AHF Scope maintains two separate sessions in parallel, Live Session (Primary) to receive current metrics in real-time and Past (Replay) Session to display statically a situation encountered at an earlier time.

AHF Scope can be run locally on one of the Oracle RAC cluster nodes and connected to the Grid Infrastructure Management Repository (GIMR,) or by reading exported GIMR data from a file.

When connected to a GIMR database and actively receiving samples in real-time from a live system, AHF Scope maintains in parallel two separate sessions:

1. Live Session (Primary): Receives in real time current metrics.
2. Past (Replay) Session: Displays statically a situation encountered at an earlier time.

Access to a replay session is available via the System Timeline (Ticker Tape) only when AHF Scope is connected to a GIMR. When AHF Scope is started with -f file as its feed, Ticker Tape is not active. In such a case, the primary session is passive and AHF Scope does not have any possibility to retrieve data from the past.

Use Ticker Tape to locate the time period of interest. Place the cursor over the Time Selector and press the Shift key. Note that Ticker Tape now displays information about the time range corresponding to the location of the time selector.

In this example, the selected time period is the hour from 12:27:12 to 13:27:12. The time selector width (time period) is customizable by using the -q minutes command-line parameter.

While holding down the Shift key, press the left mouse button, and then slide the time selector to an older time point. Time Selector may also be moved without using a mouse. Press the Shift key and while holding it, press the left or right arrow to shift time selector by 30 minutes. In this example, time selector was moved to approximately. 9:00.

Release the Shift key. AHF Scope will issue a query to GIMR requesting a set of samples for the selected period in time. The time to retrieve this data can be substantial especially when CHA monitors many databases in a large cluster. While the query and the parsing process of the data is in progress, a clock "Wait-Cursor" is displayed. In the background, the current timelines of the live session continue to receive data and advance accordingly.

Once the query and parsing of the data is finished, AHF Scope displays the data of a "Replay Session". In this example, this session covers one hour, that is approximately 9:00..10:00 o'clock.

This display never changes. You can investigate the data in the customary way without any time restriction. However, the "Live Session" is still active and in the background the data is constantly being collected. To restore the live session, either slide the time selector to the right end, or with the cursor hovering over System Timeline, press "=". Note that the past session data is discarded from memory once the session is switched to Live.