A generic and integrated software support for thevisualization of metrics in the context of Enterprise

Architecture ManagementFinal presentation

Michael Schätzlein

Software Engineering for Business Information Systems (sebis)Technische Universität München

May 27th, 2014

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Motivation

Metrics in Tricia:

Application continuity plan availabilityA measure of how completely IT continuity plans for business criticalapplications have been drawn & tested up for the IT’s application portfolio.

Mxl expression

let criticalApplications =find(’Business Application’).where(’is critical’) incriticalApplications.ratio(’covered by’ <> null)

Interpretationproblematic if < 60%normal if between 60% - 80%good if > 80%

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Vision

Metric visualization (snapshot)

Application continuity plan availability

0 25 50 75 100 %

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Vision

Metric visualization (over time)

Date

Availab

ilit

y (

%)

Application continuity plan availability

Application continuity plan availability

Jan '14 Mar '14 May '14 Jul '14 Sep '14 Nov '14 Jan '150

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Highcharts.com

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Vision

Metric visualization (combined)

Date

Metr

ic v

alu

e (

%)

Application continuity plan availabilityCompared with backuped key roles

Application continuity plan availability Backuped key roles

Jan '14 Apr '14 Jul '14 Oct '14 Jan '150

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Highcharts.com

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Outline

1 Research Questions

2 Results of the Literature Review

3 Selected Implementation Aspects

4 Conclusion & Outlook

5 Live Demo

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Research questions

RQ1: What are recommended visualizations for metrics inliterature?

RQ2: What type of visualizations are recommended for metrics inthe domain of EAM?

RQ3: What are suitable web-based visualization libraries to supportthe visualization of metrics in the domain of EAM?

RQ4: What is a suitable prototypical implementation of acorresponding visualization extension of Tricia?

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Findings

Many authors use metrics and propose visualizations.None of them states how to use visualizations to properlyrepresent metrics.Visualization of metrics in the domain of EAM is sparselyresearched (cf. Lankes, [2008]).Practitioners and researchers contradict each other.

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Gap between practitioners and researchers

PractitionersMake heavy use of gaugesand pie chartsSeldom care aboutconsistent coloration orcomparabilityEmploy visualizationsdistorting data

ResearchersPrefer line charts and barchartsReject pie charts, gauges,and kiviat chartsFavour monochrome,minimalistic visualizationsCare about comparability ofvisualizationsDemand visualizationswithout data distortion

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Requirements for the prototype

1 Support the visualization of all metrics from the MetricCatalog by all types of recommended visualizations.

2 The visualizations operate on the results from related TxLexpressions.

3 Integration of the visualization prototype in Tricia.4 The prototype must enable users to define visualizations for

their metrics.

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Visualization types (RQ1) I

Line chart

Date

Availab

ilit

y (

%)

Application continuity plan availability

Application continuity plan availability

Jan '14 Mar '14 May '14 Jul '14 Sep '14 Nov '14 Jan '150

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Highcharts.com

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Visualization types (RQ1) II

Area chart

Date

Availab

ilit

y (

%)

Application continuity plan availability

Application continuity plan availability

Jan '14 Mar '14 May '14 Jul '14 Sep '14 Nov '14 Jan '150

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Highcharts.com

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Visualization types (RQ1) III

Column chart

Severity level

Avera

ge d

ura

tio

n (

h)

Incident duration

Application continuity plan availability

low middle high0

10

20

30

40

Highcharts.com

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Visualization types (RQ1) IV

Bar chartS

everi

ty level

Average duration (h)

Incident duration

Application continuity plan availability

low

middle

high

0 10 20 30 40

Highcharts.com

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Visualization types (RQ1) V

Pie chart

Incident duration distributionBased on the average incident duration

low: 20.0 %

middle: 30.0 %

high: 50.0 %

Highcharts.com

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Visualization types (RQ1) VI

Kiviat chart

Spiderweb / Kiviat

data series I data series II data series III

criteria A

criteria B

criteria C

criteria D

criteria E

criteria F

0

25

50

75

100

Highcharts.com

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Visualization types (RQ1) VII

Bullet chart

Application continuity plan availability

0 25 50 75 100 %

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Recommended visualization types (RQ2)

