Managing Analyses

This topic describes how to generate and monitor analyses to create unscheduled reports. I

In this topic:

Run a manual AFA analysis

The following procedure can be run for a device, group or matrix. The information applies both to manually initiated and scheduled analyses.

By default, when a group or matrix analysis is generated manually, AFA generates a new analysis for each member of the group or matrix, and then also generates a group or matrix analysis.

In addition, you can merge individual reports for members of a group or matrix into a new group or matrix report.

Do the following:

1. In AFA, navigate to the device, group, or matrix for which you want to create the an analysis.

2. In the OVERVIEW tab, click Analyze.
   The Analyze dialog is displayed:
   

   Note: The Analyze dialog varies between devices; not all analyze dialogs are identical to the one shown.

3. Specify the Analyze dialog fields as follows:

Field	Description / Action
Select risk profile	Select a specific risk profile to use when performing the analysis, or use the default Standard profile. Default: Standard. See Add a new risk profile
What-if analysis	To perform a What-if analysis, follow the instructions in Generate a what-if analysis, below.
Avoid e-mail notification	By default, AFA sends email notifications when an analysis is complete. Select this option to avoid sending emails for this analysis.
Analysis based on logs	This option is available for some devices. Specify the start date of the logs on which the analysis should be based. The end date is "Today". Logs are grouped on a weekly basis for the last 2 months or on a monthly basis (for older logs). The from date is automatically set accordingly, i.e. from the earliest day of the week/month chosen using the date wizard. For details regarding dates, hover over the information icon.
Analyze [device, group, matrix] based on existing reports	Relevant only for group or matrix reports. Select to aggregate existing reports from the group or matrix members instead of generating new reports.

4. Click Start Analysis to start generating the report. The analysis status is displayed at the top right of the screen.

5. When the analysis is complete, open it by clicking the link at the top of the screen, or from the REPORTS  tab. For more details, see View the latest report.

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Analysis Status and Related User Actions

The analysis status is shown using the indicator at the top right of the page:

indication	Purpose
	Shows that an analysis is in progress. See View the Progress of an Active Analysis. To abort a currently running analysis. See Abort an analysis.
	Shows that the last analysis that was being run was failed. When an analysis fails, AFA provides failure logs. See View Analysis Failure Logs.
	Shows that the last analysis run completed successfully. AFA provides a Report AFA reports. During the analysis process, support files are also created and are available if needed. see View Support Files. For a general description of AFA log and configuration files, see Access log and configuration files
	An analysis was never run.

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View the Progress of an Active Analysis

When an analysis is in progress, the Analysis indicator shows a spinner. A progress bar is displayed beneath, with a link for viewing status.

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Abort an analysis

An analysis that is running can be stopped by administrators.

1. Open the Analysis Status page by clicking on Analysis Status in the toolbar.

   The Analysis Status page is displayed with a table of recent analyses, including all active analyses.

2. At the right of the row of the active analysis to be aborted, click Abort Analysis.
   

3. On the detailed confirmation message, Click OK to proceed with aborting the analysis.

   The analysis stops.

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View Analysis Failure Logs

1. Click at the upper right of the page .

   A link to report logs appears.

   

2. Click View log .

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View Support Files

When AFA successfully completes an analysis, monitoring, or log collection, you can view the support files.

1. Click , , or at the upper right of the page.

   A link to the support files is displayed.

   

2. Click the View support files.

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Generate a what-if analysis

What-if analysis reports enable you to examine the implications of a policy change before you implement the change. Use What-if analysis reports to examine the feasibility of possible policy changes.

Do the following:

1. Select the Device.

2. Click the Reports page. The report page is displayed.

3. Click on a Report. The Home page of the report is displayed.
   

4. Click the POLICY tab.

5. Click Raw Files under Device Configuration at the right of the screen.
   

6. In the list of raw files displayed, click on the raw_files.zip link to download the file.

   

7. Extract the files contained in the downloaded zip file and make a copy of the relevant configuration file on your local drive, changing its name (but keep the extension the same).

   For example, if the original configuration file is named 10_20_131_16_PA_VM_forAutomation_vsys1.panorama, you can call it anyname.panorama.

8. Edit the new file, making the required changes you want to test.

9. Save the file.

10. Go back to Devices and select All Firewalls from the device tree.

11. Click the ALL REPORTS tab and then click Analyze File.

    
    The Analyze File dialog is displayed.

    

12. Click on Choose File and select the file that you want to test.

13. Select the What-if analysis checkbox.

14. (Optional) Select Avoid e-mail notification to prevent pre-configured e-mails from being sent out automatically.

15. Click Start Analysis.
    The Analysis begins.

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Analyze device configuration files

This procedure describes how to manually generate a report from data in a device configuration file.

You might want to do this to perform a what-if analysis on specific device types, or when testing configurations in a lab environment.

Do the following:

1. In AFA, navigate to the ALL_FIREWALLS group. For details, see Viewing the ALL_FIREWALLS Group.
2. Click the ALL REPORTS tab, and then click Analyze File.

3. In the Analyze File dialog, click Choose to browse to the file you want to analyze.

   Note: The file size must be 20 MB or less. If you have a larger file, have an AFA administrator add it to AFA as a device. For more details, see Alternate data collection methods.

4. Select the What-if analysis checkbox.

5. (Optional) Select Avoid e-mail notification to prevent pre-configured e-mails from being sent out automatically.

6. Click Start Analysis.

   AFA creates the report.

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