Designing Custom Portlets

The Oracle® Session Delivery Management Cloud (Oracle SDM Cloud) allows you to build custom portlets that you can then use to design customized dashboards using the Dashboard Manager's Portlet Designer.

The Portlet Designer provides the following features:

A list of existing portlets published and ready for use. These preexisting Oracle SDM Cloud portlets are used to power both preexisting Oracle SDM Cloud dashboards and can be used to build customized dashboards. As these dashboards are used in preexisting Oracle SDM Cloud dashboards, they cannot be modified, copied, or deleted. When you create your own customized portlets you have full management of the portlet's life-cycle. There are 6 preexisting data sources:
- Average Calls Per Second
- Average Concurrent Sessions
- Average CPU Utilization
- Average Health Score
- Average Memory Utilization
- Connectivity Status
A Portlet Editor that allows you to create, view, copy, or edit portlets, as well as the following features:
- A Monitoring Data Source Table to display and select from the exiting Data Source. A Data Source can represent KPI scalar to tabular value as well as network metrics that Oracle SDM Cloud solution provides.
- The ability to create and configure a new monitoring Data Source, modify an existing data source configuration, or delete a monitoring data source.
- A viewer where the portlet graphical representation can be viewed as the user is designing the portlet.
- A graphical selector which allows you to select the needed graph type.
- The ability to save a draft of a portlet that is being worked on or publish the final portlet for private, public, or shared usage.
- Filter capabilities to focus on specific data content when building a portlet.

Access the Portlet Designer under the Dashboard Manager. The Portlet Designer displays a list of all previously created portlets, including the Oracle SDM Cloud preexisting portlets, as well as portlets created by the user and other users' shared and public portlets.

At the top of the Portlet Designer screen you can choose from the following 3 views:

All—Lists all portlets saved on the Oracle SDM Cloud. This includes drafts created by the logged in user, portlets published as private for the logged in user, and all shared (view-only) and public portlets.
Favorite—Lists the portlets you have marked as a Favorite.
In Use—Lists the portlets currently used in Dashboards.

The Portlet Designer List View displays the following buttons and fields:

Search text box—The search functionality pre-populates as you enter the Portlet name, listing portlets starting with the characters entered. The search field also supports wild card searches (*). The search field lists dashboards based on the view selected.
+ Portlet button—This button launches the Portlet Editor where the user can create a new Portlet and add it to the list of Portlets.
Set Columns button—Launches the Set Columns pop-up, allowing you to select which columns appear in the table.
The following lists the Portlet table columns:
Portlet—A thumb nail representation of the graph type the portlet is based on is presented. By clicking on this thumb nail, a preview of the portlet, displaying real data polled from the managed Network Functions, appears on the screen.
Name—Name of the portlet.
Description—Description of the portlet.
State—(Hidden) The state of the portlet. This can be either Draft, Private, Shared, or Public.
Favorite—Select heart icon to mark as a Favorite portlet.
Delete—Delete the portlet.
Edit—Edit the portlet.
Preview—Preview the portlet. The portlet displays with real data from the last polling from the product type, data source, and default filter.
Copy—Create a copy of the portlet. This copy is added to the portlet list.

Note:
The preexisting portlets provided by the Oracle SDM Cloud do not allow certain actions to be performed, such as Delete, Edit, Preview, or Copy. In these cases, the options will be disabled.
Refresh icon—Refreshes the Portlet list.

Creating Portlets

From the Portlet Designer page, you can navigate to the Portlet Editor page and create a new portlet. The Portlet Editor page contains the Monitoring table. This table contains all of the Data Sources currently created and saved on the Oracle® Session Delivery Management Cloud (Oracle SDM Cloud). You can either use existing Data Sources to create a portlet, or you can create new Data Sources using the Data Source Wizard. For more information on using the Data Source Wizard to create new Data Sources, see "Creating a New Data Source".

