Key SharePoint Performance Metrics

1. Marcus Erickson SharePoint Product Manager, Idera Software Key SharePoint Performance Metrics

2. What are we going to talk about? • Basics of SharePoint performance for IT pros • Basics of performance monitoring • Key performance metrics • What we are not going to talk about: • Optimizing your SharePoint code • Advanced capacity planning • End-to-end SharePoint performance tuning

3. SharePoint performance • Goals • Keep users happy and productive • Solve problems - If content IS NOT loading fast you have to diagnose the underlying cause • Capacity Planning - If content IS loading fast gather data for planning and staying ahead of the curve • My goals today: • Information targeted at IT Pros • Which key counters to watch for every day administration • Provide lists and resources for light reading at home so you can continue digging deeper

4. Who am I? • Marcus Erickson • SharePoint Product Manager/Developer at Idera • My Background • Wrote first program in 1978 – written in Basic a paper feeding teletype machine with an acoustic coupler running at speeds up to 300 baud • Plus we had to code uphill in the snow for 10 miles • Code lots of things over the years: • Handheld Operating System, Linker, Virtual Memory Library, .RTPatch, Voice Recognition Systems, Life Insurance Proposal Systems, etc, etc • But for the last 15 years I have focused on the needs of IT: • Mission Critical/NetIQ – Windows administration & security • Idera - Designed and wrote several of Idera’s SQL Server products including SQL compliance manager, SharePoint diagnostic manager • Currently directing my energies to helping SharePoint admins – this market needs tools

5. SharePoint to an End User

6. SharePoint to an Administrator • Image courtesy of SharePoint magazine

7. Behind the scenes IT / SP Administrator Content Developers Create pages and other data – write code Tune/Profile code Don’t want to care about hardware Expect IT to be magical and treat the SharePoint farm as a “cloud” Blame Administrators • Manage the hardware • Keep SharePoint up and fast • Must figure out when to add hardware, faster machines etc • Want to know about problems before end users • Blame developers

8. Performance Data/Tools • Performance Counters • SharePoint Health Analyzer • WMI • PowerShell • SharePoint object model • MOM • SCOM • Lots of third party tools • Some specific, for one purpose or product; some generic perf monitors • There are 1000’s of performance counters out there from Windows, SharePoint and other apps to help you fine tune • Around 100 on just SharePoint Indexer alone

9. The key performance indicator • CPU, CPU, CPU • This is part of everything • Processing page requests • SQL Server queries • Indexing • Processes running on machine • Etc. • If the CPU is overloaded all is slow • Causes • IT just threw SharePoint on one of their old servers • Underpowered machines • Too many SharePoint services sharing same machine • Too many users hitting same machine • Easiest way to do basic scaling is add more power or split programs or content across servers

10. CPU on system that is OK • Random spikes are OK • You care about average over time

11. Long periods of high CPU • Long periods of high CPU signal that you should pay attention • Look for scheduled processes running – building indexes, SQL maintenance , backups – should during off times • Other patterns of activity (everyone logging in at 9am)

12. High Average CPU • Check user load on machine (IIS connections) • Check if other processes are sucking up CPU • Consistently high CPU means you need higher powered machine or need to split things across machines • Check for heavy pages

13. OK, so others are important too • SharePoint servers are just Windows based computers • So the basics are the top priority: • CPU • Disk • Memory • Network

14. What should I measure Note: these are overtime; you should set up alerts for problems like disk secs/operation; asp requests queued or rejected

15. Suggested thresholds (over time)

16. Example – monitoring disk space • Which drives to monitor? • Everywhere SharePoint lives • Drives with SharePoint databases – data and log files • Drives with SharePoint log files • Disks with other SharePoint content • Metrics • Available space MB • Available % free • Total used • SQL data and log file sizes • Want to watch current size and growth over time

17. Watch the basics until there is a problem: • Digging into problems will mean looking beyond one counter: • Sample Questions • Was user load high when problem occurred? • Was CPU high while pages loaded slowly? • Look at other processes to see what’s keeping CPU from SharePoint? • e.g. building indexes during business day; SQL auto growth • Was number of connections high while CPU was high? • Your system may not scale for high loads • Was disk activity high while pages were slow? • Is SQL auto growing or defragmenting a database?

18. Levels of investigation

19. Performance Monitor • Windows Performance Monitor is a powerful tool • In the old days you were limited to watching live or capturing in a log • Now you can also: • Basic alerting – start other collections, launch scripts etc • Save collections of counters • Reports • Don’t use default 1 second interval – it will auto-average over time for you! • Live doesn’t help you diagnose a problem that happened yesterday!

