I would like to be able to display statistical data in the correct format, such as time, date etc., specifically for strings. I use the JMX monitor to pull statistics on IBM MQ Queue status and SolarWinds cannot ingest the dates and times that the queue managers are producing. Attributes such as lastgetdate, lastputdate. lastgetime produce a string with a date or time format, whether it's 12.12.2016 or 12-12-2016, SolarWinds can't do anything with it. Instead of a date, SolarWinds will display 20.161M, which is useless. Also, every value over 4 digits long is automatically displayed with a decimal point and either a K, M or G, indicating the value is a size, which makes trying to display a date or time even more confusing. I can't even double convert a value, such as ${statistic}/60 then round off the result of that output to remove the extra decimal places. The SolarWinds JMX out of the box monitor doesn't even format the information correctly.
Greater flexibility with the output formatting for any statistic would be very helpful. If I need the output to display a date, or a time, I can't do that right now without doing a custom PowerShell script, which is too much of a burden on the server and a pain to manage if I have to do it on several hundred queues.
I've tried to "trick" SolarWinds by converting the statistic value within the application monitor. I've been able to get to test the formula and have it provide a numerical result, not optimal, but better. Unfortunately even though I can get it to provide some positive results within the application template, if I save it, the conversion will not display on the application details page. From what I've noticed, even though the template allows me to do some sort of conversion on the statistic, the xml formatting does not.
I had a case to "fix" what I thought was a problem, but was told what I wanted it to do was not possible at the time. The case was #916849, and it was open/closed back in January 2016. I was told a feature request had been created, CUST-12745, but I was unable to find it, so I'm doing another one.
We are trying to replace our Tivoli monitoring with SolarWinds and this small capability is keeping us from moving forward. I know IBM MQ Queue monitoring does not represent a large customer base for SolarWinds, but the go-to product is Tivoli monitoring and it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, something which any customer would be glad to avoid purchasing if SolarWinds had more flexibility with JMX statistic formatting.
Please find a way to add this functionally.
Thank you
