Examining Performance

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.

Modifying the Indexing Service's Performance

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:

1. Open the Indexing Service console. In the console tree, right-click Indexing Service and choose Stop from the shortcut menu.
2. From the Action menu, point to All Tasks and choose Tune Performance.
3. In the Indexing Service Usage dialog box, you can select the option that best describes how this computer uses indexing:
   • Dedicated Server Adjusts performance settings to provide maximum Indexing Service performance. The underlying settings are "Instant" indexing and "High Load" querying.
   • Used Often, But Not Dedicated To This Service Adjusts performance settings to provide improved performance. The underlying settings are "Lazy" indexing and "Moderate Load" querying.
   • Used Occasionally Adjusts performance settings to provide lowest resource utilization at the expense of some performance loss. The underlying settings are "Lazy" indexing and "Low Load" querying.
   • Never Used Turns off Indexing Service.
   • Customize Allows the use of custom settings.
4. If you select the Customize option and then click Customize, the dialog box shown in Figure 27-14 opens.

   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.

5. Click OK twice when you're finished.

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.

Using Performance Monitor

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