The performance of the Indexing Service depends, obviously, on the number and size of the documents being indexed and the resources available to the Indexing Service. When the number of documents being indexed is fewer than 100,000, no special hardware or tuning is likely to be needed. The Indexing Service works in the background and without attention. As the number of documents grows, however, performance begins to lag unless sufficient memory is available.
You can adjust the performance of the Indexing Service based on how you use the service. It's not always necessary to perform hardware upgrades. Instead, you can reduce the amount of resources needed for indexing by reducing the demand that indexing places on the system. Alternatively, you can give the Indexing Service a high priority on a given system when many documents need to be processed. To adjust the Indexing Service's performance, follow these steps:
Move the Indexing slider to Instant for immediate indexing of all new and modified documents. Move the slider to Lazy for indexing to take place when the system isn't busy with other tasks and for indexing that will not affect overall system performance.
Move the Querying slider to High Load for processing many queries at a time. Move the slider to Low Load if few queries are expected at a time.
Figure 27-14. Customizing indexing performance.
Changes to the Indexing Service's performance are unlikely to have noticeable results except in an environment where indexing needs are either very high or very low. In most environments, the Indexing Service works unobtrusively in the background without fine-tuning.
Chapter 33 describes how to use the data from Performance Monitor to target processes and components that need to be optimized, monitor the results of tuning and configuration efforts, and understand and observe the trends in workloads and the corresponding effect they have on resource usage. Among the many performance counters available in Windows 2000 are several that can assist in monitoring the Indexing Service and the Indexing Service Filter. Table 27-4 lists the relevant counters and what they measure. See Chapter 33 for details on analyzing performance data to determine acceptable values for counters and for information on solving any performance problems that are found.
Table 27-4. Performance Monitor counters related to the Indexing Service
Performance Object | Counter | Description |
---|---|---|
Indexing Service | # documents indexed | Number of documents indexed in the current indexing session |
Deferred for indexing | Number of documents in use that need to be indexed | |
Documents to be indexed | Smallest number of documents known to need indexing | |
Index size (MB) | Total size, in megabytes, of all saved indexes | |
Merge progress | Percentage of merge completed | |
Running queries | Number of queries currently being processed | |
Saved indexes | Number of saved indexes | |
Total # of documents | Number of documents known to the Indexing Service | |
Total # of queries | Total number of queries in the current indexing session | |
Unique keys | Number of unique keys (words, properties) in the index | |
Word lists | Total number of word lists | |
Indexing Service Filter | Binding time (msec) | Average time in milliseconds to bind to a filter |
Indexing speed (MBph) | Speed of indexing document contents in megabytes per hour | |
Total indexing speed (MBph) | Speed of indexing document contents and properties, in megabytes per hour |