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Version 6.30
Version 6.30
  • Welcome
  • Nexthink V6
  • Overview
    • Software components
    • Collector
    • Finder
    • Engine
    • Portal
    • Nexthink Library
    • Digital Experience Score
  • Installation and configuration
    • Planning your installation
      • Overview of the installation process
      • Hardware requirements
      • Connectivity requirements
      • Software requirements
      • Reference architectures
    • Installing Portal and Engine Appliances
      • Installing the Appliance
      • Installing the Appliance on Azure
      • Installing the Appliance on AWS
      • Installing the Appliance on OTC
      • Managing Appliance accounts
      • Setting the names of the Portal
      • Setting the names of the Engines
      • Specifying your internal networks and domains
      • Federating your Appliances
      • STIG compliance in Web Console
      • Connecting the Portal to the Engines
      • Configuring session performance storage
      • Configuring device performance storage
      • Setting up a software license
      • Sending email notifications from the Appliance
      • Allocating resources for the Portal
    • Installing the Collector
      • Installing the Collector on Windows
      • Installing the Collector on macOS
      • Installing the Collector for a Proof of Value
      • Assigning Collectors to Engines
      • Assignment of roaming Collectors
      • Collector MSI parameters reference table
      • Nxtcfg - Collector configuration tool
      • Inspecting the connection status of the Collector
      • Querying the status of the TCP connection of the Collector
      • Reporting the URL of HTTP web requests
      • Auditing logon events
      • Viewing user interactions in virtualized and embedded environments
      • Engage notifications on macOS
      • Configuring Collector level anonymization
    • Collector remote connectivity
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      • Support for DirectAccess
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      • Mac Collector proxy support
    • Installing the Event Connector
      • Installing the Event Connector on Linux
    • Installing the Finder
      • Installing the Finder on Windows
      • Enabling Cross-Engine Finder features
      • Expanding the time frame of investigations in the Finder
      • Enabling Finder access to the Library
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    • Updating from V6.x
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      • Viewing Collector deprecated fields
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    • Security and user account management
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      • Provisioning user accounts from Active Directory
      • Establishing a privacy policy
      • Disabling local accounts for interactive users
      • Setting the complexity and minimum length of passwords for local accounts
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      • Controlling session timeouts in the Portal
      • Security settings in the Appliance
      • Setting the Do Not Disturb periods between campaigns
    • Data retrieval and storage
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      • Increasing the maximum number of metrics
      • Establishing a data retention policy in the Engine
      • Storing Engine data in a secondary disk drive
      • Importing data from Microsoft Active Directory
      • Setting the locale in the Portal
      • Changing the Time Zone of the Portal
      • Time Zones and data collection
      • Changing the data collection time of the Portal
      • Nightly task schedules timetable
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    • Maintenance operations
      • Logging in to the CLI
      • Special operation modes for the Engine and the Portal
      • Changing the default ports in the Appliance
      • Centralized Management of Appliances and Engines
      • Monitoring the performance of the Appliance
      • Resizing partitions in Appliance
      • Configuring the system log
      • Examining the logs in the Portal
      • GDPR - Retrieving or anonymizing personal data
      • Finding out unlicensed devices
      • Removing devices
      • Installing third-party software in the Appliance
      • Installing VMware Tools in the Appliance
      • Operational data sent to Nexthink
      • Sending additional data to Support
    • Disaster recovery
      • Planning for disaster recovery
      • Web Console backup and restore
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      • Portal backup and restore
      • Rule-based assignment backup and restore
      • License backup and restore
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    • Branding
      • Branding the Portal
      • Branding of campaigns
  • User manual
    • Getting started
      • Logging in to the Finder
      • Logging in to the Portal
      • Enabling STIG in Webconsole
    • Querying the system
      • Searching the subject of interest
      • Executing an investigation
      • Creating an investigation
      • Editing the options of an investigation
      • Combining logical conditions in investigations
      • Navigating through the results of an investigation
      • Properties of users and devices
    • Visualizing system activity in the Finder
      • Getting a quick overview
      • Graphically observing the activity of users and devices
      • Observing service performance
      • Viewing network connections
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    • Monitoring IT custom metrics
      • Creating a metric
      • Examples of metrics
      • Session performance
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      • Following the evolution of a metric
      • Finding the visuals of a metric
    • Monitoring IT services
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    • Engaging with the end user
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      • Types of campaigns
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    • Rating devices and users with scores
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      • Score XML Reference
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    • Remotely acting on devices
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      • Troubleshooting
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          • [No Choice found in the sys_choice table for the target table](integrations/nexthink-servicenow-service-graph-connector/troubleshooting/ire-identification-issues/ no-choice-found-in-the-sys_choice-table-for-the-target-table.md)
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Overview

The Portal collects data from the Engine once every day to compute the metrics for its dashboards and build up its history. Because collecting data from the Engine is a costly operation, the Portal is programmed by default to get the data during the night, when the activity of the Engine is supposed to be low.

, the Portal starts collecting information about the events that occurred during the past day, which usually are the 24 hours that went by from past midnight to midnight one hour ago. The whole computation process can take up to several hours, depending on the quantity of data collected and the number and complexity of the metrics to compute.

The Portal determines the past day individually for each Engine in the following way:

  • The Portal gets the time of the last event stored in the Engine.

