Getting Started with Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager

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Getting Started with

Idera SharePoint

diagnostic manager

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Legal notice

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Welcome to Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager

Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager is a powerful and intuitive monitoring solution that helps administrators to ensure the health of their SharePoint environment and the performance of their SharePoint applications. It saves time and money by dramatically reducing administrative over-head for IT and ensuring SharePoint business user productivity.

SharePoint dm provides real time monitoring of all SharePoint servers from a single console, enabling you to quickly identify, diagnose, and resolve performance and availability problems. It also provides critical information for SharePoint capacity planning by storing historical per-formance data of all the monitored SharePoint servers. It monitors SharePoint in real-time, provid-ing a comprehensive set of metrics that enable SharePoint administrators to quickly pinpoint performance and availability issues related to server performance, resource usage and poorly per-forming HTML controls, solutions and Web Controls.

Key features include the following:

l Continuous, automated 24/7 monitoring from a central console.

l Intuitive dashboard UI provides "at-a-glance" view of SharePoint health. l Page component level performance analysis.

l Summary and detail performance metrics.

l Automated alerting of poorly performing pages, controls & server performance issues. l Repository of historical performance enables trending and analysis.

l Comprehensive reporting.

What is Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager?

Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager is a powerful and intuitive tool that helps administrators to ensure the health of SharePoint environment and the performance of SharePoint applications.

Feature Description

Monitor multiple SharePoint farms and farm servers from a central con-sole

Provides an easy-to-use console with rich information displays that allow 24x7 monitoring of multiple farms and all component servers.

No limitation on the number of monitored pages

Monitor the most important pages or all pages in your sites, without restriction. Choose how often pages should be monitored.

Monitor SharePoint farm servers avail-ability

Monitor critical areas of your SharePoint farm servers such as CPU, disk activity, IIS, memory and page utilization. Instantly understand what's causing your SharePoint environment to perform below agreed performance thresholds.

Detailed con-figuration data

View complete and detailed information regarding the configuration of every SharePoint server in your farm.

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Feature Description Capacity planning

data

Store historical performance data of your SharePoint farms, enabling rich graphical analysis of performance and behavior over time to identify patterns and trends.

Full web page cov-erage

Provides granular, server-side performance data analysis for all

SharePoint publishing and solution pages such as server controls, solu-tions, images, scripts, and much more.

Automated alerting Automated email alert notification whenever predetermined performance thresholds are not met.

Performance threshold cus-tomization

Customize server level thresholds such as CPU, Memory, Disk, IIS, page HTML, solutions and web control alerting to meet the performance requirements of your applications and environment.

Easy URL based page performance analysis

Analyze any web page in your farm by simply entering the URL.

Easy to use User Interface

Powerful and easy-to-use console that lets you display and understand complex analyses in seconds, without needing a SharePoint expert.

How does Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager help me?

Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager lets you monitor and analyze your Microsoft SharePoint farms, servers, and pages. SharePoint dm lets you:

Task How Solve SharePoint performance problems even when SharePoint is not available.

Because SharePoint dm runs outside of SharePoint, you have access to his-torical data, alerts issued, up to the minute performance information, and much more for all SharePoint servers in your farm. SharePoint dm helps eliminate the risk of spending hours trying to find out what might have caused your SharePoint environment to fail or perform badly.

Take control of your SharePoint health.

Continuously monitor, diagnose, discover, analyze and fix SharePoint per-formance and availability issues efficiently. Quickly understand why your SharePoint servers are not performing well or why pages are taking long to load.

Out-of-the-box monitoring.

Instant and automatic monitoring of all SharePoint farm servers without the need to develop any kind of script. Take advantage of built-in default options to start monitoring your SharePoint servers immediately.

Provides accurate and clean server-side per-formance

met-Understand the real impact of the server side performance metrics without interference from browser type, location, operating systems and connection speed. Have control of how an application is behaving in its 'raw' state, and easily determine any application performance issues.

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Task How Quickly

iden-tifies worst performing page controls.

Immediately identify the worst performing HTML controls, solutions and web controls by quickly analyzing their load time, size and type.

Collects Com-ponent-level results.

Powerful collection of page control elements that clearly differentiates page loading, execution, or rendering of individual page elements. Quickly and eas-ily identify what is impacting page performance, without guessing!

Provides true SharePoint-specific Analysis.

Enables true visibility into SharePoint by exposing the inner workings of server controls, solutions, menus and other page elements. Using advanced meth-ods Idera SharePoint performance manager embeds into the page processing lifecycle allowing clear analysis of all the web page controls and parts before they are rendered into HTML and delivered to the user.

Offers Easy installation and use.

Installs quickly, enabling immediate performance access to any page. A typ-ical installation takes less than 30 minutes. Additionally, the easy to use UI makes it very easy to identify all performance issues on a single page.

Contacting Idera

Please contact us with your questions and comments. We look forward to hearing from you. For support around the world, please contact us or your local partner. For a complete list of our part-ners, please see our website (www.idera.com).

Sales 713.523.4433

1.877.GO.IDERA (464.3372)

(only in the United States and Canada) Sales Email [email protected]

Support 713.533.5144

1.877.GO.IDERA (464.3372)

(only in the United States and Canada) www.idera.com/support

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Release Notes

Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager lets you monitor, manage, and analyze your Microsoft SharePoint farms, servers, and pages.

o _{New features} o _{Known issues}

Updated: 4/1/2013 1:06 PM

New features

Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager helps you to ensure the health of your SharePoint envir-onment and the performance of your SharePoint applications. It saves time and money by dra-matically reducing administrative overhead for IT and ensuring SharePoint business user productivity.

SharePoint dm provides real time monitoring of all SharePoint servers from a single console, enabling you to quickly identify, diagnose, and resolve performance and availability problems. It also provides critical information for SharePoint capacity planning by storing historical per-formance data of all the monitored SharePoint servers. It monitors SharePoint in real-time, provid-ing a comprehensive set of metrics that enable SharePoint administrators to quickly pinpoint performance and availability issues related to server performance, resource usage and poorly per-forming HTML controls, solution and Web controls.

