Analyzing service quality (classic)

Nexthink Finder is a Windows-only desktop application whose functionality is now available within the Nexthink web interface. Nexthink can now be used directly from a browser and most functions no longer require an additional desktop application.

Overview

Companies strongly depend on a set of IT Services to carry out their daily work. Although the particular set of deployed IT services may vary from one company to another, the correct functioning of services is vital for the day-to-day business of every organization.

With Nexthink, define the IT services you want to survey by specifying their characteristic resources and see how well those IT services perform inside your corporate network. Thanks to Nexthink’s user-centered approach, you can get a sense of the quality of service through the eyes of employees. See the status of a service in real-time and detect which users are being impacted when the service degrades. In the event of service degradation, Nexthink may help you determine where the problem lies. For long term analysis, follow the evolution of the service throughout extended time intervals.

Nexthink divides IT services into two types:

Connection-based services

Services that rely on TCP connections to provide their solutions to the users. Both Windows and Mac devices report information on connection-based services.

Web-based services

Websites or web applications that use the HTTP protocol or its encrypted variant with TLS (HTTPS) provide a service to their users. Web-based services also rely on TCP for transport, but defining the service at the HTTP level allows you to filter the service by the accessed web domains or URLs. For the moment, only Windows devices report information specific to web-based services.

Service metrics

The type of service determines the exact metrics that are used to measure its performance. The set of metrics is nevertheless very similar for both connection-based and web-based services. Most metrics are shared or serve a similar purpose in both types of services. All metrics where the shared metrics are emphasized are listed below:

Connection-based service metrics	Web-based service metrics
Devices with issues Devices using service Failed connections Application crashes Average response time Incoming traffic Outgoing traffic Incoming bitrate Outgoing bitrate	Devices with issues Devices using service Failed web requests Application crashes Average response time Incoming web traffic Outgoing web traffic

Analyzing services in Finder and the Nexthink web interface

To analyze service quality, Nexthink offers two options:

The Service View in Finder

The Service View provides you with a real-time view of the service, including the values of the service metrics for the last 60 minutes and the last 24 hours. Break down results according to entities and, if Cross-Engine features are enabled in Finder, according to the nodes in your hierarchies. Drill down to individual connections or devices and quickly switch to the Network or Web views directly from the Service View.

The service dashboards in the Nexhink web interface

Service modules summarize the status of your services in a special overview dashboard. Moreover, for each individual service in the module, a detailed service dashboard provides you with a full view of the service key metrics through a comprehensive set of widgets. In addition to a real-time view for the last 60 minutes and 24 hours, the Nexthink web interface lets you select longer periods to see historical values and trends in your service-related data.