Evolution of a Dashboard

In the modern office it is not surprising to find many people with multiple languages and sometimes words that get misunderstood so when someone asks you “why is it called a Dashboard” you think, what sort of question is that, actually, “a good question”.

At Koda Technology we use the term Dashboard every day, the Detecta and Monita software are based on the efficiency of using Dashboards, however, in the IT world it is understandable how someone may ask the aforementioned question. It’s common with technology to describe quite technical things with words that may have other meanings, Cookie, Bug, Mouse, to name a few.

The word Dashboard, used in computing, however, is more appropriate than one may think.

Dashboard (noted on many Wikis), came from the horse and cart days when a board was placed in front of the driver of horse drawn carriages to stop “muck” from the hooves being “dashed” (as in splashed) or thrown up, and so the Dashboard allowed the driver to see the road ahead.

Over time when the automobile was invented instruments were placed on this board in the “carriage” styled cars and the name Dashboard remained.

Understandably cars are now constructed differently however the Dashboard remains to be a critical place to display the instruments that monitor the vehicle's systems, provide alerts, and give knowledge (and protection) to the drivers and passengers.

As with the car Dashboard the principle applies on a computer screen, displaying a collection of  summarised data so that Information Officers, IT Managers, Database Administrators etc have a clear vision of what is happening on computer environments as a business is “driven” along.

Data captured on your servers is likely to be important, in many cases mission critical, at the very least important to the continuous operation of a business.

It’s essential for IT teams to be able to see and respond quickly to issues through alerts and indicators, it’s not easy to hit the brakes on a business, planning is required, and the last thing you want to be doing is filling the tank or changing the oil whilst the vehicle is moving.

A challenge previously faced with monitoring a server environment was the cost of implementing tools to provide enough useful information, it was time-consuming and often reliant on one key person; having a ready-made Dashboard solves these issues.

With Detecta's cloud-based SQL Server Monitoring solution and critical Dashboard the costs associated with monitoring are reduced significantly. This allows a business to put in place a tool that will assist in maintaining the stability and integrity of their SQL Server environment and stop any “muck” that might get thrown up.

Are you “behind the horse’s hooves”? Can you see the road ahead? If you aren’t behind a Dashboard feel free to contact us . [email protected]      www.detecta.co.nz

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