SpringRain is a visual analytics system designed to funcation as an ambient information display in a control room. It accurately monitors a large computer network in real-time without any unnecessary disturbing effects. Inspired by waterfalls and fresh spring rains (Fig 1), our system aims to bring the natural outdoor scenes indoors and be soothing for those who work with tedious data on a daily basis.

Situation awareness involves being aware of what is happening in the vicinity in order to understand the current condition and its effects both immediately and for the near future [1]. Ambient Information Displays provide an alternative method for displaying information that does not require constant attention from the user [2]. They seek to convey a continuous feed of information in the background, which the user may or may not wish to attend to. Considering the dynamism of large-scale computer networks of big enterprises, we decided to display it in motion. The normal condition is visualized as subtle gray rainfall, while issues emerge in their distinct colors. As a result, apart from representing a global computer network for operations specialists to investigate and interact with, SpringRain can also be a beautiful ambient display in the general manager’s office for him/her to monitor the overall condition (Fig 2).

SpringRain is a structurally and visually flat design, abstracting a worldwide network as an animated spring rain. It is designed to let the analyst see the whole enterprise network at once. This visualization does two things: 1) via the pattern of the rainfall it provides an easy overview of the network’s performance, and 2) via color highlights, the system offers an effective alert mechanism for network-wide issues, as well as any emerging patterns.

Based on our understanding of the networks' structure, we designed the overall visualization to follow these key principles:

• Capacity: Individual computers are grouped into offices or networks. As a result, our design is scalable and can be displayed at any scale, from a normal desktop monitor to a massive display wall. SpringRain has the capacity to handle thousands or tens of thousands of computer networks at once. In the current prototype, we are displaying one thousand networks on a screen of 1280px by 720px. On a one-story high wall display, we expect to show tens of thousands of networks.
• Structure of information: There is one network operations manager who works with teams of network operations specialists responsible for solving health, security, and performance issues in the network. To make her job easier, SpringRain is designed to provide a hierarchically and visually flat information, displaying all three issues coherently and consistently on one display.
• Networks' layout: The Big Enterprise, for whom this visualization is designed for, has one large corporate headquarters with several data centers, and numerous global offices across six continental regions. To provide an accurate portrayal of this network, SpringRain divides the rainfall into 7 columns, with each regions' networks vaguely displayed according to their geographic north-south and east-west locations.

In SpringRain, each network is visualized as a line segment, as a “drop of rain”. In this line-based visualization, the color of the base line, the color bar on top of the baseline, and the falling raindrop correspond to the three dimensions of information: network health, security, and performance. To make the visualization visually pleasing, we used the nature centric colors of willow green, cherry red, and purplish gray. They help create the refreshing atmosphere of spring rain.

• Health status:  The length and location of a baseline show the size and relative geographical location of this network. Its colors indicate its health status. If the baseline is gray then the health status is normal for that network. Offices that are not responding (due to an outage, for example) are displayed as white ghost lines. Green color hues indicate heal related issues. The darker the green, the more severe the health issue is.
• Security status: The color and length of an extra bar appearing on top of a baseline alarms of abnormal security conditions. The length of the line shows how much of the network is affected. For instance, if 50% of computers in a network are affected by a non-routine security issues, a medium red color bar will cover the top half of the baseline. Given our limited cognitive ability to capture visual information, all measures will always use the darkest color hue appearing in the network.
• Performance status: The color of raindrops indicates performance issues. It ranges from white to dark purplish gray. The speed of raindrops indicates the network’s speed. The resulting rainfall pattern makes it easy to distinguish which regions have fast network connectivity and which regions are slow.

To further ease the task of allocating an issue to an appropriate specialist, SpringRain uses color density to differentiate:

1. normal condition:  white or gray for raindrop and baseline, respectively.
2. routine issue: pale color hue. A dash lines emerges to warn of predicted issues.
3. non-routine issue: medium color hue
4. crises issue: bright color hue.

Based on interviews with analysts in the field and one of our team member’s own work experience, network control rooms tend to be hierarchically structured, with the manager leading the work flow. SpringRain can offer interactive visualization on a desktop computer, but when it is displayed on a huge information wall, the manager can interact with it through via a pair of Google glasses. The smart glasses make it easy and efficient for the Network Operations Manager to quickly analyze and allocate the incoming issues. SpringRains' system is designed to display all new incoming issues thicker than the normal (gray) baselines, and shrink the issue lines down once they have been allocated to an analyst. With the incorporation of smart Glasses, SpringRain has the advantageous capability to add seamless efficiency to a control rooms' work flow and easy the job of the manager.

References
[1] M. R. Endsley, “Toward a theory of situation awareness in dynamic systems,” Hum. Factors J. Hum. Factors Ergon. Soc., vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 32–64, 1995.
[2] P. R. Jones, Ambient Information Display. Citeseer, 2007.