Default Parameters for SPFarmTest

This test auto-discovers the SharePoint farm in which the monitored SharePoint server resides. Periodically, the test checks the status of this farm and alerts you if the farm goes offline. This way, you can initiate timely measures for restoring the farm to normalcy and in the process, ensure that users are able to access servers and services continuously. The test also reports the number, types, and names of servers in this farm and points you to the offline servers. Disabled service instances in the farm are also brought to light by this test. Additionally, the test also draws your attention to servers in a farm that need to be upgraded, so that you can quickly apply the required patches/hot fixes on those servers and maximize their performance.

This page depicts the default parameters that need to be configured for the SPFarmTest.

• The TEST PERIOD list box helps the user to decide how often this test needs to be executed.

• Typically, farm-level metrics - eg., metrics on farm status, site collections, usage analytics - will not vary from one SharePoint server in the farm to another. If these metrics are collected and stored in the eG database for each monitored server in the SharePoint farm, it is bound to unnecessarily consume space in the database and increase processing overheads. To avoid this, farm-level metrics collection is by default switched off for the member servers in the SharePoint farm, and enabled only if the server being monitored is provisioned as the Central Administration site. Accordingly, the FETCH FARM MEASURES is set to If Central Administration by default. This default setting ensures that farm-level metrics are collected from and stored in the database for only a single SharePoint server in the farm.  

  If you want to completely switch-off farm-level metrics collection for a SharePoint farm, then set this parameter to No.

  Some high-security environments may not allow an eG agent to be deployed on the Central Administration site. Administrators of such environments may however require farm-level insights into status and performance. To provide these insights for such environments, you can optionally enable farm-level metrics collection from any monitored member server in the farm, even if that server is not provisioned as the Central Administration site. For this, set this parameter to Yes when configuring this test for that member server. 

• When monitoring a SharePoint 2010 server, this test has to be configured with the credentials of a domain user with the following privileges:

  • The user should be part of the SharePoint Farm Administrators group. To know how to add a user to this group, click here.

  • The user should have shell admin access to all databases in SharePoint. To know how to grant this privilege to a user, click here.

  • The user should be part of the following groups on the eG agent host:

    • Administrators

    • WSS_ADMIN_WPG

    • IIS_USRS

    • Performance Monitor Users

    • WSS_WPG

    • Users

    To know how to add a user to one of these groups, click here.

  • The user should have full control access to each web application that needs to be monitored on the Sharepoint server. To know how to grant this level of access to a user, click here.

  • The user should have read and execute access to the eG agent install directory. To know how to grant this level of access to a user, click here.

  It is recommended that you create a special user for this purpose and assign the aforesaid privileges to him/her. Once such a user is created, specify the domain to which that user belongs in the Domain text box, and then, enter the credentials of the user in the DOMAIN USER and PASSWORD text boxes. To confirm the password, retype it in the CONFIRM PASSWORD text box.

• Once the necessary values have been provided, clicking on the UPDATE button will register the changes made.

When changing default configurations of tests, the values with “$” indicate variables that will be replaced by the eG system according to the specific server being managed - for instance, $hostName is the host/nickname of the target host, $port is the port number of the server being monitored. E.g., for a server xyz:80, $hostName will be changed automatically by the eG manager to “xyz” and $port will be changed to “80” when configuring a test.