Day 6: Lights-Out Runtime Chart explained

We’re on day 6 of our Lights-Out step-by-step series. Yesterday we started to explore the management tools. And today we will have a first look at the second tab, called runtime chart. Furthermore, you will learn how to customize the diagram and the colors.

The runtime chart visualizes recorded run-times of your devices. Run-time is the time when a device was active and up and running. You can use the diagram to find out what’s going on in your network.

User interface elements

There are 3 elements in the diagram:

• A timeline (1) at the bottom. The time is displayed in days. On the left and right side is a timeline in hours for each day (top down).
• A slider (2) to change the number of displayed days. You can choose between 2 and 14 days.
• A legend (3) on the right which shows you the device names and colors. The diagrams are created from left to right in the same order as the legend from top to down. Devices which are only recorded for visualization (and not used for monitoring) are displayed with a dashed style.

If you have many devices, you like to choose 2 days to better see the details. If you like to get an overview, choose 14 days.

Runtime chart explained

Now what’s the run-time chart good for? You can easily locate the source which keeps your server awake. You can verify computer runtimes and whether a backup took place at an expected (or unexpected) point in time and much more.

Move the mouse over a bar and see more details:

Changing the device color

If you like to assign a specific color to a device, open the device properties. We will do this in more detail tomorrow when we talk about the computer tab. For now, double click a device on the computer tab to open the device properties:

Click on the […] button (6) to modify the color. Then click OK to save your changes.

Summary

With the run-time chart, you can very easily get an impression of what your devices are doing. You can easily find computers which are unnecessary long running and consuming energy.

Here you will find the complete list of all days of our step-by-step series.