eG Monitoring
 

Measures reported by CRMAuthenticTest

Microsoft Dynamics CRM supports two security models for authentication: claims-based authentication and Active Directory authentication. The type of authentication used depends on the type of deployment your application is accessing: Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online or Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011.

In large environments where both types of deployments are in vogue, it becomes imminent to identify the security model that plays a major role in authentication.This is where the CRMAuthenticTest test helps! This test reveals the numerical statistics of the following:

  • The authentication requests that were unsuccessful
  • The authentication requests that were processed per minute
  • The authentication requests that failed when processed using the active directory authentication credentials, Windows Live ID, claim based authentication respectively
  • The authentication requests that were processed using the active directory authentication credentials, Windows Live ID, laim based authentication respectively.
  • The authentication requests that were processed using the MSCRM_CONFIG database.

The measures made by this test are as follows:

Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation
Win_auth_fail Indicates the number of unsuccessful authentication requests per minute. Number The authentication failure may have occurred due to various causes such as the failure in communication between the Microsoft Dynamics CRM and the Kerberos servers even though the user was successfully authenticated by the active directory, a token expiry or due to invalid user credentials. A low value is desired for this measure. A high value of this measure may indicate that either the server is possibly under a Denial of Service attack or there is a problem with the Authentication service configuration.
Win_auth_attempt Indicates the total number of authentication requests that were processed per minute. Number The value of this measure is the sum of both successful and unsuccessful authentication requests.

This measure is a clear indicator of the load on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server in terms of authentication requests.

Post_auth_fail Indicates the total number of authentication requests that failed when processed using the Active Directory authentication credentials. Number This measure is the total value of all successful and unsuccessful authentication attempts.
Post_auth_attempt Indicates the number of authentication requests that were processed using the active directory authentication credentials. Number  
Passport_auth_fail Indicates the number of failed authentication requests per minute that are processed using the authentication credentials of the Microsoft account i.e., the Windows Live ID. Number A low value is desired for this measure. A high value of this measure may indicate that either the server is possibly under a Denial of Service attack or there is a problem with the authentication service configuration.
Passport_auth_attempt Indicates the number of authentication requests per minute that were processed using Windows Live ID authentication credentials. Number  
Claim_auth_attempt Indicates the number of authentication requests per minute that were processed using claim based authentication. Number Claims-based authentication provides an industry standard security protocol to authenticate a user on a host computer. Claims-based authentication is a set of WS-* standards describing the use of a Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) token in either passive mode (when WS-Federation is used with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 web application) or active mode (where WS-Trust is used with Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) clients). This authentication works together with WCF to provide secure user authentication and a communication channel with a Microsoft Dynamics CRM server.
Claim_auth_fail Indicates the number of authentication requests that failed per minute when processed using claim based authentication. Number
Config_auth_attempt Indicates the number of unsuccessful authentication requests per minute that were processed using active directory authentication credentials. Number A low value is desired for this measure. A high value of this measure may indicate that either the server is possibly under a Denial of Service attack or there is a problem with the authentication service configuration.
Config_auth_fail Indicates the number of authentication requests that were processed using the MSCRM_CONFIG database. Number The MSCRM_CONFIG database houses implementation data and other information relevant to the usage of all the databases available in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server.

The value of this measure includes both successful and unsuccessful authentication requests that were processed.

This measure is a clear indicator of the load on the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server.