Selecting a Session Data Viewer

Message Analyzer provides a set of native data viewers for all Message Analyzer installations. The features and functions of these data viewers are described in detail in the Data Viewers topic. This section briefly describes the viewers that are available, selection locations, selection criteria, and how to identify multiple viewers that are common to a particular session.

Choosing a Session Viewer

Before you start a Live Trace Session or Data Retrieval Session, you can select the data viewer with which to view your trace results data. These data viewers are available from the Start With drop-down list that appears in the New Session dialog that you open when configuring a Live Trace Session or Data Retrieval Session. The data viewers that you can select from this location consist of the following:

• Analysis Grid

• Grouping

• Pattern Match

• Gantt

• Chart — displays a default Bar element graph only when chosen from this location.

• Interaction

• Message Summary Tiles*

• Message Summary Lists*

• Perfmon*

Note that the data viewers in this list that are marked with an asterisk (*) are Preview features. To make these viewers available for selection during session configuration, you must select them on the Features tab of the Options dialog, which is accessible from the Message Analyzer Tools menu, and then you will need to restart Message Analyzer.

Other Viewer Selection Locations

You can also select the previously indicated viewers from either of the following alternate locations to change the data view for a set of trace results during an Analysis Session:

• New Viewer drop-down list — after you start a Live Trace Session or Data Retrieval Session, you can specify a different viewer for your data by clicking the New Viewer item in the global Message Analyzer Session menu or by clicking the New Viewer button on the global Message Analyzer toolbar to display a drop-down list that contains all the viewer selections.

• Session Explorer Tool Window context menu — after you start a Live Trace Session or Data Retrieval Session, you can specify a different viewer for your data by right-clicking anywhere in the Session Explorer window, clicking the New Viewer item in the context menu that appears, and then selecting a data viewer of choice along with a Layout if appropriate.

Selecting Layouts
When you select data viewers from these alternate locations, the viewers listed immediately below will also enable you to choose a built-in view Layout in which to present the data. The built-in Layouts are custom designed by Microsoft to expose data that is relevant to specific types of analysis. For example, if you are interested in analyzing file sharing performance data after performing a capture, you might choose the File Sharing Perf SMB/SMB2 Layout for the Analysis Grid viewer in the New Viewer drop-down list on the global Message Analyzer toolbar.

• Analysis Grid

• Grouping

• Chart

• Charts (Deprecated)

Selection Criteria

Depending on what you wish to achieve, there may be some things to consider when selecting a viewer in which to display message data that you captured live or retrieved from saved files. For example, the selected viewer should to some degree reflect the type of data being captured and should be considered in terms of the problem/s you are trying to isolate.

For example, if you simply want to expose data in a standard analysis environment, you can display data in the default Analysis Grid viewer Layout, as described in the Analysis Grid Viewer topic. If you want to analyze process IDs and the associated IP conversations, you could choose the Network Conversation Tree with Process ID Layout for the Analysis Grid viewer, as described in Applying and Managing Analysis Grid Viewer Layouts. Moreover, you can make similar choices for the Grouping viewer and the Chart viewer, which are each accessible from the same New Viewer drop-down list during analysis of session results.

If you want to look at high-level data summaries and statistics, you might consider using one of the many Layouts for the Chart viewer, for example, the IP/Ethernet Conversations by Message Count Top 20 layout that provides a graphic Bar element representation of the relative distribution of message volume for each IP conversation in a set of trace results. If you suspect network connection or latency issues, you might want to open the TCP Diagnosis with Stevens and/or Top TCP/UDP Conversations Layouts for the Chart viewer.

Identifying Session Viewer Data

Whenever you select a data viewer for a new session, it displays in a new and separate session viewer tab with a unique name just below the global Message Analyzer toolbar. If you select a new data viewer for an existing session, it displays in a new session viewer tab with the same name as the existing session, also just below the global Message Analyzer toolbar. To maintain correlation between data viewers of the same session, Message Analyzer provides an identical colored dot on the session tab of each data viewer in the same session, for ease of identification.

More Information
To learn more about the different types of data viewers that are available, along with the Tool Windows with which they interact, see the Data Viewers and Tool Windows topics of this Operating Guide.
To learn more about creating custom Layouts for the Chart viewer, see Extending Message Analyzer Data Viewing Capabilities.

See Also

Selecting a Data Retrieval Session Viewer
Session Data Viewer Options