5.9 Managing a Commerce Server Installation

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There are a range of monitoring tools that make the process of managing a Commerce Server site as straightforward as possible. The objective of monitoring a Commerce Server site should be to ensure that the site is available as required by the business and capable of servicing the visitors or customers to the site appropriately, bearing in mind that there will be peaks and valleys in the use of most sites. Data from the performance monitoring process, such as event logs and alerts, are stored in a SQL Server database for later analysis.

An important point to note is that performance monitoring will introduce an overhead on the site, and it is possible to overmonitor a site, so that performance is adversely affected.

Benchmark, or calibration, tests are often undertaken prior to a site being made available for public use to determine the capacity of the hardware. This is especially useful when using new hardware, that is unfamiliar or a new technology that you have not experienced before.

The benchmark tests should determine the following:

• Maximum disk bytes per second

• Maximum physical disk writes per second

• Maximum physical disk reads per second

Any later disk throughput can then be measured against these values.

The site usage profile needs to be monitored on a regular basis, and any new trends emerging-such as more users at certain times than expected- will need to be factored into any medium-term hardware upgrades to improve capacity. Conversely, if the usage profile is lower than expected, this will need to be flagged back into the business for remedial action.

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