Understanding reporting concepts

About the reporting environment

The ContentReporter reporting environment has three major components. These include the log file source, the ContentReporter Server, and the ContentReporter User. The concepts introduced in this section explain each of these components from the reporting user's point of view.

About reporting concepts

As a reporting user, you only need to understand a few basic reporting concepts and ContentReporter components to quickly create, process, and view reports.

Log file source and collection

Your system administrator is responsible for setting up and initiating log file collection by defining a cache group on the ContentReporter server. As a reporting user, you only need to know that this information is collected from NetCache log files that reside directly on a NetCache or that have from been copied from a NetCache and stored in a location accessible from the ContentReporter Server machine. When you create a report, you will need to attach a log file source to the report by naming a specific cache or cache group.

Log file data processing and storage

Log file data is collected by ContentReporter, put into a form that ContentReporter understands -- a process called parsing -- and then stored in the ContentReporter database. Database records are stored on a per-cache basis. If a group has several caches, the ContentReporter server updates each cache's database records.

Extracting stored data with the report creation process

Once data from a log file has been parsed and stored in the ContentReporter database, ContentReporter then extracts that information when it processes a report as it searches the database for specific information. The visual elements of a report, the tables and graphs, are based on database queries.

Queries and their associated data elements are the building blocks of reports. ContentReporter has over fifty pre-defined queries you can include in a report. Each query is a specific grouping of data elements that are stored in the database. Queries are displayed in a report as a table or a graph. For example, "Reference by HTTP Status Code" and "Transfer Rate vs. Hits" are examples of queries that could appear in your reports.