Topology Perspective

See the real time state of your IT landscape

This page describes StackState v4.4.x.

The StackState 4.4 version range is End of Life (EOL) and no longer supported. We encourage customers still running the 4.4 version range to upgrade to a more recent release.

Go to the documentation for the latest StackState release.

Overview

The Topology Perspective displays the components in your IT landscape and their relationships.

Topology Perspective

Components

The Topology Perspective shows the filtered components and relations in a selected view or the entire, unfiltered topology in explore mode. Components that have one or more health checks configured will report a calculated health state.

Grouping

Components of the same type and/or state can optionally be grouped together into a single element. Grouped components are represented by a hexagon in the topology visualization.

You can customize the grouping of components in the Visuzalization settings.

Component context menu

When you hover over a component, the component context menu is displayed. This gives you information about the component, including its name, type, health state and propagated health state. You can also run shortcuts and the actions specific to the component from here.

Actions

Actions can be used to expand the topology selection to show all dependencies for selected component. Other actions may be available for specific components, such as component actions that are installed as part of a StackPack or custom component actions.

A list of the available actions is included in the Component Details pane when you select a component and also in the component context menu, which is displayed when you hover over a component.

Actions

Shortcuts

Shortcuts give you direct access to detailed information about the specific component:

• Show component properties - Opens the component properties popup. This is the same as clicking SHOW COMPONENT PROPERTIES in the Component Details pane.

• Investigate in subview - Opens a subview containing only this component. The subview allows you to investigate a single component in all perspectives without needing to adjust the view filters. This is the same as clicking INVESTIGATE IN SUBVIEW in the Component Details pane.

Relations

Relations show how components in the topology are connected together. They are represented by a dashed or solid line and have an arrowhead showing the direction of dependency between the components they link. Health state will propagate from one component to the next, from dependencies to dependent components. Relations that have one or more health checks configured will report a calculated health state.

Direct and indirect relations

Relations in StackState can be either direct or indirect. The type of relation is indicated by the type of line connecting the components. You can customize the types of relations displayed in the visuzalization settings.

Relation type	Description
	A direct relation between two components is indicated by a solid line. Direct relations link two components that have a direct connection to each other. The direction of the arrowhead shows the direction of the dependency.
	An indirect relation between two components is shown as a dashed line. Indirect relations link two components that are connected together via a path of invisible components. The direction of the arrowhead shows the direction of the dependency.

Relations to or from a component group are always represented by a solid line. It should be noted that in this case, the connection could be a direct or indirect relation to one or more components in the group.

Filters

The components and events displayed in the topology visualization can be customized by adding filters.

Click the View Filters icon in the left-hand side menu to open the view filters. Here you can edit:

• Topology filters: The components displayed in the topology visualization.

• Events filters: The events shown in the Events list in the View Details pane on the right-hand side of the screen.

From the Component Details pane, click on a label to add this to the topology filter. The displayed topology will be expanded to include all components and relations with the selected label. To undo a label selection, click the back button in the browser or edit the topology filter in the view filters.

The View Filters are saved together with the View. For details, see the page filters.

Visualization settings

The visualization of components and relations in the topology perspective can be customized in the visualization settings. Click the Visualization Settings icon in the left-hand side menu to open the visualization settings menu. Here you can edit:

• Root cause display - to what extent the view should be expanded when an element in the view reports a DEVIATING or CRITICAL health state or propagated health state.

• Grouping - should all components be displayed individually or should like components be grouped. For details, see component grouping.

• Grid - should components be organized by layer and domain.

• Indirect relations - should relations between components be shown if these connect through other components that are not displayed in the view. For details, see relations.

The Visualization Settings are saved together with the View. For details, see the page Visuzalization settings.

Details panel

The details panel on the right-hand side of the screen shows information about the view, or the currently selected component, relation or problem.

Component Details pane

When a component is selected by clicking on it, the Component Details pane is shown on the right-hand side of the screen. This panel displays detailed information about the component:

• Metadata, such as the component name, type and any labels.

• health checks

• telemetry streams

Problems

If one or more components have a critical state, StackState will show the related components and their states as a Problem in the View Details pane.

Navigation

Zoom in and out

There are zoom buttons located in the bottom right corner of the topology visualizer. The plus button zooms in on the topology, the minus button zooms out. In between both buttons is the fit to screen button which zooms out so the complete topology becomes visible.

Find component

You can locate a specific component in the topology by clicking CTRL + SHIFT + F and typing the first few letters of the component name. Alternatively, you can select the Find component magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner of the topology visualizer.

See the full list of StackState keyboard shortcuts.

Show root cause

If there are components with telemetry streams and health checks in your view, the Topology Perspective will calculate a health state and propagate this state throughout the graph. The propagated health state will help you to see the risk of affecting other components.

It is possible that your view can contain components that have a deviating propagated health state caused by a component that is outside your view. The Topology Perspective allows you to configure whether the view should be expanded to show root cause components that are outside of the currently displayed view:

• Don't show root cause - Do not show the root causes of components shown by the current topology filters.

• Show root cause only - Only show the root causes of components shown by the current topology filters that have a CRITICAL or DEVIATING propagated health. Indirect relations are visualized if a component directly depends on at least one invisible component that leads to the root cause.

• Show full root cause tree - Show all paths from components shown by the current topology filters that have a CRITICAL or DEVIATING propagated health to their root causes.

Root cause

List mode

The components in the topology visualization can also be shown in a list instead of a graph:

Filtering(list format)

Export as CSV

From list mode, the component list can be exported as a CSV file. The CSV file includes name, state, type and updated details for each component in the view.

1. From the topology perspective, click the List mode icon on the top right of the screen to open the topology in list mode.

2. Click Download as CSV from the top of the page.

   • The component list will be downloaded as a CSV file named <view_name>.csv.