Recommendations based on the Metric Catalog

Metric result type PerspectiveSnapshot Over time

monetary value bullet chart line / column chartmultiple values column chart line / column chartnumber bullet chart line / column chartpercentage bullet chart line / column chart

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Visualization engines (RQ3)

RGraph g.Raphaël NVD3 Highcharts

Line chart Area chart # Column chart Bar chart Pie chart Kiviat chart # # Bullet chart # # G#Dynamic Documentation # Interactivity # G#

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Foundation

Visualization terminology

Date

Availab

ilit

y (

%)

Application continuity plan availabilityvalue over time

40%

55%

75%

60%

85%

Application continuity plan availability

Jan '14 Mar '14 May '14 Jul '14 Sep '14 Nov '14 Jan '1

Data Label

Legend

Navigator

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Jan '14 May '14 Sep '14

Highcharts.com

X-Axis Title

Y-Axis Title TitleSubtitleY-Axis Type

X-Axis Type

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TxL expressions

Allowed types

expression :: String → Number (e.g. column chart)expression :: Date → Number (e.g. line chart)expression :: Number (e.g. bullet chart)

Mxl expression (Number)

let criticalApplications =find(’Business Application’).where(’is critical’) incriticalApplications.ratio(’covered by’ <> null)

Wrapper expression (Date → Number)

applicationContinuityPlanAvailability() @ date * 100

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Visualization Template

Empty template

{"properties": {},"configuration": {},"highcharts_config": {},"highcharts_expert": {}

}

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Conclusion

Metric visualization is a diverse subject.We drew our own conclusions and derived a set ofrecommended metric visualizations from literature.The prototypical extension of Tricia can be used to visualize allmetrics of the catalog.Missing TxL features (at the time of writing) prevent thevisualization of values over time.

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Future Research

Visualization of historical dataDynamic configuration dialogUsability analysisGraphical drill-down on visualizations

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DEMO

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Traffic light

Application continuity plan availability

Bullet chart

Application continuity plan availability

0 25 50 75 100 %

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Gauge

availability in %

80

Application Continuity Plan Availability

0

1020

30

4050

60

7080

90

100

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Visualization Template I

Template properties (line chart)

1 "properties": {"name": "Line Chart", "image": "line_chart.png",2 "x_axis_types": ["datetime"],3 "y_axis_types": ["linear", "logarithmic"],4 "date_intervals": ["daily", "weekly", "monthly", "quarterly", "

annually"],5 "no_of_metrics": "multiple",6 "title_editable": true,7 /* other editable flags omitted */8 "categories_editable": true,9 "default_categories": [],

10 "default_date_range": [],11 "default_date_interval": "monthly",12 "metric_series": [],13 "metric_series_addition": {}}

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Visualization Template II

Template configuration

"configuration": {"categories": [],"date_range": [],"date_interval": "","title": "","subtitle": "","x_axis_type": "","x_axis_title": "","y_axis_type": "","y_axis_title": "","navigator": true,"data_label": false,"series": [],"container": ""

}

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Visualization Template III

Embedded visualization

1 $[metricVisualization()$2 {"properties": {"name": "Bullet Chart"},3 "configuration": {4 "title": "Application Continuity Plan Availability",5 /* defaults omitted */6 "series": [{7 "name": "Measure",8 "id": "applicationContinuityPlanAvailability",9 "data": []

10 },{11 "name": "Target",12 "id": "applicationContinuityPlanAvailabilityTarget",13 "type": "scatter",14 "data": []15 }],16 "container": ""}17 "highcharts_expert": {}}18 $metricVisualization]$

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Visualization Template IV

“Expert” configuration{"properties": {"name": "Bullet Chart",/* omitted*/

},"configuration": {/* omitted */},"highcharts_expert": {"chart":{"borderWidth": 2}

}}

Result

Application continuity plan availability

0 25 50 75 100 %

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Visualization of historical data

let criticalApplications =find(’Business Application’).where(’is critical’) incriticalApplications.ratio(’covered by’ <> null)

applicationContinuityPlanAvailability() @ date * 100

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Dynamic configuration dialog

"dialog": [{"label": "Border color","type": "color","mapped_to": {"chart": {"borderColor": "#000000"}}},

{"label": "Border width","type": "number","mapped_to": {"chart": {"borderWidth": 0}}}]

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Guided metric selection

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