Computers with Missing or Overlapping Power Events Report

The purpose of this report is to help identify problems with the Power Events data reported from the eiPower agent. Many of the energy usage reports in eiPower Saver Solution make use of the power events data and hence it is important to ensure that this data is being collected correctly.

In normal operation every computer with the eiPower agent install will generate a continuous set of power events starting from the date that the agent was installed. That is, the agent will send a set of power events where the Start date of each event will be equal to the End date of the previous power event. This ensures that we know the power state of the computer and monitor at all times. These events should cover all periods of normal operation of the client computer - including periods where the computer is shutdown normally.

More information about eiPower event data can be found here http://eipower.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/eipower-saver-power-events-explained.html

The Computers with Missing or Overlapping Power Events report calculates the summed duration of all power events for each computer, and compares this value with the expected duration of the power events for each computer.
 
For example : If we specify the following parameters;

• Start Date : 1st Aug 2012
• End Date : 5th Aug 2012
• Period Breakdown : Totals

Then we would expect there to be 4 days = 5760 minutes of power events for each computer.

The report will list any computer who's summed power events duration is great or less than 5760.
 
The Breakdown parameter can be used to group the power events by days, mouths or years. This allows you to identify more accurately the period where there is a problem.

Gaps in the Power Events

Where the summed power events duration is less than the expected duration we have gaps in the power events data. This means that one or more of the power events are missing and hence we have a period where we do not know the power state of the computer. There are many reasons that this can happen including (but not limited to) :

• The client computer has been turned off for an extended period, e.g. user is on holiday and has not had a chance to send new data.
• The client computer no longer exists, i.e. it has been disposed of.
• The client computer does not have the eiPower agent installed.
• The eiPower agent service on the client computer has been stopped.
• The client computer has its time set incorrectly and hence is reporting the wrong event time 
• The client computer was unexpectedly shut down, e.g. due to power outage. 
• The Symantec agent on the client computer is failing to communicate with the SMP server There is a licensing problem on the SMP server 
• An error occurred loading the data on the SMP server, e.g. database failure.

The report is unable to determine the cause of the gaps in the data, it is only able to list those computers that have a gap. It is necessary to use of means to determine the cause of the gaps.
 
While ideally each computer will have no gaps, and hence not appear in the report, small gaps in the data are not a problem. Any computer with >80% of the expected event data has sufficient data to run the Energy usage reports and hence we don't need to worry about these small gaps.

Where we see computers with Summed Events Duration = 0 (that is; the computer has no power event data between the Start and End dates) this typically indicates one of the following :

• The computer no longer exists (had been disposed of) but has not been deleted from the SMP.
• The Symantec agent is not installed on the computer.
• The Symantec agent is not communicating with the SMP. (check the Last Basic Inventory column)
• The eiPower agent is not installed.

Duplicate/Overlapping Power Events

Where the summed power events duration is greater than the expected duration we have duplicate or overlapping power events data. This can be caused by the following :

• The client computers has the same Guid as another computer (duplicate computer record) 
• The time on the client computer has been changed. 
• Power events from the client have been loaded by SMP multiple times.

Again the report is unable to determine the cause of problem it is only able to list those computers that have a problem.