3.0 Features and fixed issues

l The new SharePoint dm Dashboard provides a quick glance at the performance data col-lected by SharePoint dm to help you monitor your SharePoint farms and pages. For more information about the SharePoint dm Dashboard, see Using the SharePoint dm Dash-board.

l The Collection Service includse new options for immediate grooming and statistics updates. For more information about Collection Service configuration, see Setting the Col-lection Service options. These options allow you to:

o _{Set the frequency when the Collection Service gathers configuration and} SharePoint Health Analyzer reports.

o _{Immediately run a grooming job (Groom Repository Now) or update statistics} (Update Statistics Now).

l SharePoint diagnostic manager now allows you to exclude multiple disks and databases from certain alerts. The Alert Thresholds dialog box includes a field in the Disk and SQL Server Database alerts where you can include the disk or database name for exclu-sion. For more information about excluding certain instances from alerting, see Setting default alert thresholds.

l A new SQL Servers node in the SharePoint diagnostic manager tree provides all of the information you need concerning your SQL Server configuration, active alerts, and per-formance issues. For more information about the SQL Servers view, see Viewing the status of all SQL Servers in a farm.

l The Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager Web Part and the Web Part Installer are now known as the solution and the Component Analysis Solution Installer.

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l Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager now provides users with an overview of their SharePoint farm performance by comparing their configuration with the set of best prac-tices checked by SharePoint Health Analyzer. This feature is available only on SharePoint 2010 and newer farms.

l An improved Active Alerts list provides more important and useful details in an alert row than before. This update includes the Active Alerts listed on the Home page, Farm Dash-board, Farm Active Alerts, Server Active Alerts, SQL Server Active Alerts, and the Alerts view.

l Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager now supports servers hosted in a virtual environment such as VMware and Hyper-V. To support this new server type, SharePoint dm now includes:

l The serverTypecolumn in the Servers view to help you quickly identify your physical servers from virtual servers.

l A line in the Configuration section of the Server Overview indicating whether the server is physical or virtual.

l TheServer Typefield in the Server Summary report to indicate whether the selected server is physical or virtual.

l New metrics allow SharePoint dm to alert on more SQL Server measures, including: l Is Server Virtualized

l Page Life Expectancy

l New SQL Server alerts provide you with critical and warning notifications surrounding the following alerts:

l Data and Log Files on Same Drive l Data File Autogrowth

l Data File Autogrowth is by Percentage l Data Files Full

l Data Files Near Maximum Size l Instance Hosted on Virtual Server l Log File Autogrowth

l Log File Autogrowth is by Percentage l Log Files Full

l Log Files Near Maximum Size l Page Life Expectancy

l SharePoint diagnostic manager 3.0 fixes an issue in the Component Analysis logic that caused extremely high component load times. Often the times displayed were over 20 seconds even on pages that would load reasonably quickly.

l Users who run some reports on non-English operating systems no longer received the error message, “The definition of the report “MainReport,” and are able to view the report. l SharePoint diagnostic manager detects all the servers acting as Web Front Ends for

mon-itored SharePoint farms. Before SharePoint dm 3.0, any machine that previously had the Web Application Service running was treated as a WFE. This release changes that pro-cess so that only machines currently running the Web Application Service are treated as WFEs.

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host-2.7 Features

l New security model lets you restrict access to the configuration and performance inform-ation to selected users or groups.

l Added additional reports for the following: l Capacity planning

l SQL Server l Page health l Page uptime l Content summaries

l Content Summary information now includes additional information about the document ver-sions to help you plan for capacity needs.

l Full support for Microsoft SQL Server 2012.

2.6 Features

l Improved information in alerts, including knowledge base information. l Customizable knowledge base articles for every metric.

l New alert response rules.

l Customizable rules for alert responses.

l Improved email handling, including custom recipients for each alert response rule.

l SNMP trap generation.

2.5.1 Features

l Improved handling of Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) data.

2.5 Features

l Enhanced metrics for SQL Servers, including detailed configuration information, database fragmentation and detailed data file and log file storage information.

l Added the ability to wait a user-specified period of time before triggering alerts for certain metrics.

l Added the ability to clear alerts.

l Improved handling of Microsoft SQL Server Clusters. Virtual Servers now appear in the list of farm servers, as do the component servers. The Virtual Server lists the servers that the cluster lists each of the servers that make up the cluster. Each component server appears separately in the list of servers.

2.0.2 Features

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2.0.1 Features

l Corrected an error that caused CPU usage to appear at 100% on Windows Server 2003 servers.

2.0 Features

l Added more than 100 new Server, SharePoint, and SQL Metrics, including the following: l Disk Space.

l SQL Server performance metrics. l SharePoint performance metrics. l Instance-based metrics.

l Added SharePoint Content Summary of monitored farms, Web Applications, and Site Col-lections, including object sizes and growth rates and graphical views of content.

l Added Content Summary-based alerts.

l You can now create and manage custom reports. l You can create custom views for any collected metric. l Added the ability to override alert thresholds per server.

1.3 Features

l Changed defaults when adding a new page. By default, new pages are now tested using the URL the user provides.

l Added the ability to ignore errors caused when the Collection Service cannot verify the SSL certificates that your Windows Front End servers use.

l Updated the installer to verify the software and the permission requirements before install-ation.

l Improved error handling and reporting.

1.2 Features

l Continuous, automated 24/7 monitoring from a central console.

l Intuitive dashboard UI provides "at-a-glance" view of SharePoint health. l Page component level performance analysis.

l Summary and detail performance metrics.

l Automated alerting of poorly performing pages, controls & server performance issues. l Repository of historical performance enables trending and analysis.

l Comprehensive reporting.

Known issues

Idera strives to ensure our products provide quality solutions for your SharePoint needs. The fol-lowing known issues for Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager are described in this section.If

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Installation and configuration considerations

SharePoint dm 3.0 does not support SharePoint 2013

This version of SharePoint diagnostic manager does not officially support SharePoint 2013. While you are free to try monitoring SharePoint 2013 farms, you may find that some features do not fully work.

Some graphs do no appear immediately after upgrading SharePoint dm

Some graphs on the new SQL Server views and alert details are blank until the first couple of collections complete after upgrading from a previous version of SharePoint dm. The graphs are populated as collections take place once the upgrade is complete.

