eG Monitoring
 

Measures reported by ExServiceAppBrowerTest

So that workbooks calculated using Excel Calculation Services can be rendered in the browser, Excel Services provides the Excel Web Access web part. This web part effectively creates HTML based on the output of Excel Calculation Services that mirrors the output we would expect to see if we were using the Excel client application. As well as rendering output, the web part also provides a similar level of interactivity to the Excel client application as well as a few custom features that have been designed for use in web applications. For example, an Excel Web Access web part can be placed on a page and configured to display only a particular chart. If the chart is generated based on a table of data within the spreadsheet, the data that makes up that table can be filtered by hooking up a filter web part to the Excel Web Access web part. By using techniques such as this, you can create highly interactive data visualization tools simply by leveraging the functionality of Excel.

To evaluate the efficiency of the Excel Web Access web part and to identify where its pain points are, use the ExServiceAppBrowerTest test. This test tracks requests to the Excel Web Access web part and measures how well it responds to these requests. In the process, the test pinpoints where this service's performance is slackening - when responding to chart requests? when generating grid content? or when deserializing workbooks?

NOTE:

This test will report metrics only if the Excel Calculation Service is available on the target SharePoint server.

Outputs of the test: One set of results each for the Microsoft Certificate Authority Server that is being monitored.

The measures made by this test are as follows:

Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation
AJAX_Requests Indicates the current number of Ajax requests that are received per second. Number  
Avg_Chart Indicates the average time (in seconds) that is spent by Excel Web Access to create a chart image and send a response to the web browser. Seconds Ideally, the value of this measure should be low. An unusually high value could indicate that the Excel Web Access is taking too long a time to service chart image requests.
Avg_grid Indicates the average time (in seconds) that is spent to generate the grid content. Seconds Ideally, the value of this measure should be low. An unusually high value could indicate that the Excel Web Access is taking too long a time to generate grid content.
Avg_workbook Indicates the average time (in seconds) that is spent to deserialize a workbook. Seconds Ideally, the value of this measure should be low. An unusually high value could indicate that the Excel Web Access is taking too long a time to deserialize workbooks.
Chart_Img Indicates the current number of requests per second for the chart images that are serviced by Excel Web Access. Number This is a good indicator of the demand for chart images.
Request_times Indicates the average request time (in seconds) that is spent in Excel Web Access between the last two samples. Seconds A consistent increase in the value of this measure is a cause for concern, as it implies that Excel Web Access is experiencing processing bottlenecks.