Applies To:
Show VersionsBIG-IP AAM
- 13.0.1, 13.0.0
BIG-IP APM
- 13.0.1, 13.0.0
BIG-IP Link Controller
- 13.0.1, 13.0.0
BIG-IP Analytics
- 13.0.1, 13.0.0
BIG-IP LTM
- 13.0.1, 13.0.0
BIG-IP AFM
- 13.0.1, 13.0.0
BIG-IP PEM
- 13.0.1, 13.0.0
BIG-IP DNS
- 13.0.1, 13.0.0
BIG-IP ASM
- 13.0.1, 13.0.0
What is Analytics?
Analytics (also called Application Visibility and Reporting or AVR) is a module on the BIG-IP® system that you can use to visually analyze the performance of web applications, TCP traffic, DNS traffic, FastL4, and overall system statistics. The statistics are displayed in graphical charts where you can drill down for more specific details to better understand network performance on certain devices, IP addresses, memory and CPU utilization, and so on. You can focus the statistics in the charts on different categories such as applications or virtual servers.
For HTTP traffic, Analytics 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, transaction outcomes,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 HTTP traffic that is going through the system. You can capture HTTP traffic for examination, and have the system send alerts so you can troubleshoot problems and immediately react to sudden changes.
For TCP and FastL4 traffic, reports show details about RTT (round trip time), goodput, connections, and packets. For TCP, you can also view statistics for delay analysis. Within these categories, you can display information by the requests side, applications, virtual servers, remote host IP addresses, subnet addresses, next hops, countries, cities, continents, or user provided keys (from the TCP::analytics iRule). You can use the reports to gather information about TCP flows to better understand what is happening on your network. For example, you could view the charts by applications, then examine RTT averages, packet loss, and connection length to investigate user complaints about a slowdown.
You specify the type of traffic to monitor using different Analytics profiles. To view web application statistics, you use an HTTP Analytics profile, and to view TCP or FastL4 statistics, you use a TCP Analytics profile. Viewing system statistics does not require an Analytics profile.
Using remote logging capabilities with Analytics, your company can consolidate statistics gathered from multiple BIG-IP appliances onto syslog servers or SIEM devices, such as Splunk. A report scheduler allows you to periodically send email to users with specific types of reports that you design.
About HTTP Analytics profiles
An HTTP 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. You select an HTTP Analytics profile for each application you want to monitor. You associate the HTTP Analytics profile with one or more virtual servers used by the application. Each virtual server can have one HTTP and/or one TCP Analytics profile associated with it.
In the HTTP Analytics profile, you customize:
- What statistics to collect
- Where to collect data (locally, remotely, or both)
- Whether to capture the traffic itself
- Whether to send notifications
The BIG-IP® system includes a default HTTP Analytics profile called analytics. It serves as the parent of all other HTTP Analytics profiles that you create on the system. You can modify the default profile, or create custom HTTP Analytics profiles for each application if you want to track different data for each one. Certain settings, such as SMTP Configuration, Transaction Sampling, and the Subnets list, can only be set in the default HTTP Analytics profile.
displays the HTTP Overview by default, which shows:
- Average transactions per second
- Average request throughput
- Average response throughput
- Average server latency
- Average page load time
- Average concurrent sessions
- Average new sessions
Charts shown on the HTTP Overview screen include the application data saved for all HTTP Analytics profiles associated with iApps application services and virtual servers on the system. You can filter the HTTP information by many different criteria, such as 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.
Overview: Collecting application statistics
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 HTTP 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.
Task Summary
Customizing the default HTTP Analytics profile
Certain information can be specified only in the default HTTP 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.