Override SIMPLE Repository Recovery model

SharePoint diagnostic manager assumes that the performance of the SharePoint dm Repository database is more important than the ability to perform transaction level backups. As a result, the product sets the Recovery Model of the repository database to SIMPLE. If you want to override this behavior and set the Recovery Model to another option, you must set a flag in the Collection Service configuration file to prevent the auto-matic behavior. To prevent the autoauto-matic behavior, set the EnforceRecoveryModel to FALSE in the CollectionService.exe.config file, and then restart the Collection Service. Site Collection URLs may be incorect when using multiple Internet zones

When using multiple internet zones for a site collection, SharePoint diagnostic manager sometimes picks up the wrong zone for display and content summary collection purposes. If this issue occurs, you can disable the mapping of the internal URL by SharePoint dm using a collection service option. To prevent the automatic behavior, set the

Dis-ableContentSummaryAA Mapping option to True in the CollectionService.exe.config file, and then restart the Collection Service.

Failed installation

If the installation fails, please contact Idera Technical Support for assistance. Increased time to upgrade

This release includes a number of improvements to the database schema and indexing that can cause a prolonged upgrade. Please plan accordingly to allow yourself enough time to upgrade SharePoint dm without affecting your environment for a significant period of time.

Error message: File Not Found

Some users receive the error message, "File not found," when attempting to open an act-ive alert on a SharePoint 2007 instance. The SharePoint dm Dashboard requires Sys-tem.Web.UI.DataVisualization, which is not included with .NET 3.51. Access the Microsoft Download Center at

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/-download/details.aspx?id=14422to install the Microsoft Chart Controls for .NET 3.5. This download includes the file necessary to avoid the "File not found" error message.

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Error message: Web Part not installed

SharePoint dm uses a Web Part to collect component analysis data from the pages that you monitor. SharePoint dm also relies on the SharePoint Master Pages to analyze the pages it monitors. If a monitored page does not use a Master Page, then SharePoint dm is unable to monitor it. In addition, SharePoint sends the same error message to SharePoint dm for both a missing Web Part and a missing Master Page. If SharePoint dm displays an error message that it is unable to perform component analysis on a page because the Web Part is not installed and you have installed the Web Part, then the page does not use a Master Page. You can perform Page Load Time analysis for the page, and you can perform component analysis for pages on the same farm that do use Master Pages.

Windows SharePoint Services and SQL Server Embedded Edition

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 includes SQL Server Embedded Edition. You cannot use SQL Server Embedded Edition to host the Repository database and must use a com-plete installation of Microsoft SQL Server to host the repository.

You must also ensure that the Collection Service can connect to the SharePoint Con-figuration Database. You should verify the following settings:

l The SQL Server Browser service on the SQL Server Embedded Edition host must be running.

l The Microsoft#SSEE instance must accept TCP/IP or Named Pipe connections. l You must disable the Hide Instance option in the SQL Server Configuration Manager. Installing on a SQL Server instance where the instance name matches the SQL Server host name

Prior to version 2.6, SharePoint dm could not correctly report on a SQL Server whose instance name and host name matched. In version 2.6, you can choose per instance whether to support the unnamed default instance or to support matching instance and host names. To support matching host and instance names, you update the SharePoint dm Col-lection Service configuration file. On the SharePoint dm ColCol-lection Service host, edit the file <Installation Directory>\Idera\SharePoint diagnostic man-ager\CollectionService\CollectionService.exe.config.

You must ensure that you set the InstAndServerNameMatch value in the Applic-ationSettingsblock. If the line exists, you can edit it. Otherwise, add the following lines to the

Ider-

a.SharePoint.Dia-gnosticManager.CollectionService.Properties.Settingsgroup in the <ApplicationSettings>block:

<value>Instance_Name</value>

</setting>

After you update the configuration file, you should use the Windows Services Control Panel to stop and restart the Collection Service.

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Known Issues

Upgrading to 2.5 or later from version 1.3 or earlier

If you upgrade from SharePoint dm 1.3 or earlier to the current version, you must reinstall all SharePoint dm components, including the SharePoint dm Web Part. Components earlier than the current version are not compatible with this version of SharePoint dm and later. When you reinstall, you must enter the name of the Collection Service that the SharePoint dm Management Console connects to. In addition, you must reset any Man-agement Console or Collection Service preferences after the upgrade completes.

In addition, if you change the SQL Server Instance or Database Name from those used in your earlier installation, the installer creates a new version of the SharePoint dm Database Repository and the existing data will no longer be accessible.

Disabling a metric for a page does not clear active Alerts

When you disable a metric for a page, SharePoint dm does not clear any existing, active alerts for the metric on that page. If you choose, you can manually clear the alerts for the page. SharePoint dm does not create any additional alerts for the metric.

New information about page performance data collection in the documentation A new topicdetailing how SharePoint dm collects page performance information is included in the documentation set in version 2.0.1 and later.

Approximate disk size on Windows Server 2008 hosts

Under certain circumstances, the Management Console lists approximate disk sizes for Windows Server 2008 hosts that do not have R2 installed. All other versions of Windows Server list correct disk sizes.

"Services not detected" message appears in SharePoint service graphs

SharePoint dm can report performance data for the following SharePoint service types: l SharePoint Search Services

l SharePoint Indexing Services

l SharePoint Excel Calculation Services

If the message "Services not detected" appears in service graphs, one of the following is true:

Cause Description

The service type is not enabled on the selected server.

Normal behavior for most servers.

The service type is enabled on the server. The service has started, but con-figuration is not yet complete.

When the server is configured and working properly, performance data for the service appears in the SharePoint dm Management Console.

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Cause Description The service type is

enabled and con-figured on the server.

Rarely, problems with the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) system on the server can prevent SharePoint dm from accessing some or all of the WMI data for the server. When you correct the issues with the WMI system, the performance data for the service appears in the SharePoint dm Management Console.

Page content does not automatically refresh

If you leave the SharePoint dm Management Console running for a long period of time, cer-tain items that do not change rapidly are only updated when you first display the page. Examples include the number of days remaining in the license on the home page, inform-ation about the farm in the Farm Overview tab, and so on. If you change to another page, then return to the original, the changed information appears.

"Http status 401: Unauthorized" when performing a content summary on a farm that was temporarily unavailable

If a farm or the component servers is not available when the Collection Service performs a content summary operation, an error occurs that indicates that the farm is not available. When the farm and the component servers are available again, an alert that includes the text "Http status 401: Unauthorized" appears the first time the Collection Service performs a content summary operation.

This error appears as a result of the way that credentials are cached, and you may ignore it.

Subsequent Content Summary operations should complete with no errors. Reallocating licenses assigned to a deleted server

If you delete a server from your SharePoint farm, the SharePoint dm license assigned to the server is not automatically assigned to another server. If you want to assign the license to a different server, you must do so manually.

