Filtering, Search and Focus

On most Netscope views, it is possible to filter, search and focus on a selection of resources, in order to limit what is displayed. The following table summarises the characteristics of each of the actions:

Action	Effect on visualisation	Effect on data loading	Advantage	Notes
Filtering	Unselected resources are ignored	Unselected resources are not loaded	Deselecting data can speed up the loading of data and the display of views. This can be useful for improving readability.	Click on the button reload for the new selection to be taken into account
Focusing	Only the resources focus and related resources are displayed	No impact on what is loaded	Allows you to focus on a subset of the data. This can be useful to improve readability.	-
Search	Allows you to quickly select the resources to be filtered or the resources to focus on	Unchecked resources are not loaded	Quickly choose what is filtered and what is focused.	It may be necessary to click on the reload to apply the changes

The following table shows, for each view, which actions are available:

View	Filtering	Search	Focus
Topology	Available	Available	-
Dependencies viewer	Available	Available	Available
Protocol analysis	-	-	-
Cluster viewer	Available	Available	Available

These actions, available in the following banner, will be detailed in the following subsections.

Filtering

It is possible to choose the resources displayed in the visualisations by unfolding the menu Map data settings. The resources appear in tabs, each tab being dedicated to a type of resource:

• Distributed vSwitches: distributed vSwitches
• Port groupsvSwitch port groups
• Networks: virtual machine networks
• HostsPhysical hosts
• Virtual Machines: virtual machines

The following table indicates for each view, which type of filtering is available:

View	Distributed vSwitches	Port groups	Networks	Hosts	Virtual Machines
Topology	Available	Available	Available	Available	Available
Dependencies viewer	-	-	-	Available	Available
Protocol analysis	-	-	-	-	-
Cluster viewer	-	-		-	Available

Within a tab, there is a list of corresponding resources. Each resource appears as a field of type checkbox and a text containing the name of the resource:

The type field checkbox indicates whether the resource should be displayed, as well as whether its data should be loaded.

In the case of a large infrastructure, loading data and displaying visualisations can be time consuming. It can be interesting to speed up the loading by filtering certain resources. To do this, simply uncheck the checkbox, as shown in the following image:

Checking/unchecking the checkbox does not trigger a reload of the view on its own. The load button turns red as shown in the following image:

![](../img/netscope/focus/button_reload_needed.png)

It is then necessary to click on it to update the visualisation. At the end of the loading, the button returns to its normal colour:

![](../img/netscope/focus/button_reload_reload_not_needed.png)

Search

The search tab displays an interactive search bar that allows you to quickly find a set of resources, and easily filter or add them to the focus:

As shown in the previous screenshot, once a text is entered in the search bar, the corresponding resources appear below. The search bar supports both plain text and regular expressions.

The resources appear in the form of a cartouche as in the following image:

The following actions can be performed:

• Filter / Scroll the resource: by clicking on the checkbox on the left of the title block. Note that this action is equivalent to ticking the resource as described in the previous section Filtering.
• Add / Remove to focus Clicking on the pin icon to the right of the title block will add (resp. remove) the resource to the focus if the icon is transparent (resp. the icon has an orange background).

Please note that a resource that is part of the focus will have an orange pin, as in the following image:

Focus

Some views support the setting of a focus on a subset of the resources that are displayed by default.

The semantics of the focus are as follows:

• The resources in the focus are displayed in orange.
• Resources that are not part of the focus, but are directly linked to at least one resource in the focus, are displayed in grey.
• Links between resources are displayed as lines.
• If a link relates to at least one resource in the focus, then it is displayed in orange
• If a link is only to resources that are not part of the focus, then it is displayed in grey

The following screenshot shows an example of a view where a focus has been set up: