Using Log File Data

Windows Media Services logging plug-ins are used to collect statistics about the server’s operation. A logging plug-in can write logging statistics to a text file, or to a named pipe if you are using Microsoft SQL Server to collect data. There will be separate log files for unicasts, multicasts, and cache/proxy servers.

Reporting Data About Unicasts

Clients that connect to unicast content from your Windows Media server report their logging statistics back to the Windows Media server that hosted the publishing point to which they connected. To collect this data, the WMS Client Logging plug-in must be enabled on your Windows Media server. The logging plug-in can be used to log information about the activity of the entire server, or it can be enabled on a specific publishing point on the server. The server and publishing point logs work in conjunction to give you the entire picture of the unicast activity on your server.

Reporting Data About Multicasts

Because clients that connect to a multicast do not connect to the Windows Media server, they do not have a means to report back to that server. However, if you are using IIS Web services to host your multicast information file and announcement files or if you have saved these files to a network share, you can use the Multicast and Advertisement Logging Agent to collect limited usage data from multicast clients.

The Multicast and Advertisement Logging Agent is an optional subcomponent of Windows Media Services and is not installed by default. To install this component on your IIS server, do the following:

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, click Add or Remove Programs, and then select Add/Remove Windows Components.

2. When the Windows Components Wizard opens, select Windows Media Services, and then click Details.

3. Select Multicast and Advertisement Logging Agent from the list of available subcomponents.

4. Click OK to install the agent on the server.

The Multicast and Advertisement Logging Agent should be installed on your IIS server and not your Windows Media server. Therefore, when using the Multicast and Advertisement Logging Agent on an IIS server, it is not necessary to install the other three Windows Media Services subcomponents (Windows Media Services, Windows Media Services Administrator for the Web, and Windows Media Services snap-in).

Reporting Data from Cache/Proxy and Distribution Servers

When you use a cache/proxy or distribution server to distribute content, you have additional unicast logging choices. The WMS Client Logging plug-in enables you to choose whether to have cache/proxy servers forward client logs to the origin server. If the logs are not forwarded, then they are retained on the cache/proxy server. Fabrikam wants to collect all of its logs on the origin server, so they elect to enable this feature by following these steps:

1. Select the cache/proxy server from the console tree.

2. In the details pane, click Properties, and then click Logging.

3. Right-click the WMS Client Logging plug-in, and then click Properties.

4. Click the Log Entries tab, and then select the Sessions played from a player cache or a cache/proxy server check box.

Distribution servers only report information about their connection to the origin server and are not able to forward client connection statistics. The WMS Client Logging plug-in can be enabled on the distribution server and collect client logging data about the clients that connect to it, but that information must be correlated with the logging information from the origin server to get the entire picture of the client activity supported by the origin server.

When analyzing the logging data from the origin server, you can expect to see the following information:

• A single log entry for each connection from the distribution server to the origin server, regardless of the number of clients connected simultaneously to the distribution server.

• A log entry for the cache/proxy server client.

• A log entry for caching the content on the cache/proxy server, plus all the logs from clients that streamed the content from the cache/proxy server.

For a complete list of fields reported in Windows Media log files, see appendix C.