Complex legends in charts

When a chart contains a large number of data types and you choose to show the legends for the chart, the legend may take the majority of the area assigned to the chart and make it difficult to view the chart itself. If this happens, expand the chart to full size or use the legend for reference, then close it.

Web Application created after most recent content summary

If you view the content summary for a Web Application that was created after the most recent content summary operation and the Web Application does not yet contain a Site Col-lection, the creation date for the Web Application in the content summary view is N/A. The creation date for the Web Application is based on the Site Collections it contains.

"No data available" message appears in a chart

The message "No data available" may appear in place of a chart in the SharePoint dm Man-agement Console. This error can appear when theCollection Service is unable to retrieve the datafrom the server or when the metric does not apply to the server.

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Server counts include hosts for URL-only pages

When you monitor a page, you can choose to monitor the page on specific Web Front End (WFE) servers. You can also specify that the Collection Service should only use the provided URL. The Servers view includes in its server counts the servers that host any URL-only pages in the monitored farm. The names and other information for the hosts for URL-only pages are not included in the lists of servers. If the URL you specify includes the name of a known WFE, the page will be included in the count for that WFE. If you monitor pages by URL only, the total number of servers at the top of the Servers view will not match the number of servers listed at the bottom of the view.

Page availability graph shows page unavailable even though Page Load Time includes successful load times

In the Page Availability graph in the Page Status view, the number of data collections rep-resented by each data point in the graph varies, depending on the total time reprep-resented by the graph. Any single data point in the graph can represent one or many individual attempts to collect data. In the graph, a page is unavailable if it is unavailable for any single attempt to collect data in the time period the data point represents. This does not indicate that the page was unavailable every time the page availability was tested. It is possible for the Page Load Time graph to indicate successful loading at the same time that the Page Avail-ability graph indicates that the page is unavailable. The Page Load Time graph is based on an average of all load times for the period in the graph.

Page availability graph shows page unavailable on WFE when page is not monitored on the WFE

When you monitor a page, you can specify that SharePoint dm monitors the page on one or more WFEs. If you stop monitoring the page on a WFE, the WFE continues to appear on the Page Availability graph in the Page Status view. Since availability is no longer mon-itored on the WFE, the page is unavailable in the graph for the unmonmon-itored period. No alert is generated when the page appears to become unavailable.

In the same way, if you add a WFE to the list of WFEs on which the page is monitored, the page appears as unavailable on the WFE for any unmonitored period. No alert is generated when the page appears to become available.

Server removed from SharePoint farm continues to appear in the Management Con-sole

If you remove a server from your SharePoint farm, the server continues to appear in the SharePoint dm Management Console after the farm topology is refreshed manually or on a scheduled basis. The Collection Service continues to attempt to collect monitored server and monitored page data from the server. The server is retained in the Management Con-sole to ensure the continued availability of the historical data collected for the server. To stop the Collection Service from attempting to retrieve data from the server, you should right-click the server in the tree and clickDisable Server.

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SQL Server aliases used for SharePoint servers

If your SharePoint farm uses an alias name for a SQL Server to connect to a SQL Server database, SharePoint dm uses the actual name of the SQL Server to connect to the server and collect performance data, rather than the Alias. As a result, the actual name of the SQL Server appears in SharePoint dm instead of the Alias. In consequence, you may note a different name for the SQL Server in the farm Central Administration page and in the SharePoint dm server pages. This difference is normal and expected.

SQL Server file sizes in Server Dashboard and Server Details differ

When you select a server that hosts a SQL Server in the tree, the database file size in the Dashboard includes only SharePoint databases. In the Server details pane, the database file size includes all databases hosted by the SQL Server.

Automatic proxy detection can cause long page load times

Under certain circumstances, automatic proxy detection in SharePoint dm can cause an inaccurate report of your page load times. If you are not using a proxy server, you can edit the configuration file for the collection service and manually disable proxy detection. On the Collection Service host, edit the file <Installation

Dir-ectory>\Idera\SharePoint diagnostic

man-ager\CollectionService\CollectionService.exe.config. You should add the following lines before the </configuration> line:

<system.net>

Fragmentation level alert remains active for an excluded database

If you enable database fragmentation collection and SharePoint dm generates an alert for a database, the alert is not automatically cleared if you later mark the database as excluded from fragmentation collection. You should manually clear the alert for the database. Y-axis of graphs in reports has no label for values if range is 0-1

If the Y-Axis of a graph in a report ranges from 0 to 1, SharePoint dm does not label the val-ues on the Y-axis.

Web Service Current Connections data is not averaged

Most graphical data in the SharePoint dm Management Console is an average whose period varies with the time the graph represents. In the IIS view of the Web tab of the Server details view, the Current Connections is not an average. Rather, the graph shows the actual number of connections when the data was collected.

Learning about performance monitoring

Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager helps you to monitor and analyze the performance of your SharePoint farms. SharePoint dm lets you do the following:

l Monitor the status of SharePoint farms.

l Monitor the status of specified SharePoint pages.

l Analyze the performance of the components that make up specified pages.

You can use these tools to help find and correct SharePoint performance and availability issues.

How does SharePoint dm help me to monitor SharePoint server

per-formance?

SharePoint dm uses the Windows Management Interface (WMI) tocollect performance and avail-ability informationfrom the servers in your SharePoint farm. You can use the SharePoint dm Man-agement Console to review the data for the period that you specify. You can also use the

Management Console to specify the conditions that trigger alerts, and the response to those alerts.

How does SharePoint dm help me monitor and understand page availability

and performance?

You can use SharePoint dm to monitor and analyze pages that you specify.

When you monitor the page, SharePoint dmtracks the load times and availability for the pageat specified intervals. You can specify when SharePoint dm generates alerts. You can monitor any page in a monitored SharePoint farm. You do not need to modify your SharePoint farm or the pages to monitor pages in this way. Monitoring page availability and load times has a low impact on your SharePoint farm.

SharePoint dm can also analyze the performance of the components that make up a monitored SharePoint page. When you perform component analysis, you deploy a SharePoint dm solution. The Collection Service uses the solution to analyze the performance of the components that make up the page. As with page load time monitoring, you can specify when SharePoint dm gen-erates alerts.

Normally, when SharePoint generates a monitored page, the solution is unused and has no impact on your SharePoint performance.

Thiscomprehensive page analysisis separate from page availability monitoring. Because it is comprehensive, page component analysis takes additional time to perform. You should generally

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Instead, you should monitor page load times and availability on a routine basis. When routine monitoring locates a problem with a page, you can analyze the page components to further isol-ate the source of the problem.

Retrieving server performance information

The Collection Service uses the Windows Management Interface (WMI) to collect performance information from servers in the SharePoint farms that you monitor.

What information does the Collection Service collect?

The Collection Service retrieves information about the operating system, including the number of physical and logical processors in the CPU, and the physical and virtual memory. For Web Front End (WFE) servers, the Collection Service also retrieves the installed IIS and ASP.NET ver-sions.

In addition, the Collection Service retrieves SharePoint-specific information from the Web Front End servers and SQL Server-specific information from the database servers in your farm. The SharePoint-specific information includes information about the SharePoint services and the per-formance of search, index, and other services. The SQL-specific information includes inform-ation about the database and log file sizes, and performance informinform-ation for the server and the databases that it hosts.

The SharePoint dm Collection Service includes the PageUtil.exe utility that lists all of the WMI metrics, arranged into groups and categories. By default, the utility is stored in the c:\Pro-gram Files (x86)\Idera\SharePoint diagnostic

man-ager\CollectionService\PageUtil.exedirectory on the computer that hosts the Collection Service.

Open a command prompt in the Collection Service directory and type PageUtil.exe -m then press Enter to view the list.

How can I correct WMI problems?

SharePoint dm relies on WMI to collect information from your servers. If the WMI system on your servers is not properly configured, SharePoint dm is unable to retrieve this information.

If the script is unable to collect information about a WMI object, then you may need to correct the problems in the WMI subsystem on the computer. You can use the following troubleshooting aids to assist you:

Aid URL Microsoft WMI Diagnostic util-ity: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=d7ba3cd6-18d1-4d05-b11e-4c64192ae97d http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff404265.aspx Using the WMIDiagnostic utility to http://myitforum.com/cs2/blogs/socal/archive/2007/08/22/troubleshooting-wmi-with-wmidiag.aspx

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Aid URL Basic WMI Testing: http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2007/06/22/basic-wmi-test-ing.aspx Using WMIDia-gnostic on Win-dows Server 2008: http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2008/11/11/wmidiag-vbs-and-the-missing-wmi-files.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2008/07/11/wmi-troubleshooting-the-repository-on-vista-server-2008.aspx Microsoft Tech-net articles on WMI: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692942.aspx WMI Secrets, troubleshooting, and tips: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692772.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff406382.aspx

What WMI scopes does the Collection Service analyze?

The Collection Service accesses the following WMI scopes to collect information

Scope Description

\\<ComputerName>\root\default Used to access the registry on the remote server.

\\<ComputerName>\root\cimv2 Used to collect performance information.

\\<ComputerName>\root\Mi-crosoft\SqlServer\ComputerManagement10

Used to access the list of SQL Server instances.

\\<ComputerName>\root\Mi-crosoft\SqlServer\ComputerManagement

Used to access the list of SQL Server 2003 instances.

\\<ComputerName>\root\mscluster Used on SQL Server cluster nodes to determine the active/passive node in the cluster.

What WMI objects and properties does SharePoint dm access?

The Collection Service accesses the following WMI classes and fields on each server in the farm:

CPU

Item WMI Class Class Property

Processor Interrupts per Second (Count)

Win32_PerfRawData_ PerfOS_Processor

InterruptsPersec

CPU Usage Total - Privileged Time (Percent)

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Item WMI Class Class Property CPU Usage Total (Percent) Win32_PerfRawData_

PerfOS_Processor

PercentProcessorTime

CPU Usage Total - User Time (Percent)

PercentUserTime

Processor Queue Length (Count)

Win32_PerfRawData_ PerfOS_System

ProcessorQueueLength

CPU Usage - Per-Process Privileged Time (Percent)

Win32_PerfRawData_ PerfProc_Process

PercentPrivilegedTime

CPU Usage - Per-Process Total (Percent)

PercentProcessorTime

CPU Usage - Per-Process User Time (Percent)

PercentUserTime

Disk

Disk Free Space (MB)

Win32_PerfFormattedData_ PerfDisk_LogicalDisk

FreeMegabytes

Disk Free Percent (Percent)

PercentFreeSpace

Disk Used (Percent) Win32_PerfFormattedData_ PerfDisk_LogicalDisk

PercentFreeSpace

Disk Idle Time (Per-cent)

PercentIdleTime

Average Disk Seconds Per Read (ms)

Win32_PerfRawData_Per-fDisk_LogicalDisk

AvgDisksecPerRead

Average Disk

Seconds Per Transfer (ms)

AvgDisksecPerTransfer

Average Disk Seconds Per Write (ms)

AvgDisksecPerWrite

Disk Size (MB) Win32_PerfRawData_Per-fDisk_LogicalDisk

PercentFreeSpace_Base

Average Disk Queue Length (Count)

Win32_PerfRawData_Per-fDisk_PhysicalDisk

AvgDiskQueueLength

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Item WMI Class Class Property Disk Writes Per

Second (Count)

Win32_PerfRawData_Per-fDisk_PhysicalDisk

DiskWritesPersec

Disk Time (Percent) Win32_PerfRawData_Per-fDisk_PhysicalDisk

PercentDiskTime

IIS

IIS Current Con-nections (Count) Win32_Per-fFormattedData_ W3SVC_WebService CurrentConnections IIS Max-imum Con-nections (Count) Win32_Per-fFormattedData_ W3SVC_WebService MaximumConnections Application Pool Recycles (Count) Win32_Per-fRawData_ APPPOOLCountersProvider_ APPPOOLWAS TotalApplicationPoolRecycles IIS Server Services Not Run-ning Win32_Service Dis- playName,Star-ted,StartMode,StartName,State,Status

Memory

Total Physical Memory (KB)

Win32_Com-puterSystem

TotalPhysicalMemory

Free Physical Memory (KB)

Win32_Oper-atingSystem

FreePhysicalMemory

Free Virtual Memory (KB)

FreeVirtualMemory

Total Virtual Memory (KB)

TotalVirtualMemorySize

Memory Pages Per Second (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_ PerfOS_Memory PagesPersec Per-Process Handle Count (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_ PerfProc_Process HandleCount

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Item WMI Class Class Property Per-Process Page

Faults Per Second (Count)

