CommNet Reports

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Overview

Report Features

• Uninstalled and Deleted Objects
• Considerations

Report Tasks

Available Reports

• Billing Reports
• Data Protection Reports
• Data Recovery Reports
• Media Management Reports
• Primary Storage Reports
• Other Reports

Filters

• Time Range Selection Filter - Weekends
• Client Status Selection Filter
• Exclude Command Line Subclients

Data Availability Timelines

License Requirement

Overview

Reports allow you to view and analyze data related to various aspects of different entities like CommCells, Clients, MediaAgents and libraries in the CommNet domain.

Information is presented in a logically grouped, tabular format, with the ability to also plot the information as a bar chart or pie chart wherever possible. On all reports and summaries, and in addition to selected pie or bar charts, the exact chart details display in a data table.

When you select a given report, various filters will be available to select the entities and options to be included when the report is generated. If a report will contain tables, you can pre-select which columns will be displayed, as well as their order.

Once you generate a report, information is displayed in the bottom pane of the same report window, and wherever possible you are provided with a list of chart options to create different types of charts from the data displayed in the report.

There is a range of functionality available in the CommNet Browser related to Reports; see CommNet Browser.

Report Features

When viewing a report in the CommNet Browser, you can:

• Generate for multiple CommCells; however, information for each CommCell is presented in its own section for easy readability.
• CommNet reports are automatically generated for Data Growth, Data Protection Job Success, SLA and Media Prediction, which provide a concise view of the relevant data for all the selected CommCells.
• Print, Save as a PDF or an MHTML (.mht) file, or Export in Microsoft Excel format by clicking the appropriate icon at the top of the report window.
• To print the details of all CommCells, open the details for view in the CommNet Browser. Alternatively, to selectively print the details for a few of the CommCells, make sure to open only the CommCells that are required for printing.
• Schedule a report or summary by clicking the Schedule icon at the top of the report window.
• Copy any chart in BMP format to the clipboard by right-clicking the chart and selecting Copy Chart. This allows you to easily copy a chart into other applications. Note that the Copy Charts function is not compatible with Microsoft WordPad.
• Re-generate with different filtering by expanding the top pane of the report window and selecting the new filtering options (this can be done with a Data Protection Detail Report also); the current report will be replaced by the newly generated one, unless you click the push-pin icon at the top of the window.
• For most charts and tables, click any item to see either a Data Protection Detail Report with a listing of individual data protection operations, or an additional chart showing a further break-down of that day's data protection operations by application. In the Data Protection Detail Report, you can double-click any entry to access the Job Detail screen, which provides more space for Failure Reason, Attempt and Copy information to be displayed.
• Rearrange tabular columns by clicking and dragging the column titles to the left or right.
• For some tables, re-sort the information by clicking a column title.
• Change the columns displayed by right-clicking any row and selecting/clearing any column names from the pop-up View menu. (Column names that appear dimmed will always be displayed, as they are defaults.)
• For most charts, place the cursor over an item to display a tool-tip window with a summary of additional information available for that item.
• For some reports, cells containing data that is not compatible with the Agent will be shaded.
• In reports where column section is allowed, there are minimum default columns that will display regardless of selection.

• The following Microsoft Windows File Systems: Windows XP, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, are grouped together and displayed as Win FS in all Reports and Summaries. Note that this does not apply to Operating System fields where the specific operating system will be displayed.

• The Data Protection Detail Report provides an error code for jobs that have not completed successfully. For more information, see Obtaining Information about Job Errors.
• Launch detail reports for specific information pertaining the selected entity in the report. Clicking on a non-zero value in the report will initiate the associated detail report. Refer to the following table:

  Name of Detail Report	Report(s) from which the Detail Report can be launched
  Data Protection Detail Report	All Data Protection Reports
  Load Detail Report	CommCell Load Report, Load Report
  Data Protection Subclient Detail Report	Data Protection Coverage Report, Dashboard Report
  Data Recovery Detail Report	Data Recovery Activity Report, Data Recovery Job Success Report
  Data Recovery Recall Detail Report	Data Recovery Recall Report
  CommCell Growth Drive Detail Report	CommCell Growth Report
  CommCell Growth Library Detail Report	CommCell Growth Report

• When specifying a time range during your selection of filter options for reports and summaries, you can easily and quickly adjust the calendar by months or years from the enhanced calendar options, which makes it easy to select the time range required for your report. Use the inner arrow selection button ( > ) to move the calendar in monthly increments, and the outer arrow selection button ( >> ) to move the calendar in yearly increments.

• Data displayed in tables can be sorted, filtered, exported, resized and/or hidden. These features are accessible by right-clicking on the table-header, and selecting the corresponding option from the popup menu. Refer to the following:

  Option	Description
  Auto Resize Column	Select this option to resize the selected column to its original size
  Auto Resize All Columns	Select this option to resize all the columns in the table to their original size
  Show All Hidden Columns	Select this to display the hidden columns.
  Export Table	Select this option to export the data currently displayed in the table to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
  Filter	Select this option to display data containing a specific value. You will be prompted to enter the value.