In addition to selecting Data Sources, you also select the graph type in which the Oracle SDM Cloud displays the data. The following graph types are supported:

Multi-metric line time series
Multi-metric bar time series

Prior to plotting a graph for a portlet, you must select a device for this portlet to filter via the Filter icon and then a data-source. The Portlet Editor Filter icon, once selected, provides a set of values which the end user can filter as follows:

Time increment—Oracle SDM Cloud provides different spacial aggregated time increments for viewing.
Start and End time—Select the start and end times for data retrieval if the data is time series based.
Start Time (UTC) and End Time (UTC)—(read-only) Displays the user selected start and end times in UTC.
Select Device—Target one or more devices. This can be selected from a device selection table, which provides the ability to search on each column.

If you plot a graph for a portlet before you have selected a device, when you click Preview, the Oracle SDM Cloud displays the message, "At least one Device and Data Source need to be selected to create this graph".

For Device Groups, the Oracle SDM Cloud displays the parent of the Network Function device. For Device, it displays devices based on the Device Group selection.

Once you select a device for your portlet, the Monitoring table is filtered based on the products being associated with those specific devices.

To create a new portlet:

Navigate to Dashboard Manager, Portlet Designer and click the +Portlet button to bring up the Portlet Editor.
Click the Filter icon.
The Filter dialog appears.
Select Device—Click Select Device to bring up the Select Device table.
Select the Device Group or Device you require to filter the data set on that will be used to help visualize this portlet.

Note:
The Oracle SDM Cloud provides a grid paged table to easily navigate to different device groups and devices. In addition, the table provides character-based filter options on each column to quickly filter to specific devices of interest.
Click Apply.
The Devices + count appears at the top of the Portlet Editor screen. When devices have been selected and applied, the button label changes from Devices to Devices +n. When you click on that button, it displays a breakdown of the devices as the following example shows:
```
Number of Selected Devices: 5
SBC: +3; ME: +2
```
Click the Graph Type icon. The Select Graph Type dialog appears. The Oracle SDM Cloud supports the following graph types:
- Multi-metric time series line graph (default)
- Multi-metric time series bar graph
*Portlet Title icon—Click the pencil icon to enter a unique name for this portlet. This is a required field and if you do not provide a Portlet Title, the Oracle SDM Cloud cannot save a draft or publish this portlet.
Portlet Description icon—Click the Enter Description icon next to Portlet Title. The Portlet Description dialog appears. Enter a brief description of this portlet and click OK to save the description or Cancel to discard the changes and exit out of the dialog.
The Monitor table provides a list of existing Data Sources. Click the Select checkbox to select a Data Source for the portlet or create a new Data Source.
+ Data Source—Create your own Data Source. This button launches the Add Data Source Wizard. For more information on adding data sources and using the Data Source Wizard, see "Creating a New Data Source".
Once you select a Data Source type from the Monitor table, the Portlet Editor displays a preview of the graph.
Click One of the following:
- Cancel—When you click the Cancel button the Oracle SDM Cloud displays a confirmation message asking to press Yes to continue and discard changes or No to return to the previous screen.
- Safe Draft—Saves a draft of the edits made, but the portlet cannot be used in a Dashboard until it is Published.
- Publish—Presents a drop-down list with the following publishing options.
  - Private—This is a published portlet that can only be viewed by the author.
  - Shared—The portlet is published, viewable, and can be copied by other users so that they can create their own new portlet based on the shared portlet.
  - Public—The portlet is available to all users to edit, preview, copy, or add to dashboards.

Creating a New Monitoring Data Source

The Oracle® Session Delivery Management Cloud (Oracle SDM Cloud) allows you to create a new data source, called a Monitoring Data Source (MDS), to be used in a portlet, defining the characteristics and adding it to the Monitoring table. A MDS is a common construct of how a NF-specific Key Performance Indicator (KPI) or metric is present to the end user. Oracle SDM Cloud provides the Add Data Source wizard to create new MDSs. All MDSs that are created are displayed in the Monitoring table.

