Microsoft Official Course

Module 14

Monitoring and Maintaining a

SharePoint 2013 Environment
Module Overview

• Monitoring a SharePoint 2013 Environment

• Tuning and Optimizing a SharePoint Environment
• Planning and Configuring Caching
• Troubleshooting a SharePoint 2013 Environment
Lesson 1: Monitoring a SharePoint 2013
Environment

• Planning for Maintenance and Monitoring

• Planning for Quality Assurance
• Tools and Capabilities for Monitoring in
SharePoint 2013
• Using the SharePoint Health Analyzer
• Logging Usage and Health Data
• Guidelines for Configuring Diagnostic Logging
Planning for Maintenance and Monitoring

• Provide proactive maintenance

• Meet service level agreements (SLAs)

• Maintain documentation
• Which tasks to perform
• How to perform each task
• How often to perform each task
• Who should perform each task
• Who should maintain the documentation
Planning for Quality Assurance

• Quality Assurance:

• Focuses on improving and stabilizing the service

• Minimizes issues that lead to service interruptions

• Forms part of an overall service management framework

• IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
• Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) 4.0
Tools and Capabilities for Monitoring in
SharePoint 2013

• SharePoint Health Analyzer

• Diagnostic logging

• Usage and health data collection

• Performance counters
Using the SharePoint Health Analyzer

• Configure health rules

• Scope
• Schedule
• Enable or disable
• Repair automatically

• Configure health schedules

• Run timer jobs during periods of low demand
Logging Usage and Health Data

• Usage and health data is collected in log files

• Log files are used to update the logging database

• View usage and health data in various ways:

• View health reports in Central Administration
• Generate usage reports on individual site collections
• Create reports from the logging database (for example
SQL Server Reporting Services)
Guidelines for Configuring Diagnostic Logging

• Best practices for diagnostic logging:

• Change the drive that logging writes to
• Restrict log disk space usage
• Use the Verbose setting sparingly
• Regularly back up logs
• Enable event log flooding protection

• Unified Logging Service

• Log management with Windows PowerShell

Lab A: Monitoring a SharePoint 2013
Deployment

• Exercise 1: Configuring Usage and Health Data

Collection
• Exercise 2: Configuring SharePoint Diagnostic
Logging
• Exercise 3: Configuring Health Analyzer Rules
• Exercise 4: Reviewing Usage and Health Data
Logon Information
• Virtual Machine: 20331B-NYC-DC-14,
20331B-NYC-DB-14, 20331B-NYC-SP-14
• User name: administrator@contoso.com
• Passw0rd: Pa$$w0rd
Estimated Time: 40 minutes
Lab Scenario

Contoso has produced a governance plan for the

new SharePoint 2013 intranet deployment. The
governance plan covers several aspects of
monitoring and maintenance. Your task is to
implement these aspects of the governance plan.
First, you will configure diagnostic logging and the
SharePoint Health Analyzer, to help the IT team
identify potential issues early. Next, you will
configure usage analysis to help the IT team
understand how Contoso is using the SharePoint
deployment, and to plan for future growth.
Lesson 2: Tuning and Optimizing a SharePoint
Environment

• Quantifying Performance
• Server Roles in SharePoint 2013
• Software Boundaries and Capacity Guidelines
• Optimizing Storage Configuration
• Optimizing Network Configuration
• Optimizing Database Configuration
• Identifying and Resolving Bottlenecks
• Discussion: Optimizing SharePoint Environments
Quantifying Performance

• Latency

• Throughput

• Data scale

• Reliability
Server Roles in SharePoint 2013

• WFE servers

• Application servers

• Search servers

• Database servers
Software Boundaries and Capacity Guidelines

Regularly review software boundaries and capacity

guidelines for:

• Web applications and IIS websites

• Content databases

• Site collections and content

• Users and groups

Optimizing Storage Configuration

• Disk storage options:

• Direct-attached storage (DAS)
• Storage area network (SAN)
• Network-attached storage (NAS)

• RAID options:
• Data striping
• Disk mirroring
• Parity data
Optimizing Network Configuration

• Network load balancing:

• Monitor health of WFE servers
• Route requests to server experiencing least load
• Exclude unresponsive servers

• Request management:
• Complements NLB, doesn’t replace it
• Analyze incoming HTTP requests
• Use rules to route requests based on HTTP attributes
Optimizing Database Configuration

