List views provide tabular data about specific objects in the monitored environment that correspond to the selected view.

Where You Find the List View

From the left menu, click Visualize > Views. From the Views panel, click Create. Click List from the right panel.

Name and Configuration Tab

Option Description
Name Name of the view as it appears on the Views page.
Description Description of the view.
Settings
Items per page Select the number of items per page. Each item is one row and its metrics and properties are the columns.
Top result count Select the top results. Restricts the number of results. For example, if you list all the clusters in a View, selecting 10 in this option displays the top 10 clusters with the relevant information. You can reduce the number of rows for the purposes of reporting.
Include Deleted Objects Select to add deleted objects.
Show Objects Select the type of object you want displayed in the view. You can select Existing, Deleted, or All objects.
Show Object Creation Date Select to display the date the object was created.
Make the view available at > Dashboards through the View widget Select if you want to make the view available in a dashboard.
Make the view available at > Report template creation and modification Select if you want to make the view available in a report template.
Make the view available at > Details tab in the environment Select if you want to make the view available in the Detail tab of a specific object.
Hide the view for the selected object types

Select an object type for which you do not want to see this view.

For example, you have a list view with the subject <virtual machines>. It is visible when you select any of its parent objects. You add a data center from the list. The view is not visible anymore on the data center level.

Data Tab

The data definition process includes adding properties, metrics, policies, or data that adapters provide to a view. These are the items by which VMware Aria Operations collects, calculates, and presents the information for the view.

How to Add Data to a View

If you selected more than one subject, click the subject for which you add data. Double-click either a metric or a property from the tree in the left panel to add it to the view. For each subject that you select, the data available to add might be different. The Data, Transformation, and Configuration details are displayed.

You can see a live preview of the view type when you select a subject and associated data, and then click Select preview source.

Option Description
Add Subject Select the base object type for which the view shows information. The subject you specify determines where the view is applicable. If you select more than one subject, the view is applicable for each of them.
Group By You can group the results based on a parent object, by making a selection in the Group By drop-down option. If you generate a report based on the list view for which a group has been specified, the report displays group-based information for the selected object. You can also view summary calculations for the group of objects in the report, along with the total summary results for all the objects.
Breakdown By
Add interval breakdown Select this check box to see the data for the selected resources broken down in time intervals.

After you select this check box, you can enter a label, specify whether the values have to be sorted in ascending or descending order, and select a breakdown interval for the time range.

Add Instance breakdown Select this check box to see the data for all instances of the selected resources.

After you select this check box, you can enter a label and select a metric group to break down all the instances in that group. Deselect Show non-instance aggregate metric to display only the separate instances. Deselect Show only instance name to display the metric group name and instance name in the instance breakdown column.

For example, you can create a view to display CPU usage by selecting the metric CPU:0|Usage. If you add an instance breakdown column, the column CPU:0|Usage displays the usage of all CPU instances on separate rows (0, 1, and so on). To avoid ambiguity, you can change the metric label of CPU:0|Usage to Usage.

Data Grid options
Data selection tree (Metrics and Properties) Select a metric or a property.
Note: The metrics presented by default are a subset of available metrics. If the desired metric is not represented, use the Select Object button in the title bar of the data selection tree to re-filter the displayed list.
Data column Click the metric or property to enter configuration details in the configuration column.
Transformation column Displays the type of transformation applied to the data.
Configuration column
Metric name Default metric name.
Metric label Customizable label as it appears in the view or report.
Units Depends on the added metric or property. You can select in what unit to display the values. For example, for CPU|Demand (MHz) from the Units drop-down menu, you can change the value to Hz, kHz, or GHz. If you select Auto, the scaling is set to a meaningful unit.
Sort order Orders the values in ascending or descending order.
Transformation
Determines what calculation method is applied on the raw data. You can select the type of transformation:
  • Minimum. The minimum value of the metric over the selected time range.
  • Maximum. The maximum value of the metric over the selected time range.
  • Average. The mean of all the metric values over the selected time range.
  • Sum. The sum of the metric values over the selected time range.
  • First. The first metric value for the selected time range.
  • Last. The last value of a metric within the selected time range.

    If you have selected Last as the transformation in versions before vRealize Operations 6.7, and the end of specified time range is not before the last five minutes, use the Current transformation.

  • Current. The last available value of a metric if it was last updated not before five collection cycles were complete, otherwise it is null.
  • Standard Deviation. The standard deviation of the metric values.
  • Metric Correlation. Displays the value when another metric is at the minimum or maximum. For example, displays the value for memory.usage when cpu.usage is at a maximum.
  • Forecast. Performs a regressive analysis and predicts future values. Displays the last metric value of the selected range.
  • Percentile. Calculates the specified percentile for the data range. For example, you can view the 95th percentile, 99th percentile, and so on.
  • Expression. Allows you to construct a mathematical expression over existing transformations using minus, plus, multiplication, division, unary minus, unary plus, and round brackets. For example, sum/((max + min)/2). You can use the operands of some of the existing transformations such as, max, min, avg, sum, first, last, current. You cannot use standard deviation, forecast, metric correlation, and percentile.

