By Eleanor Bennett
Resources
6 min read
OpenSearch dashboards are a powerful tool for visualising and exploring data stored in an OpenSearch-compatible data store such as Elasticsearch. With OpenSearch's intuitive interface and advanced analytical tools, this visualisation tool makes it easy to gain insights into your data and monitor and alert upon key metrics.
Throughout this article, we'll look at some of the most impressive OpenSearch dashboard examples that showcase it’s capabilities and versatility.
What are Opensearch Dashboards?
OpenSearch dashboards enable users to interact with data stored in OpenSearch-compatible databases, such as Elasticsearch, through its graphical interface. Users can manipulate data in these dashboards to gain new insights and view data in a variety of formats, including charts, graphs, and tables.
OpenSearch dashboards offer users the ability to easily visualize large amounts of data in an easy-to-understand and meaningful manner. If you have log data stored in Elasticsearch, for example, you can display the data in a line chart that shows the number of log entries over time. Hence, it is easier to spot trends and patterns in data than it would otherwise be without the use of this data visualisation tool.
Users have access to a range of analytical tools in OpenSearch dashboards, including filtering, aggregation, and drill-down capabilities. Through these tools, users can gain a deeper understanding of the information by focusing on specific aspects of the data. For example, if you have website traffic data stored in Elasticsearch, you can use an OpenSearch dashboard to filter the data based on specific criteria such as geographical location, browser type, or referral source.
Users can also customize OpenSearch dashboards according to their specific needs and requirements. You can create custom visualisations, alter the design and layout of the dashboard, and add more data sources. In summary, OpenSearch dashboards enable users to visualize and explore data stored in OpenSearch-compatible data stores.
Visualise Log Data
Credit: OpenSearch
The visualisation of log data can highlight a lot of information about the performance of systems and applications, and dashboards can help you identify any issues or problems quickly.
Using this OpenSearch dashboard, you can monitor error logs and track errors over time, making it easier to identify when a problem has started and how it has evolved.
Anomaly Detection
Credit: Jey Vell and Jon Handler
By detecting patterns or behaviors that deviate from the expected norm, anomaly detection can be used as an early warning system. An alert can be generated by the system when an anomaly is detected, allowing you to take action before it becomes more serious.
When monitoring the performance of a web server, anomaly detection can be used to detect sudden spikes in traffic or a decrease in response time. If this occurs, there may be a problem with the server, such as a resource bottleneck or a problem with the infrastructure. Detecting the problem early allows you to resolve it before it affects the server's performance or impacts the user's experience.
Performance monitoring
Credit: OpenSearch
By providing insight into how systems and applications are functioning in real-time, performance monitoring provides valuable information that can be used to improve debugging. Performance metrics such as response time, resource utilization, and error rates can help you identify areas where performance is not meeting expectations, and guide your debugging efforts accordingly.
When monitoring the performance of a web application, for example, you can analyze performance metrics to determine which parts of the application are slow. Information like this can assist you in identifying the problem's root cause and provide guidance on how to resolve it.
Monitoring performance can also reveal how changes to systems and applications impact performance. Using performance monitoring, for instance, you can determine if changes to an application have had the desired effect after they are made.
Fleet Management Dashboard
Credit: OpenSearch
The performance of a fleet of vehicles or assets can be measured in real-time using a fleet management dashboard, which enables managers to make data-driven decisions about how best to optimize fleet performance. A fleet management dashboard can increase operational efficiency in the following ways:
Optimising routes and reducing travel time is possible with a fleet management dashboard, which provides information about the location and movement of vehicles. In order to select the fastest and most efficient routes for your vehicles, you can use real-time traffic information and vehicle location data.
You can also use a fleet management dashboard to identify opportunities for more efficient scheduling by analyzing the utilization of assets and vehicles. Using idle time data, you can determine which vehicles are underutilized and allocate them to routes that require more use.
Monitoring fuel consumption allows you to identify areas for fuel efficiency improvement. The fuel consumption of individual vehicles can be monitored and compared to industry benchmarks to determine which vehicles are consuming more fuel than usual.
Tracing
Credit: OpenSearch
In a distributed system, distributed tracing provides detailed information about the flow of requests and responses between microservices. Tracking this information will help you identify issues quicker and more accurately.
Distributed tracing aims to provide a complete view of the interactions between microservices, allowing you to see how each microservice is affecting the others. This information can help you understand the relationships between microservices and identify interdependencies that may be contributing to the issue.
Content Compass Heatmap
Credit: Nate Boot
A content compass heatmap is a graphical representation of user behavior on a website. You can use it to understand how users interact with your content by seeing where they click on a website.
A content compass heatmap typically uses color to indicate the level of engagement, with warmer colors indicating areas of high engagement and cooler colors indicating areas of low engagement. Red areas of a website may be represented by a lot of clicks, while blue areas may be represented by only a few clicks.
Content compass heatmaps provide a variety of useful information. Using the information, you can learn which areas of your website are attracting the most attention, and which areas are being overlooked. This information can then be used to optimize your website by making changes to the content or layout to increase engagement.
13. CPU Performance
Credit: OpenSearch
Monitoring CPU performance is helpful for capacity planning because it provides information about the current and future resource requirements of your systems. When you monitor CPU usage over time, you can identify trends in resource utilization and decide when to add or remove resources based on the available data.
A consistently high CPU usage, for example, may indicate that your systems need more processing power. This may enable you to handle your workloads more efficiently. Conversely, if CPU usage is consistently low, you may have excess capacity and can reduce the number of resources used.
In addition to identifying trends in resource utilization, monitoring CPU performance can also help you understand the resource utilization of individual processes or applications. If you monitor CPU usage for individual processes, you can identify which processes are consuming the most resources, and make changes to these processes to improve performance and reduce resource utilization.
14. Airline Flight Metrics Dashboard
Credit: OpenSearch
For flight performance monitoring, monitoring an airline's flight metrics dashboard is useful because it provides real-time information about the airline's flight operations. It is possible for airlines to ensure that flight operations are running smoothly and that flight performance is meeting expectations by monitoring flight metrics such as flight schedules, flight times, and passenger counts.
In this way, airlines can ensure that flights depart and arrive on time, and that there are no delays. The monitoring of flight times allows airlines to identify areas for improvement and monitor the speed and efficiency of flight operations. By monitoring passenger counts, airlines can ensure that they have enough crew, aircraft, and ground support equipment to meet the demands of their passengers.
Besides providing flight performance data, airline flight metrics dashboards can also provide customer experience data. To identify areas for improvement and to ensure that they are providing a high level of service to their customers, airlines can monitor their on-time performance, baggage handling, and passenger satisfaction.
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If you enjoyed this post then why not check out our guide to OpenSearch vs Elasticsearch or our cheat sheet to Kubectl?