PageFaultsPersec

Per-Process Pool Non-paged Bytes (Count)

Win32_PerfRawData_ PerfProc_Process PoolNonpagedBytes Per-Process Memory Usage(MB) Win32_PerfRawData_ PerfProc_Process PrivateBytes Per-Process Thread Count (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_ PerfProc_Process ThreadCount Per-Process Working Set (MB) Win32_PerfRawData_ PerfProc_Process WorkingSet

Network

Redirector Sessions (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_Per-fNet_Redirector ServerSessions Redirector Sessions Hung (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_Per-fNet_Redirector ServerSessionsHung Network Bytes Received Per Second (Count)

Win32_PerfRawData_

Tcpip_Net-workInterface

BytesReceivedPersec

Network Bytes Sent Per Second (Count)

Win32_PerfRawData_

BytesSentPersec

Network Bytes Total Per Second (Count)

Win32_PerfRawData_

BytesTotalPersec

Network Packets Per Second (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_ Tcpip_Net-workInterface PacketsPersec

Paging File

Paging File Percent Usage (Percent)

Win32_Per-fFormattedData_PerfOS_ PagingFile

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Item WMI Class Class Property Paging File Percent

Usage Peak (Percent)

Win32_Per-fFormattedData_PerfOS_ PagingFile

PercentUsagePeak

Paging File Size (KB) Win32_PerfRawData_Per-fOS_PagingFile

PercentUsage_ Base

Per-Process Page File Bytes (MB)

Win32_PerfRawData_Per-fProc_Process

PageFileBytes

SharePoint Service Status

Item WMI

Class Class Property SharePoint

Ser-vices Not Run-ning Win32_ Ser-vice Dis- playName,Star-ted,StartMode,StartName,State,Status

SQL Server

Item WMI

Class Class Property SQL Server Services Not Running Win32_ Ser-vice Dis- playName,Star-ted,StartMode,StartName,State,Status

Web Service

Web Svc Bytes Received Per Second (Count)

Win32_Per-fRawData_W3SVC_ WebService

BytesReceivedPersec

Web Svc Bytes Sent Per Second (Count)

BytesSentPersec

Web Svc Bytes Total Per Second (Count) Win32_Per-fRawData_W3SVC_ WebService BytesTotalPersec Web Svc Connection Attempts Per Second (Count)

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Item WMI Class Class Property Web Svc Current

Con-nections (Count)

CurrentConnections

Web Svc Total Method Requests (Count)

TotalMethodRequests

The Collection Service queries the following WMI classes and fields on each server where it detects a running IIS installation:

IIS

ASP Cache Total Entries (Count)

Win32_PerfFormattedData_

ASPNET_ASPNETAp-plications

CacheTotalEntries

ASP Cache Hits (Count) Win32_PerfFormattedData_ ASPNET_ASPNETAp-plications CacheTotalHits ASP Cache Misses (Count) Win32_PerfFormattedData_ ASPNET_ASPNETAp-plications CacheTotalMisses ASP Application Restarts (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_ ASPNET_ASPNET ApplicationRestarts ASP Request Execution Time (ms) Win32_PerfRawData_ ASPNET_ASPNET RequestExecutionTime ASP Requests Executing (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_ ASPNET_ASPNET RequestsCurrent IIS Requests Queued (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_ ASPNET_ASPNET RequestsQueued IIS Requests Rejected (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_ ASPNET_ASPNET RequestsRejected ASP Request Wait Time (ms) Win32_PerfRawData_ ASPNET_ASPNET RequestWaitTime

ASP Worker Pro-cess Restarts (Count)

Win32_PerfRawData_ ASPNET_ASPNET

WorkerProcessRestarts

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The Collection Service queries the following WMI classes and fields on each server where it detects SQL Server Instances:

SQL Server

Active Trans-actions/Total (Count) Win32_Per-fFormattedData_?Databases ActiveTransactions Data Files Size/Total (KB) Win32_Per-fFormattedData_?Databases DataFilesSizeKB Log Files Size/Total (KB) Win32_Per-fFormattedData_?Databases LogFilesSizeKB Transactions Per Secon-d/Total (Count) Win32_Per-fFormattedData_?Databases TransactionsPersec User Con-nections (Count) Win32_Per- fFor-mattedData_?GeneralStatistics UserConnections Logins Per Second (Count) Win32_Per-fRawData_?GeneralStatistics LoginsPersec Logouts Per Second (Count) Win32_Per-fRawData_?GeneralStatistics LogoutsPersec

Latch Waits Per Second (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_?Latches LatchWaitsPersec Lock Requests Per Second (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_?Locks LockRequestsPersec

Lock Waits Per Second (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_?Locks LockWaitsPersec Number of Deadlocks Per Second (Count) Win32_PerfRawData_?Locks Num-berofDeadlocksPersec

SQL Server Database

Active Transactions (Count)

Win32_Per-fFormattedData_?Databases

ActiveTransactions

Data Files Size (KB)

Win32_Per-fFormattedData_?Databases

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Item WMI Class Class Property Log Files Size (KB)

Win32_Per-fFormattedData_?Databases LogFilesSizeKB Transactions Per Second (Count) Win32_Per-fFormattedData_?Databases TransactionsPersec

The Collection Service queries the following WMI classes and fields on each server where it detects a SharePoint installation:

SharePoint Excel Calculation Services

Active Requests (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfRawData_OfficeServer- PerformanceMonitoring_ExcelCal-culationServices ActiveRequests Active Requests (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfRawData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ ExcelCalculationServices ActiveRequests Average Request Pro-cessing Time (Seconds) (2007) Win32_PerfRawData_OfficeServer- PerformanceMonitoring_ExcelCal-culationServices Aver- ageRequestPro-cessingTime Average Request Pro-cessing Time (Seconds) (2010) Win32_PerfRawData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ ExcelCalculationServices Aver- ageRequestPro-cessingTime Average Session Time (Seconds) (2007) Win32_PerfRawData_OfficeServer- PerformanceMonitoring_ExcelCal-culationServices AverageSessionTime Average Session Time (Seconds) (2010) Win32_PerfRawData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ ExcelCalculationServices AverageSessionTime

