3.1 Aggregating Data

What

Up until now, we have been talking about the capability of the FileWave dashboard to show data.  We have looked at pre-built examples, and done a small amount with data from an inventory query.  But the real power in the dashboard is the ability to aggregate (or summarize) data.

When/Why

Let's consider a new deployment of Java to the environment:  We can create a report that shows us every client, and every version of Java on those clients, but that doesn't give an easy overview of how the rollout from build 183 to build 196 is going.  But, if we could take that same data, and count the number of clients with each version and represent that in a chart, then that would give us the exact picture we might be looking for.  This aggregation of data is a very powerful tool.

How

So, we know how to create new dashboards and panels, but how do we actual get aggregated data over to our (grafana) dashboard?  The answer to that lies in using Prometheus and configuring a scrape file for collecting and aggregating that data.