  • The past day is the whole day before the date of the last event in the Engine (always computed in the time zone of the Portal).

For Engines with low activity, this way of determining the past day might mean that the past day is two (or more) days ago. For instance, if an Engine has no event during the current day yet (when the Portal starts the nightly computation) but the last event happened the day before, the Portal considers the past day to be two days ago for that Engine.

Special care has to be taken when the Portal and the Engine are placed in different time zones, in particular when the Portal is connected to multiple Engines. A setup with Engines placed in distant locations may lead to surprising results in the Portal if the data collection process is not well understood. One o'clock in the morning in one time zone may be two in the afternoon in another. Thus, data collection may not be triggered during the night for all Engines.

This document explains how the Portal determines when to start collecting data from the connected Engines and other issues that arise when the Portal and the Engines are placed in different time zones.

The time zone of the Portal account

The Portal connects to the Engine by means of a dedicated account. This account is unique to each Engine and is similar to the accounts of the users of the Finder. The time zone of the Portal account matches the time zone of the admin user in every Engine.

Default behavior

By default, the time zone of the admin user (and, therefore, that of the Portal account) is configured in every Engine to have the time zone of Europe/Zurich, which corresponds to Central European Time (CET, UTC +1 hour) during the winter and Central European Summer Time (CEST, UTC +2 hours) during the summer. Therefore, from the point of view of the Portal, all Engines share the same time zone (Europe/Zurich), even when this is actually not the case.

To schedule the collection of data, the Portal computes the that is equivalent to 01:00 Zurich time. When the scheduled time is reached, the Portal begins to collect data from all Engines.

If you change the time zone of the admin account, a similiar scenario occurs. All the Engines automatically set the time zone of their Portal accounts to be the same as the time zone of the admin account. As a result, the Portal starts collecting data from all Engines at 01:00 according to the time zone of the admin account. As explained in the previous default case, the Portal computes the equivalent local time for scheduling the data collection.

Example

Let us illustrate the influence of time zones in the data collection with an example involving one Portal connected to two Engines. Imagine that we have a Portal installed in London, one Engine in New York and another Engine in Paris. For the sake of simplicity, we are not going to deal with daylight savings. Therefore, we assume that the Portal in London has UTC time, that the Engine in New York has UTC -5 hours and that the Engine in Paris has UTC +1 hour as their respective time zones.

Suppose that most of the devices with the Collector installed are located in Paris. It makes sense thus to have the time zone of the admin account set to Paris. This ensures that the computation occurs during the night in Paris, when most of the devices are inactive. Since the Portal account shares the same time zone of the admin account, both the Engine in New York and the Engine in Paris have the time zone of the Portal account set to Paris time.

The Portal in London triggers the computation at 01:00 Paris time, that is 00:00 London time. The Engine in Paris has its data collected as usual, from midnight one day ago to midnight one hour ago. However, for the Engine in New York the situation is different. Since its time zone has been centralized to Paris, data collection is performed from 18h last day to 18h today, coinciding in real-time with the collection of data in Paris.

Impact on users

As we said at the beginning, data collection is a costly operation. It increases sensibly the load of the Portal and the Engines while it is going on. To impact the fewer users possible, the Portal collects data during the night. However, in scenarios with multiple time zones involved, the night is not simultaneous for everyone. More users may be impacted as a result of the Portal performing data collection during local working hours.

For instance, In the previous example, where the Portal adapts to the time zone of Paris, users of the Portal in New York may experience poor response time if they try to connect to the Portal late in the evening, because data collection was started at 19:00 New York time and it can go on for a few hours.

Similarly, users of the Finder may experience a decrease in the performance of their connection to an Engine, if the Engine is being solicited by the Portal because of the data collection process.

Therefore, it is recommended to use the time zone of the Engine where most of the users of both the Portal and the Finder are located. In this way, you reduce the impact of data collection on the majority of your users.

Interpreting the results

Be careful with metrics that compute values for particular intervals of time in a day. For instance, let us consider a metric Number of desktops with nightly activity that is based on a between hours condition. The metric is supposed to return the number of desktops which had any kind of activity during the night, but we have seen that the night is not simultaneous for everybody in setups with multiple time zones.

In the example, the Engine in New York is computing from 18:00 yesterday to 18:00 today, but the Portal makes the computation with respect to the centralized time zone, which is Paris time. Therefore, the widget reports the desktops with nightly activity according to Paris time and not to New York time, even for desktops placed in New York.

Remember that the widgets in the Portal display their results with respect to the time zone used to launch the computation:

  • By default, the time zone of Europe/Zurich.

  • The time zone of the admin account, if you change it from Europe/Zurich to any other value.

The users of the Portal see time information in their web browser according to one of these possible time zones and it is the same time zone for all users. You should therefore not confuse the time zone of the results in the Portal with the time zone configured in the profile of the user. The time zone in the profile of the user exclusively serves to present information in the Finder, if the user of the Portal is allowed access to the Finder.


RELATED TASKS

  1. Installation and configuration
  2. Data retrieval and storage

Time Zones and data collection

  • Overview
  • The time zone of the Portal account
  • Default behavior
  • Example
  • Impact on users
  • Interpreting the results
Changing the nightly computation time of the Portal
Changing the Time Zone of the Portal
By default, at one o'clock in the morning
local time