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Item WMI Class Class Property Requests Received Per Second (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfRawData_OfficeServer- PerformanceMonitoring_ExcelCal-culationServices Request-sReceivedPerSecond Requests Received Per Second (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfRawData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ ExcelCalculationServices Request-sReceivedPerSecond Requests With Errors Per Second (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfRawData_OfficeServer- PerformanceMonitoring_ExcelCal-culationServices Request-sWithErrorsPerSecond Requests With Errors Per Second (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfRawData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ ExcelCalculationServices Request-sWithErrorsPerSecond Sessions Per Second (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfRawData_OfficeServer- PerformanceMonitoring_ExcelCal-culationServices SessionsPerSecond Sessions Per Second (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfRawData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ ExcelCalculationServices SessionsPerSecond

SharePoint Excel Services

Web Front End Active Requests (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfRawData_OfficeServer- PerformanceMonitoring_ExcelSer-vicesWebFrontEnd ActiveRequests Web Front End Active Requests (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfRawData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ ExcelServicesApplicationWebFrontEnd ActiveRequests

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Item WMI Class Class Property Web Front End Average Request Pro-cessing Time (Seconds) (2007) Win32_PerfRawData_OfficeServer- PerformanceMonitoring_ExcelSer-vicesWebFrontEnd Aver- ageRequestPro-cessingTime Web Front End Average Request Pro-cessing Time (Seconds) (2010) Win32_PerfRawData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ ExcelServicesApplicationWebFrontEnd Aver- ageRequestPro-cessingTime Web Front End Requests Per Second (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfRawData_OfficeServer- PerformanceMonitoring_ExcelSer-vicesWebFrontEnd Requestspersecond Web Front End Requests Per Second (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfRawData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ ExcelServicesApplicationWebFrontEnd Requestspersecond

SharePoint Search

Blocked Documents (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfFormattedData_WSSArpi_ SharePointSearchArchivalPlugin Blockeddocuments Blocked Documents (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfFormattedData_ MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ OSSSearchArchivalPlugin Blockeddocuments Processed Documents per second (Count) Win32_PerfFormattedData_ WSSGatherer_SharePointSearchGather-erProjects Pro- cessedDocu-mentsRate

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Item WMI Class Class Property Processed Documents per second (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfFormattedData_ MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ OSSSearchGathererProjects Docu- mentsPro-cessedRate Retries per second (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfFormattedData_ WSSGatherer_SharePointSearchGather-erProjects RetriesRate Retries per second (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfFormattedData_ MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ OSSSearchGathererProjects RetriesRate Waiting Docu-ments (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfFormattedData_ WSSGatherer_SharePointSearchGather-erProjects WaitingDocuments Waiting Docu-ments (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfFormattedData_ MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ OSSSearchGathererProjects Trans-actionsWaiting Idle Threads (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfFormattedData_WSSGTHRSVC_ SharePointSearchGatherer IdleThreads Idle Threads (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfFormattedData_ MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ OSSSearchGatherer IdleThreads

SharePoint Search Indexer

Active Con-nections (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfFormattedData_WSSIndex_ SharePointSearchIndexerCatalogs Act-iveConnections Active Con-nections (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfFormattedData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ OSSSearchIndexerPlugin Act-iveConnections Documents Filtered (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfFormattedData_WSSIndex_ SharePointSearchIndexerCatalogs Docu-mentsFiltered

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Item WMI Class Class Property Documents Filtered (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfFormattedData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ OSSSearchIndexerPlugin Docu-mentsFiltered Index Size (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfFormattedData_WSSIndex_ SharePointSearchIndexerCatalogs IndexSize Index Size (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfFormattedData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ OSSSearchIndexerPlugin IndexSize Queries Failed (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfFormattedData_WSSIndex_ SharePointSearchIndexerCatalogs QueriesFailed Queries Failed (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfFormattedData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ OSSSearchIndexerPlugin QueriesFailed Queries Suc-ceeded (Count) (2007) Win32_PerfFormattedData_WSSIndex_ SharePointSearchIndexerCatalogs Quer-iesSucceeded Queries Suc-ceeded (Count) (2010) Win32_PerfFormattedData_MicrosoftWin-dowsSharePointSharePointServer_ OSSSearchIndexerPlugin Quer-iesSucceeded

Analyzing page performance

Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager helps you to monitor the availability and load times of the pages that you specify in your SharePoint farm. You can specify how often the SharePoint dm Collection Service loads the page to determine the page load time and availability. You can also specify the Windows Front End (WFE) Servers that the Collection Service retrieves the page from.

When you monitor the load time and availability for a page, the SharePoint dm Collection Service contacts the SharePoint farm and requests the page. When it retrieves the page in this way, you can choose from the following options:

l The SharePoint Farm can assign the request to any WFE in the farm. l You can request the page from every WFE in the farm.

l You can request the page from one or more WFEs that you specify.

You can use these options to help you locate issues with the WFE servers in your farm. For more information about configuring monitored pages, see the following topics:

l Configuring monitored SharePoint pages l Adding a monitored page

l Setting monitored page options l Editing monitored page settings

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Analyzing page component performance

The Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager Collection Service can analyze the load performance of individual page components on the SharePoint pages that you specify. To perform page per-formance analysis, you must install the SharePoint dm solution. The Collection Service uses the solution to analyze the page components that make up the pages that you specify.

When you analyze page performance, the analysis itself can change the page performance; the more comprehensive the analysis, the more changes the analysis introduces. The SharePoint dm solution imposes the minimum possible performance penalty consistent with accurate ana-lysis. In addition, performance analysis components are only used when performance analysis is actually in progress. When SharePoint dm is not analyzing page performance, there is no per-formance impact on your SharePoint pages.

SharePoint dm uses a custom HTTP module to collect page performance data. The solution can use the HTTP module to analyze any page that is based on a master page template that includes the AdditionalPageHead placeholder. The solution overrides the default

Addi-tionalPageHeadto direct the request to the analysis components.

How do I tell if my master page template uses the AdditionalPageHead

place-holder?

You can examine the HTML that makes up the Master Page template for the SharePoint site to determine if the page includes the AdditionalPageHead placeholder. The Master Page header should include a line similar to the following:

<SharePoint:DelegateControl runat="server"

Con-trolId="AdditionalPageHead" AllowMultipleControls="true"/> The default Master Page templates include the placeholder.

How does SharePoint dm analyze page component performance?

When the Web Front End (WFE) processes a page, the HTTP module determines if the page request is the SharePoint dm Collection Service calling for a component performance analysis. If the request is not for component performance analysis, the HTTP module exits and the page renders normally, with no performance penalty.

