7 Web Reports

Application Configuration Console Web Reports provide a powerful tool for monitoring and managing activities within the IT infrastructure. They allow users and administrators to be proactive rather reactive to the skews and anomalies that crop up in enterprise computing networks.

7.1 Access to Web Reports

Web Reports are browser-based; you do not need the Application Configuration Console Client to view and generate reports. You do, however, need proper credentials, as you have to log in after pointing your browser at this URL:

https://oaccservername:9943/mvwebreports/

Where oaccservername is the host where the Application Configuration Console Server is installed. Enter your username and password to log in to Application Configuration Console Web Reports. The browser window displays the Web Reports home page, where you can schedule and generate reports.

7.2 Report Summaries

Web Reports are grouped by category and provide a cross-section of statistical and graphical information about activities involving assets and configurations managed in Application Configuration Console. Table 7-1 summarizes the individual reports.

Table 7-1 Summary Descriptions of Individual Web Reports

Category	Reports	Description
Audit	PCI Compliance	The PCI Compliance report runs an audit on selected assets to validate compliance with recommended operating system security settings. This report is available only if you have the PCI Compliance Automation Module installed.
Audit	Change Compliance	A stacked bar series graph showing the number of configuration changes for a specified time period. Configuration changes refer to provision, update, and tracking alert activity.
Activity	Change Summary	A table that shows all provision, update, and tracking alert activity during a selected period by project.
Planning	Job Schedules	A table that lists jobs currently scheduled for execution, either on a recurring basis or as a one-time event. These include tracking, provisioning, comparison, and report jobs, as well as one-time events such as automation module script execution. This report is useful for uncovering potential bottlenecks in scheduling activity.
Planning	Tracked Assets	Lists complete information about assets being tracked, including owner, number of configurations, whether auto-update is enabled, and so forth.
Planning	Non-Tracked Assets	Lists information on assets that are not being tracked. Such a list is helpful in deciding whether certain assets should be tracked.
Planning	Change Volume	A bar series graph that shows the number of changed configurations in projects over a specified time period. Configuration changes refer to provision, update, and tracking alert activity.
Comparison	Comparison Specification	Select from a list of saved comparisons to generate a comparison report in the browser window.
Comparison	Comparison Activity	Lists alerts raised by scheduled comparisons. It provides the date and time that the difference was detected and the name of the saved comparison that resulted in the alert.
Administration	Groups and Memberships	Lists all or selected groups in Application Configuration Console and their members. Groups are used to set permissions on shared objects.
Administration	Roles and Permissions	Lists all assets in a project (for which you have read permission), and information about each one related to ownership and permissions.
System Info	System Summary	A table that shows a high-level view of the data being managed in Application Configuration Console.
System Info	Host and Asset Details	Lists the assets on each host known to Application Configuration Console. Asset details include a count of the number of assets on each host and the asset owner.

Note:

You can easily integrate your own custom reports into the Web Reports browser interface so that they are available on the menu bar to be generated and scheduled just like the standard reports.

7.3 What You Can Do

Besides generating Web Reports based on various criteria you supply, you can also do the following:

Create and save a generated report in PDF format.
E-mail a PDF version of a generated report.
Export report data as a delimited text file (CSV).
Schedule a report to run automatically on a recurring basis; arrange to e-mail the report output.
Run a saved comparison and print out the resulting comparison table or export it to a spreadsheet.

7.4 Try It Out

Rather than spend any more time here on Web Reports, why not take it for a test drive. Let's assume you have completed the exercises in the previous chapters. Now we are going to generate a couple of sample reports to review some of the activities performed earlier.

Log in to Web Reports as described in the beginning of this chapter.
From the Planning menu, choose Tracked Assets.
In the Navigator tree on the left, select the Portal Lifecycle View project.
Click the Generate Report button.

The report that results should denote tracking set on the Server1 asset, as performed in Chapter 5. As the report shows, although the asset has four configurations, we set tracking only on one file (config.xml, in this case).

Try another one.

From the Activity menu, choose Change Summary.
In the Navigator tree on the left, select the Portal Lifecycle View project.
Click the Generate Report button.
In the report that results, locate the tracking Change Type row for Server1. Click the pair of numbers in the Revision column.

A Change Detail report opens in a new browser window that shows the difference detected that generated the alert. Notice the link on the right (Compare Content); click it to compare the value in Application Configuration Console to the current value in the external resource.

If you didn't perform the exercises in the book, load some data now into Application Configuration Console and perform some tasks so you have activity to report on. Use the Web Reports Online Help for guidance in generating and dispersing reports.