• TempDB

• Content databases

• MAXDOP

• Auto Create Statistics/Auto Update Statistics

Identifying and Resolving Bottlenecks

• Monitor hardware performance counters in four

key areas:
• Processor
• Disk
• Memory
• Network

• Monitor platform performance counters in two

key areas:
• Process
• ASP.NET
Discussion: Optimizing SharePoint Environments

• Which optimizations have led to the biggest

performance improvements in SharePoint
environments you have worked on?
Lesson 3: Planning and Configuring Caching

• Planning and Configuring BLOB Caching

• Planning and Configuring Page Output Caching
• Planning and Configuring Object Caching
• Planning and Configuring the Distributed Cache
Planning and Configuring BLOB Caching

• Stores copies of BLOB files on disk

• Avoids retrieving file from database server on

every request

• Disabled by default

• Enable in the Web.config file

Planning and Configuring Page Output Caching

• Stores HTML output for SharePoint content pages in memory

• Avoids regenerating the page on every request

• Disabled by default

• Only available on publishing sites

• Provides rule-based caching

• Enable and configure in site collection settings:

• Create cache profiles
• Select anonymous cache profile
• Select authenticated cache profile
Planning and Configuring Object Caching

• Stores SharePoint objects (SPSite, SPWeb, SPList) in

memory

• Used by navigation providers and the Content Query

Web Part, can be leveraged by developers

• Enabled by default on publishing sites

• Not available on non-publishing sites

• Monitor cache compactions and increase cache size if

required
Planning and Configuring the Distributed Cache

• Essential for micro-blogging and newsfeeds

• Improves performance of many other services

• Runs in two modes:

• Dedicated mode
• Collocated mode

• Administrative tasks include:

• Changing the allocated memory
• Adding and removing cache hosts
Lesson 4: Troubleshooting a SharePoint 2013
Environment

• Discussion: Troubleshooting Tools

• Performance Management Modeling in
SharePoint 2013
• Performance Testing in SharePoint 2013
• Analyzing the SharePoint Diagnostic Logs
• Server-Side Request Tracing
• Client-Side Request Tracing
• Using the Developer Dashboard
Discussion: Troubleshooting Tools

• Which tools would you use on a regular basis to

troubleshoot issues in a SharePoint environment?
Performance Management Modeling in
SharePoint 2013

Pilot, test,
Model Design and
optimize

Monitor and
Deploy
maintain
Performance Testing in SharePoint 2013

• Simulate anticipated production environment load

• Various load testing tools available

• Visual Studio 2012 load-testing:

• Local load generation
• Distributed test controller and test agents

• A web test sends a request to a specific URL

• A load test comprises several web tests with ratios

Analyzing the SharePoint Diagnostic Logs

• Windows event log draws attention to problems

• ULS trace logs provide more detail for

troubleshooting

• Use correlation IDs to locate log entries that relate

to a request or error message

• Use ULSViewer or a similar tool for user-friendly

view of ULS log data

• Use Windows PowerShell to query log data

Server-Side Request Tracing

• Microsoft Message Analyzer

• Replaces Network Monitor
• Troubleshoot network connectivity issues

• IIS failed request tracing

• Configure in IIS Manager
• Troubleshoot request processing issues
• Rules-based logging
Client-Side Request Tracing

• Use client-side tracing to diagnose:

• Slow load times
• Partial request failures (images not rendering)
• Caching behavior
• CDN issues

• Fiddler

• F12 Developer Tools

Using the Developer Dashboard

• Detailed insights into SharePoint page processing

• Load times per Web Part, etc.
• Database calls
• Service calls
• ULS log entries

• Enable and disable in Windows PowerShell

Lab B: Investigating Page Load Times

• Exercise 1: Analyzing Network Traffic

• Exercise 2: Analyzing SharePoint Page
Performance

Logon Information
• Virtual Machine: 20331B-NYC-DC-14,
20331B-NYC-DB-14, 20331B-NYC-SP-14
• User name: administrator@contoso.com
• Passw0rd: Pa$$w0rd

Estimated Time: 20 minutes

Lab Scenario

Contoso users have reported slow load times for

certain pages on the new SharePoint 2013 intranet
deployment. Your task is to investigate and
identify any issues that could cause unnecessarily
slow page load times. First, you will capture and
analyze the network traffic generated by
SharePoint page requests. Next, you will use the
SharePoint Developer Dashboard to identify any
issues on specific SharePoint pages.
Module Review and Takeaways

• Review Question(s)
Course Evaluation