    You can customize the metric unit label when you select the Expression transformation. For example, some of the metric units available are, vCPUs, Bps, KBps, Mbps, and MBps.

  • Timestamp: You can choose between Absolute Timestamp or Relative Timestamp.
  • If applied to a numeric metric/property defined with a time-unit definition, the actual value is converted to a human readable timestamp. The metric value is rounded-off to an hour.
  • In the remaining cases, a timestamp is displayed when metrics and properties are added or modified. In this case, the behavior is the same as the Timestamp option selected for a non-Timestamp transformation.

    Applicable for Absolute Timestamp and Relative Timestamp.

    Available for List view and Minimum, Maximum, Current, First, and Last transformation

Ranges for metric coloring You can associate colors to metrics by entering a percentage, range, or specific state. For example, you can enter Powered Off in the Red Bound field when you select virtual machine as an object. You can set the colors only for views and not for csv or pdf formats.
Series Roll up

The time interval at which the data is rolled up. You can select one of the available options. For example, if you select Sum as a Transformation and 5 minutes as the roll-up interval, then the system selects 5-minute interval values and adds them.

This option is applicable to the Transformation configuration option.

Time Settings Tab

Use the time settings to select the time interval of data transformation. These options are available for all view types, except Image.

You can set a time range for a past period or set a future date for the end of the time period. When you select a future end date and no data is available, the view is populated by forecast data. Data is collected based on the browser time.

Table 1. Time Settings Options
Configuration Option Description
Time Range Mode

In Basic mode, you can select date ranges.

In Advanced mode, you can select any combination of relative or specific start and end dates.

You can also activate the Business Hour option and select business hours/days for weekdays.

Relative Date Range

Select a relative date range of data transformation.

Available in Basic mode.

Specific Date Range

Select a specific date range of data transformation.

Available in Basic mode.

Absolute Date Range

Select a date or time range to view data for a time unit such as a complete month or a week. For example, you can run a report on the third of every month for the previous month. Data from the first to the end of the previous month is displayed as against data from the third of the previous month to the third of the current month.

The units of time available are: Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, and Years.

The locale settings of the system determine the start and end of the unit. For example, weeks in most of the European countries begin on Monday while in the United States they begin on Sunday.

Available in Basic mode.

Relative Start Date

Select a relative start date of data transformation.

Available in Advanced mode.

Relative End Date

Select a relative end date of data transformation.

Available in Advanced mode.

Specific Start Date

Select a specific start date of data transformation.

Available in Advanced mode.

Specific End Date

Select a specific end date of data transformation.

Available in Advanced mode.

Currently selected date range

Displays the date or time range you selected. For example, if you select a specific date range from 5/01/2016 to 5/18/2016, the following information is displayed: May 1, 2016 12:00:00 AM to May 18, 2016 11:55:00 PM.

Business Hours Select business hours from Monday to Sunday by moving the sliders on the left and right sides to set the start and end time for each day of the week.

For example, as a VM owner, you can track the average utilization of VMs over a week (business days), during specified hours of the day (business hours).

This option is available for Minimum, Maximum, Average, Sum, and Percentile transformations

Available in Advanced mode for List Views.

Filter Tab

The filter option allows you to add additional criteria when the view displays too much information. For example, a List view shows information about the health of virtual machines. From the Filter tab, you add a risk metric less than 50%. The view displays the health of all virtual machines with risk less than 50%. For selected criteria you can also apply Business Hours, if the selected transformation type you add as a filter is supported by the business hours functionality.

To add a filter to a view, from an existing or new view dialog box, click the Filter tab. Fill in the details for each row and click Add. You can activate Business Hours for the metric selected.

Each subject has a separate filter box. For Alerts Roll up, Alert, and Symptom subjects not all applicable metrics are supported for filtering.
Note: For Symptom based views, in the filter, if you select either Symptom Definition Name, Alert Definition Name, or Alert Type, it is recommended that you select a preview source that has a smaller number of objects.
Table 2. Filter Add Options
Option Description
Add Adds another criteria to the criteria set. The filter returns results that match all the specified criteria.

If you add a filter for an instance metric, all the instances of the object for which the criteria is met, will be displayed in the preview screen.

For instance metrics, you can filter based on transformations such as, Current, Average, First, Last, Maximum, Minimum, and Sum.

Add another criteria set Adds another criteria set. The filter returns results that match one criteria set or another.

Summary Tab

You can add more than one summary row or column and configure each to show different aggregations. In the summary configuration panel, you select the aggregation method and what data to include or exclude from the calculations.

To add a summary row or column to a view, from an existing or new view dialog box, click the Summary tab in the right pane. Click the plus sign to add a summary row.

For the Summary view, the summary column shows aggregated information by the items provided on the Data tab.

Previous, Next, Create, and Cancel Options

At the end of each tab, you can go to the previous or next tab. You can also cancel the creation of the view. After you have added all the details, click Create to create the view.