The Add Data Source Wizard has 3 steps:

Data Source—This page walks you through the steps to define a MDS construct that will be added to the Monitoring table (and, if required, added to the Poller metric table to enable polling for the metric).
Aggregation—For Oracle SDM Cloud purposes, aggregation means the collection of sampling metrics into statistical clusters such as average, sum, count, minimum, and maximum statistics. There is no comparison or correlation in these statistic representations. The Oracle SDM Cloud allows you to configure the way you want to view the aggregated data.
There are two types of aggregation that the Oracle SDM Cloud provides for you to select the required statistics. These types are:
- Spatial Aggregation—When Oracle SDM Cloud samples for specific historical time series based KPI and metrics, the data samples periodically from the devices is called Raw data. As the data is being collected, Oracle SDM Cloud further aggregates the Raw data and provides statistics for hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly time increments. This type of aggregation over a time series is called Spatial Aggregation.
- Device Aggregation—The collection of sampling metrics over individual Network Functions (NFs), or devices. When applying the Filter in dashboards or designers, the device selection will filter data sets specific to the selected devices. If more than one device is selected, Oracle SDM Cloud applies another aggregation over the values returned by each device. These generated statistics are called Device aggregation. For example, average, sum, count, minimum, or maximum statistics calculated over one or many devices.
Device Product—The type of product from the session delivery portfolio, so that the data shows only for those products (for example, SBC, SR, or ME). Based on the Data Source selected, the list of products is filtered to only those products that support that metric.

To add a new data source:

From the Portlet Editor page, click the + Data Source button.
The Add Data Source wizard launches.
Data Source
- Data Source Display Name—Enter a unique Data Source Display Name to use for this new data source.
- Select the data source you want or search for a particular data source.
  When you click on a Data Source, information about that Data Source displays on the left of the screen, including Category and Data Source Type.
  
  Note:
  The Data Source Type currently supported by Oracle SDM Cloud are displayed here by the wizard. These data source types are supported by at least one or more products such as SBC, E-SBC, SR, or OCSM (Mediation Engine).
- Click Next.
  The Aggregation screen displays.
Aggregation
- Select Spacial Statistic—Select the aggregation type to use for spacial statistics.
- Select Device Aggregation—Select the aggregation type to use for device aggregation.
- Click Next.
  The Device Product screen displays.
Device Product
- Select Device Product Type—Select the product type that you want the Monitoring Data Source to display data sets for.
- Click Finish.
  The new Monitoring Data Source just created appears in the Monitor table.

Edit a Monitoring Data Source

Once you have created a Monitoring Data Source (MDS), you can edit the Device Product only. The Data Source type and Aggregation cannot be changed.

To edit a Monitoring Data Source:

Navigate to the Portlet Editor page.
In the Monitor table, click the Edit icon next to the Monitoring Data Source you want to edit.
Update the Device Product page as necessary.
Click Finish.

Note:
Users can edit only the Data Sources that they have created.

Edit a Portlet

With the appropriate permissions, you can edit portlets (those in an editable state) via the Portlet Editor page.

When editing existing portlets, the following rules apply regarding the state of the dashboard:

Draft—When you edit a portlet that is in the draft state, both the Save Draft and Publish buttons are enabled.
Private—When you edit a portlet that is in the published but private state, the Save Draft button is disabled. Once a dashboard has been published, it cannot be reverted back to the draft state. Publish as either Private, Shared, or Public to save your changes.
Shared—When you edit a portlet that has been published as shared, the Save Draft and Private buttons are disabled. Once a dashboard has been published as shared, it cannot be made private again. Publish as either Shared or Public to save your changes.
Public—When you edit a portlet that has been published as public, the Save Draft, Private, and Shared buttons are disabled. Once a dashboard has been published as public it cannot be reverted. Publish as Public to save your changes.

To edit a Portlet:

Navigate to the Portlet Designer page.
Select the portlet to edit and click the pencil icon.
The Portlet Editor page displays.
Update the portlet as necessary.

Note:
The Portlet Title is read-only and cannot be modified on the Portlet Designer page.

Delete a Monitoring Data Source

To delete a Monitoring Data Source (MDS):

Navigate to the Portlet Editor page.
In the Monitor table, click the Delete icon next to the MDS you want to delete.
A Confirm dialog appears asking you to confirm you want to delete that MDS.
Click Yes to proceed or No to cancel.

Note:
Users can delete only the Data Sources that they have created.