20. Observer Effect • For most metrics you want to monitor from remote machines • For example it takes CPU and Memory to run perfmon so it will skew your metrics • One notable exception is network traffic since then you are sending performance data across network • http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Run-Performance-Monitor-Locally-Remotely.html

21. Scripting • Also available via scripts so you do what you want with the data • PowerShell • # List all of the performance counters you can monitor • Get-Counter –listSet * | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Paths • # Get one sample of the processor time Get-Counter '\Processor(*)\% Processor Time' # • Get a sample of the processor time until you press CTRL + C • Get-Counter '\Processor(*)\% Processor Time' –Continuous • Available via WMI • Monitoring Performance using WMI • http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms974615.aspx

22. Suggested Readings Follow

23. General SP Metrics • What deeper SharePoint metrics are available? • Of course more and more computer metrics • http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff758658.aspx • Metrics for individual SharePoint services

24. Suggested Computer Metrics • Source: Joel Oleson’s Blog • http://blogs.msdn.com/b/joelo/archive/2007/01/16/good-list-of-performance-counters.aspx • Replace the server name $fe1$ with your front end and $be1$ with the back end server name.  • Front End Performance Counters • \\$fe1$\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time • \\$fe1$\Process(LSASS)\% Processor Time • \\$fe1$\Process(w3wp)\% Processor Time • \\$fe1$\Process(OWSTIMER)\% Processor Time • \\$fe1$\Memory\Pages/sec • \\$fe1$\Memory\Pages/sec • \\$fe1$\Memory\Available Bytes • \\$fe1$\System\Context Switches/sec • \\$fe1$\Process(w3wp)\Working Set • \\$fe1$\Process(w3wp)\Private Bytes • \\$fe1$\Process(w3wp)\Page Faults/sec • \\$fe1$\Process(w3wp)\Working Set • \\$fe1$\Process(w3wp)\Working Set Peak • \\$fe1$\Process(w3wp)\Virtual Bytes • \\$fe1$\Process(w3wp)\Virtual Bytes Peak • \\$fe1$\Process(w3wp)\Private Bytes • \\$fe1$\Process(w3wp)\Page File Bytes • \\$fe1$\Process(w3wp)\Page File Bytes Peak • \\$fe1$\Process(OWSTIMER)\% Processor Time • \\$be1$\PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Write Bytes/sec • Back End (SQL Server) Performance Counters • \\$be1$\\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time • \\$be1$\Memory\Pages/sec • \\$be1$\System\Context Switches/sec • \\$be1$\Process(sqlservr)\% Processor Time • \\$be1$\Process(sqlservr)\Working Set • \\$be1$\Process(sqlservr)\Private Bytes • \\$be1$\SQLServer:SQL Statistics\Batch Requests/sec • \\$be1$\PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Current Disk Queue Length • \\$be1$\PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Disk Read Bytes/sec

25. IIS • IIS is important to SharePoint – should I add WFEs etc. • Some key metrics • In addition to per process ones on previous slides: • \\$fe1$\ASP.NET\Request Execution Time • \\$fe1$\ASP.NET\Request Wait Time • \\$fe1$\ASP.NET\Requests Queued • \\$fe1$\ASP.NET\Requests Rejected • \\$fe1$\ASP.NET\Worker Process Restarts • \\$fe1$\ASP.NET\Application Restarts

26. SQL Server Counters • See the load on each SQL Server to decide if you need to split site collections across machines • General • User Connections • Number of logins/logouts • Database level information • Data file size • Log file size • Active transactions • Transactions/sec • Other interesting • Locks • Deadlocks/sec • Lock waits/sec • Average wait time • Lock wait time • Average latch time • and more…

27. SharePoint Services • Examples of services with metrics • Search Gatherer • Search Gather Projects • Search Indexer Catalog • Search Archival Plug-In • Excel Services Web Front End • Excel Calculation Services

28. Resources • Marcus Erickson • Marcus.Erickson@idera.com • www.idera.com • General • Secrets of SharePoint • 10 Steps to Optimize SharePoint Performance by Eric Shupps • http://www.idera.com/Content/Resources.aspx • Monitoring and Maintaining SharePoint 2010 • http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff758658.aspx • Fast Search 2010 for SharePoint • http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff383282.aspx • The PerfmonDilemna • http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/perfmon-dilema-725 • Performance monitor – A practical approach • http://ftp.dell.com/app/Perfmon.pdf • PowerShell • My first useful PowerShellscript – capturing performance counters • http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/sqlandthelike/archive/2009/11/30/my-first-useful-powershell-script-capturing-performance-counters.aspx • Get the number of SharePoint connections • http://geekswithblogs.net/Lance/archive/2009/06/03/get-the-number-of-current-sharepoint-connections.aspx

29. Idera Solutions for SharePoint Performance and availability monitoring for SharePoint 11 Tools to simplify SharePoint management Enterprise-class backup and recovery for SharePoint sites Architect, organize and migrate SharePoint content Fast, effective SharePoint security administration Power tools for SharePoint administrators and developers

30. Thank you Marcus Erickson SharePoint Product Manager, Idera Software