and Throughput | Collects statistics showing the maximum number of transactions occurring per second and the amount of traffic moving through the system (maximum request and response throughput is collected and recorded separately). In the Details table of the Analytics: HTTP Transactions screen, if you drill down into a specific entity, the system displays the maximum TPS. Drilling down in the Request Throughput details displays the maximum request throughput for each entity; and drilling down in the Response Throughput details displays the maximum response throughput for each entity. |
Page Load Time | Tracks how long it takes an application user to get a complete response from
the application, including network latency and completed page processing.
Note: End-user response times and latencies can vary significantly based
on geography and connection types.
|
User Sessions | Stores the number of unique user sessions. For Timeout,
select the number of minutes of user inactivity to allow before the system
considers the session to be over. For Cookie Secure Attribute, specify whether to secure session cookies. Options are Always, the secure attribute is always added to the session cookie; Never, the secure attribute is never added to the session cookie; or Only SSL, the secure attribute is added to the session cookie only when the virtual server has a client SSL profile (the default value). |
Option | Description |
---|---|
URLs | Collects the requested URLs. |
Countries | Saves the name of the country where the request came from, and is based on the client IP address criteria. |
Client IP Addresses | Saves the IP address where the request originated. The address saved also depends on whether the request has an XFF (X-forwarded-for) header and whether the HTTP profile accepts XFF headers. |
Client Subnets | Saves statistics for predefined client subnets. Client subnets can be added in the Subnets area of the default Analytics profile. |
Response Codes | Saves HTTP response codes that the server returned to requesters. |
User Agents | Saves information about browsers used when making the request. |
Methods | Saves HTTP methods in requests. |
Option | Description |
---|---|
Internal | Specifies that the system captures a portion of traffic and stores it locally. You can view the captured data on the System > Logs > Captured Transactions screen. |
External | Specifies that the system captures a portion of traffic and stores it on a remote server. |
Option | Description |
---|---|
Syslog | Select Syslog if you want the system to send notification and alert messages to the local log system. You can view the messages on the System > Logs > Local Traffic screen. |
SNMP | Select SNMP if you want the system to send notification and alert messages as SNMP traps. You can create the trap by clicking Configuration can be found here (System > SNMP > Traps > Destination). Enabling SNMP automatically sets up Syslog notifications, too. |
Select E-mail if you want the system to send notification and alert messages to email addresses. Type each email address in the Notification E-Mails field, and click Add to create the list. This option requires that the parent analytics profile includes an SMTP configuration. |
Option | Description |
---|---|
Max TPS and Throughput | Collects statistics showing the maximum number of transactions occurring per second and the amount of traffic moving through the system (maximum request and response throughput is collected and recorded separately). In the Details table of the Analytics: HTTP Transactions screen, if you drill down into a specific entity, the system displays the maximum TPS. Drilling down in the Request Throughput details displays the maximum request throughput for each entity; and drilling down in the Response Throughput details displays the maximum response throughput for each entity. |
Page Load Time | Tracks how long it takes an application user to get a complete response from
the application, including network latency and completed page processing.
Note: End-user response times and latencies can vary significantly based
on geography and connection types.
|
User Sessions | Stores the number of unique user sessions. For Timeout,
select the number of minutes of user inactivity to allow before the system
considers the session to be over. For Cookie Secure Attribute, specify whether to secure session cookies. Options are Always, the secure attribute is always added to the session cookie; Never, the secure attribute is never added to the session cookie; or Only SSL, the secure attribute is added to the session cookie only when the virtual server has a client SSL profile (the default value). |
Option | Description |
---|---|
URLs | Collects the requested URLs. |
Countries | Saves the name of the country where the request came from, and is based on the client IP address criteria. |
Client IP Addresses | Saves the IP address where the request originated. The address saved also depends on whether the request has an XFF (X-forwarded-for) header and whether the HTTP profile accepts XFF headers. |
Client Subnets | Saves statistics for predefined client subnets. Client subnets can be added in the Subnets area of the default Analytics profile. |
Response Codes | Saves HTTP response codes that the server returned to requesters. |
User Agents | Saves information about browsers used when making the request. |
Methods | Saves HTTP methods in requests. |
Option | Description |
---|---|
Syslog | Select Syslog if you want the system to send notification and alert messages to the local log system. You can view the messages on the System > Logs > Local Traffic screen. |
SNMP | Select SNMP if you want the system to send notification and alert messages as SNMP traps. You can create the trap by clicking Configuration can be found here (System > SNMP > Traps > Destination). Enabling SNMP automatically sets up Syslog notifications, too. |
Select E-mail if you want the system to send notification and alert messages to email addresses. Type each email address in the Notification E-Mails field, and click Add to create the list. This option requires that the parent analytics profile includes an SMTP configuration. |