Chapter 15: Logging and Processing Analysis

Overview

Proper configuration of the native logging, auditing, reporting, and analysis tools allows you to maintain and continually improve your Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Server implementations. It is of particular importance to correctly configure logging and reporting in SharePoint Products, or you will have little data to troubleshoot in the event of a problem. Careful system monitoring can avert outages and is useful for quickly and accurately identifying and correcting problems should they arise. Note that, although it is important to maintain adequate system information, the amount of information can become overwhelming. Therefore, determine carefully and deliberately the levels of logging, auditing, reporting, and analysis you require because both too little and too much information can make interpretation difficult. Following is a list of the tools available to maintain and troubleshoot SharePoint Technologies:

• System Monitor The System Monitor is useful for monitoring acute issues, such as memory utilization, CPU utilization, and disk I/O performance.

• Counter Logs Counter Logs are ideal for long-term tracking of performance issues. They can be stored in an SQL database, which allows the data to be queried.

• Alerts Alerts are triggered when critical values are met. They are useful for initiating monitoring or running other functions when a usage spike is encountered.

• Trace Logs Trace Logs are useful when a server is severely affected or STOP errors are encountered.

• Windows Event Logs Windows SharePoint Services and SharePoint Server are capable of sending events to the Windows Server Event Viewer, Eventvwr.exe. In fact, this is the most common method of routine monitoring and reporting of SharePoint Products.