• Data Type Size can now be displayed in terms of Application or Media Sizes in the following reports and summaries:
  • CommNet Data Protection Activity Overview
  • Data Protection Job Activity Report
  • Data Protection Data Growth Report
  • CommCell Summary
  • Cell-Client Group Summary

  Application size indicates the amount of data protected during backup operations where Media Size is the amount of data written to the media; this includes backup, encrypted, compressed, and deduplicated data if applicable. Reporting in each method can be extremely useful for quickly determining amounts of backup data and media usage within your CommCell.

Uninstalled and Deleted Objects

Each report and summary has been designed to either reflect uninstalled and deleted objects or not, based on the way the report is designed to be used. For instance, the backed up data for a deleted subclient is retained, and thus it is reflected in the Data Protection Coverage Report. Refer to the following table to determine how each Report will treat deleted objects:

Considerations

• When you generate a report, several dates are shown in the report window:
  • Generated at - The local time on your machine where you generated the report.
  • Reported as of - All data protection reports are based on the latest information obtained from the CommCells at the interval specified in the Cell Data Collection Policy dialog box, which means it is not "real time" data; this date shows when the last update occurred. If it is necessary to update the information from a CommCell immediately, see Synchronize Cells for more information. This is the local time of the CommCell.
  • Time Range - The reporting period that you chose in the Time Range Selection filter. If you are generating reports for multiple CommCells across different time zones, bear in mind that this time is based on the CommCell's local time. If the time range filters include the Include current period option, then the results reported will include the most current data, e.g., if the you configured a report with a time range of the last 7 days with the Include current period option selected, the results would include data from the current day as well, even though the 24 hour cycle has not completed. If the option was not selected, the results would have excluded the current day.   
• Most reports have a 31 day window of reporting. You can choose any calendar period, 31 days at a time, for which you still have data on the CommNet Server. Data protection history is available for whatever retention period you have set in the CommNet Properties dialog box. (The Data Growth Report has limits of 31 days, or 24 weeks, or 6 months; however, the same principles apply.)
• Some Data Protection Detail Reports have an Is Pruned column; this indicates if the protected data is still being stored, or if it has been pruned by the MediaAgent.
• A SQL Agent which is installed in a CommCell, but which has no subclient content configured yet, may not appear in Reports or Summaries. Once an instance has been configured as subclient content for the Agent, all Reports and Summaries will reflect the presence of the Agent in the CommCell.

• Data related to Workstation Backup and ContinuousDataReplicator agents are displayed in the following reports and/or summaries:

  • Data Protection Summary
  • Client Summary
  • Data Replication Monitor
• The user account used to access the CommNet Browser when you schedule a report is the owner of the report. Only the owner can modify the report schedule. Therefore, if the user account is deleted, ownership of the report schedule should be transferred to another user to enable it to be modified, if necessary. You can transfer ownership of a report schedule upon deletion of the owner's user account. For more information, see Delete a User.

Report Tasks

For the Reports node, the Reports task is available from the Report Tasks section of the CommNet Browser. This task allows you to select a Billing, Data Protection, Data Recovery, Media Management, Primary Storage, or License Report.

Available Reports

There are several tasks you should accomplish before generating reports, which are summarized in Getting Started. To learn more about each available report, click the links provided in the table below.

The table below displays reports that are available in CommNet Browser when CommNet Advanced Reporting license is enabled or disabled.

Filters

Filtering allows you to minimize the amount of extraneous data in your reports, so you can concentrate on only that data which is essential to managing your CommCells. Each report has multiple filters available for such things as Time Range, CommCell, Client, Price, Association, Configuration, Entity Selections, and others, appropriate to each report.

Time Range Selection Filter - Weekends

Client Status Selection Filter

In the Data Protection Summary Report, the Client Status Selection filters allow you to include the following for each selected CommCell in this report:

• All clients
• Only clients that have not had data protection coverage in a specified number of days; additionally, this filter can exclude those clients with no schedules, such as unutilized default subclients.
• Only clients that do not have schedules set up, such as unutilized default subclients.

If you select the option Clients with no data protection in last <x> days, you will find that all clients with an unused default subclient are included in the report, even if they have other subclients that have regularly scheduled data protection. To exclude them, so you can see a report of only those clients whose scheduled data protection has not completed successfully, select the Exclude those without schedules option. Note that this option will exclude all clients that have no schedule, not just the ones with unused subclients. Thus it might be useful to generate a separate report using only the Clients with no schedules option, and ascertain if that status is appropriate for each.

The Data Protection SLA Report and the Client SLA Summary similarly have an Exclude Subclients without schedules option. Select this filtering option so you can see a report of only those clients whose scheduled data protection has not completed successfully. Importantly, selecting this option will raise the calculated SLA for the CommCell, Client, and Application, since it will no longer include these subclients.

Exclude Command Line Subclients

The following reports contain the Exclude Command Line Subclients option, which allows you to exclude those subclients, created using the command line interface, in report calculations.

• CommCell Growth Report
• Data Protection Coverage Report
• Data Protection Summary Report
• Data Protection SLA Report

Data Availability Timelines

When a CommCell is registered with a CommNet Server, the job history in the CommCells and the data growth information are collected. The following table describes when and/or how far back this information is available in the various reports and summaries, depending on the CommServe software version.

License Requirement

This component requires a Product License to be available in the CommNet Server.

Review general license requirements included in License Administration. Also, View All Licenses provides step-by-step instructions on how to view the license information.

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