If the request is for component performance analysis, the HTTP module redirects the request to the SharePoint dm solution. The solution parses each element that makes up the page. The solu-tion filters the components, excluding the ones that have little relevance to the user experience of the page, or those that do not impact the page load time. The excluded elements include the fol-lowing:

l HTML structure tags, including tables and DIVs. l Empty placeholders.

l Certain types of ASP.NET web controls. l The SharePoint dm solution.

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How does the SharePoint dm solution collect data from the components on

a page?

The methods that the solution uses to collect data vary. The solution uses a different data col-lection method for each type of control that makes up the page.

The solution uses the individual object event handlers to insert a listener into the execution pro-cess of ASP.NET controls, including web controls, server controls, user controls, and other ASP.NET elements. The solution overrides the load events and the unload events for each con-trol. The solution uses the timers that it inserts to track component start and end times. Many controls are unloaded in batches by garbage collection processes on the Web Front End (WFE) server. That is, the WFE server loads the ASP.NET controls, then keeps them resident until the garbage collector removes items in its queue. Resident items are technically still loaded until the garbage collector removes items in the queue.

SharePoint solutions and ASP.NET solutions are a type of server control but each has unique behaviors. The information that the solutions expose is different from that exposed by a base trol. The SharePoint dm solution treats the SharePoint and ASP.NET solutions as server con-trols to collect solution performance information from them. SharePoint dm creates a solution group that is based on the type value of the solutions that it analyzes. SharePoint dm also uses the SPWebPartManager object for the page to access the data.

Each page in your SharePoint deployment has a single Solution Manager object. SharePoint uses this Solution Manager object to keep track of all of the solutions on the page. The Solution Manager object is accessible within the page context using the

this.page.We-bPartManagercommand. SharePoint dm also accesses the Solution Manager object out-of-band with the SPLimitedWebPartManager object from the GetLimitedWebPartManager method.

The method used to collect the data from the Solution Manager object varies, depending on the calling context. SharePoint dm can access the SPWebPartManager object inside a solution. SharePoint dm uses SPLimitedWebPartManager to get solution data from an HTTP module or handler assembly without access to the post-rendered context of a page.

For HTML controls, linked objects, or embedded objects, SharePoint dm must request the object URI and time the response to measure performance. This method is simple for pages which do not utilize authentication mechanisms. When the page requires valid user credentials for a remote server, the task is more complex. If remote host is also a SharePoint server, timing com-plexities ensue. In the worst-case scenario, the SharePoint farm includes a complicated domain architecture that requires impersonation techniques to pass credentials to the remote host. As with ASP.NET controls, the solution performs careful filtering to determine which HTML controls have a potentially high-value performance impact and which are simply filler or formatting objects.

SharePoint dm uses a DOM-parsing method to obtain and analyze the HTML components. In addition, it uses other mechanisms, including Regular Expressions, to build an array of controls for further processing. When the array is populated, the SharePoint dm solution passes the URLs to the Data Collection service protocol analyzer object to retrieve the objects and generate

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l Configuring monitored SharePoint pages l Adding a monitored page

l Setting monitored page options l Editing monitored page settings

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Learning about the components and architecture

Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager lets you monitor your Microsoft SharePoint farms, servers, and pages. You can also analyze load times for individual pages and solutions. You can analyze the farm or individual Web Front End (WFE) servers. SharePoint dm management console is easy to use. SharePoint dm can scale to fit the needs of your environment no matter how com-plex.

SharePoint dm requires minimal changes to your existing Microsoft SharePoint farms.

What are the product components?

Management Console

The Management Console is a centralized, intuitive user interface that lets you configure SharePoint dm. It also lets you select the SharePoint farms to collect data from and to select the pages to monitor. The Management Console lets you review collected data and analyze your SharePoint deployment.

You can install the Management Console on multiple machines that share a single Col-lection Service. Each SharePoint Administrator can use the console to help manage their portion of the SharePoint farm. Multiple Management Consoles can connect to the same Collection Service at the same time.

Collection Service

The Collection Service runs on a computer that you specify and collects data from your SharePoint farm or farms. Your enterprise network can have multiple Collection Services installed, but the Management Console can only contact a single Collection Service at a time.

If the Collection Service encounters errors, it automatically logs them to the Windows Event Logs. You can use the Event Viewer to review the logs when errors occur. Repository Database

SharePoint dm Repository stores the data that the Collection Service collects from your SharePoint deployment. You use the Management Console to review the data and to man-age repository grooming. You specify the Microsoft SQL Server database to host the Repository when you install the Collection Service.

Solution

SharePoint dm solution helps the Collection Service gather data about the page load times, the solution load times, and other information. You install the solution on a Web Front End in your farm. As with other solutions, SharePoint automatically replicates it to the other WFEs in your farm.

How does SharePoint dm collect information from my servers?

SharePoint dm Collection Service uses Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and SQL queries to collect information about the performance of your SharePoint farm and the servers that make it up. The Collection Service cannot collect performance information from the farm if it can-not connect to the servers. You should ensure that the credentials that you supply when you add

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farm.In addition, you should ensure that the firewall settings on the network allow the Collection Service to connect to every server in the SharePoint farm. Finally, you should ensure that you do not disable or prevent remote access to WMI on the servers in the SharePoint farm.

On the SharePoint server that you specify as the Topology Server when you add the farm, the Collection Service also access the registry to determine the location of the Farm Configuration Database. The Collection Service uses SQL queries to the Farm Configuration Database to ana-lyze the composition of the SharePoint farm.

If your SharePoint farm includes one or more SQL Server Clusters, the Collection Service uses WMI information to analyze the composition of the cluster and locate all of the servers that make up the cluster.

The Collection Service uses SQL queries to the SQL Servers in the farm to collect configuration information, as well as database statistics and fragmentation information for the SharePoint data-bases. The credentials that you supply when you add the farm should allow the Collection Ser-vice to retrieve this data. The Collection SerSer-vice does not make changes to the SharePoint or other data hosted by your SQL Server. The Collection Service does store information in the SharePoint dm Repository on a SQL Server host that you specify. You can specify any SQL Server on network that meets the requirements as the repository host.

How does SharePoint dm collect information from my servers?

For information about the communications ports that the Collection Service uses, seeLearning about the communications ports.

For information about the permissions that the Collection Server needs, seePermission require-ments

Getting Started with Idera SharePoint diagnostic manager