Events Perspective
Track changes in your IT landscape.
This page describes StackState version 4.2.
The StackState 4.2 version range is End of Life (EOL) and no longer supported. We encourage customers still running the 4.2 version range to upgrade to a more recent release.
The Events Perspective shows events and changes for the elements in the current view or filtered topology.
Events
StackState defines an event as a timestamped record of an activity or change that an observer of the platform should be aware of. Events help you make sense of changes that impact your IT landscape and are a great asset when troubleshooting problems.
Event source
StackState works with three different kinds of events, note that not all of these are available in the Events Perspective:
Internally generated events - Events generated by StackState. The following event types will be listed in the Events Perspective: Anomaly, Component/relation created, Component/relation deleted, Component/relation updated, Health state changed, Version changed.
Events from external sources - Some StackState integrations can retrieve events from external systems. All events retrieved from external systems will be listed in the Events Perspective. You can also use the StackState CLI or an HTTP POST to send events to StackState.
Events telemetry streams - Event data can be received through an events telemetry stream. Events from these streams will not be listed in the Events Perspective, however, they can be monitored by a check. Checks can trigger a health state change event, which would be listed in the Events Perspective as an internally generated event.
Event category
All events in StackState have a category assigned based on the event type and source system. The available categories are Activities, Alerts, Anomalies, Changes and Others. Events received from external systems will have a category attached to them when they arrive in StackState. If no valid category is included in an event, it will be grouped under the category Others.
Event properties
Click on an event to display an overview of the event details in the Event properties pane on the right of the screen. Events from external systems will also include links through to relevant information in the source system here:
Elements - The components and/or relations involved in the event.
Event type - A description of the event type.
Event time - The time at which the event occurred. For events from an external system, this will be the timestamp from the external system. Click on the timestamp to time travel to the topology at the moment that the event occurred.
Processed time - For external events, this is the time that the event was received by StackState. For internally generated events that affect the graph database, this is the time data was stored in the graph database. Click on the timestamp to time travel to the topology at the moment that the event was processed by StackState.
Links - Direct links to an external source of an event. For example, a ServiceNow change request or JIRA ticket.
Description - Additional information about the event. For example, the context of the event or its importance.
SHOW EVENT PROPERTIES - Click to access all data included in the event.
Filter displayed events
The events listed in the Events Perspective can be filtered in two ways:
Topology filters define the elements (components and relations) for which events will be displayed.
Event filters refine events displayed based on type and tags.
Topology Filters
The elements (components and relations) included in a view are defined by the topology filters in the View Filters > Topology Filters pane on the left side of the screen. Only events relating to these elements or the view itself will be visible in the Events Perspective. You can change the topology filters at any time to list the events for a different set of elements.
Event filters
The events displayed in the Events Perspective can be filtered using the View Filters > Filter Events pane on the left side of the screen. Two filters are available to help you quickly locate relevant information:
| Filter | Description |
|---|---|
Event Types | Click on the Event Types filter box to open a list of all event types currently included in the Events Perspective. You can select one or more event types to refine the events displayed. |
Tags | Relevant event properties will be added as tags when an event is retrieved from an external system. For example |
Time filter
The Events Perspective shows events matching the time window selected in the timeline control. Specify a time window to filter the events shown by time.
Time travel
The Events Perspective lists events that were generated:
by the topology elements that existed at the point in time specified by the playhead.
within the selected time window.
This allows you to time travel to both events generated by topology elements available at a specific point in history and events generated within a specific time window. Moving the playhead in the timeline or clicking a timestamp will time travel to the topology that was available at that point in history. The events list will be updated to include events for the topology elements available at the position of the playhead and within the selected time window.
For example:
Adjust the Time window to increase or decrease the number of events displayed.
Move the playhead on the timeline to time travel to the topology available at that point in history. Events generated within the selected time window by topology elements that existed at the moment in time indicated by the playhead will be displayed.
Click on a timestamp from the Event Properties to move the playhead directly to that point on the timeline. This will update the events list to display events that were generated:
by topology elements that existed at that moment in time.
within the specified time window (this will be adjusted to fit the selected timestamp if required).
See also
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