eG Reporter
 

IIS Transaction Analysis Report

Whenever users to your mission-critical web sites (on an IIS web server) or web services (overlying an IIS web server) complaint of slowdowns, the first step to troubleshooting these issues is identifying which specific transaction(s) to the web sites is causing the slowdown. For this, you will have to periodically monitor the responsiveness of key transactions to your web sites, so as to quickly and accurately identify slow transactions. Also, by keenly observing the variations in the responsiveness of transactions over time, you can ascertain how often a transaction experienced slowdowns in a given timeline, determine whether that transaction is prone to delays, and investigate the root-cause of the same. To provide you with such in-depth historical insights into a transaction's performance, eG Enterprise offers the IIS Transaction Analysis report.

To generate this report, do the following:

  1. Select the IIS Transaction Analysis option from the Consolidated Reports node of the REPORTS BY FUNCTION tree.

  2. From the IIS TRANSACTION ANALYSIS page that appears, pick an IIS web server for which the report is to be generated from the Component list. In large environments, where a multitude of components are being monitored, many IIS web servers may be listed in the Component list box. Selecting a specific server from this ‘bottom-less’ list may take forever! You can hence filter your component list, so that you have a smaller set of components to choose from. For this, you can optionally pick a Service. This ensures that the Component list is populated with only those IIS web servers that are engaged in the delivery of a web site service. Pick the Component of interest to you from this list. If still the Component list consists of too many components, then viewing all the components and selecting the ones you need for report generation could require endless scrolling. To avoid this, you can click the button next to the Component list. The COMPONENTS pop up window will then appear using which you can view almost all the components in a single interface and select the ones for which the report is to be generated.

  3. Selecting a Component will populate the Transaction list with all those transactions that have been configured for the IIS Web Transactions test of that component. Pick the transaction(s) to be analyzed from this list.

  4. Then, choose a Category. You can either view a summary report or a detailed report by selecting an option from the Category drop-down list. To view a summary report, select the Summary option from the Category list and to view a detailed report, select the Details option. If you wish to view both the types of report at a single shot for the selected transactions, then select the Summary & Details option from the Category drop-down list.

  5. Specify a Timeline for the report.

    6. Note:

    For every user registered with the eG Enterprise system, the administrator can indicate the maximum timeline for which that user can generate a report. Once the maximum timeline is set for a user, then, whenever that user logs into eG Reporter and attempts to generate a report, the Timeline list box in the report page will display options according to the maximum timeline setting of that user. For instance, if a user can generate a report for a maximum period of 3 days only, then 3 days will be the highest option displayed in the Timeline list - i.e., 3 days will be the last option in the fixed Timeline list. Similarly, if the user chooses the Any option from the Timeline list and proceeds to provide a start date and end date for report generation using the From and To specifications, eG Enterprise will first check if the user's Timeline specification conforms to his/her maximum timeline setting. If not, report generation will fail. For instance, for a user who is allowed to generate reports spanning over a maximum period of 3 days only, the difference between the From and To dates should never be over 3 days. If it is, then, upon clicking the Run Report button a message box will appear, prompting the user to change the From and To specification.

  6. In addition to the settings discussed above, this report comes with a set of default specifications. These settings are hidden by default. If you do not want to disturb these default settings, then you can proceed to generate the report by clicking the Run Report button soon after you pick a Category. However, if you want to view and then alter these settings (if required), click on the button. The default settings will then appear in the MORE OPTIONS drop down window. The steps below discuss each of these settings and how they can be customized.

  7. Next, specify the start time and end time for report generation against the Time period field.

  8. If the timeline specified for the report needs to exclude the data collected during the Weekends, then set Exclude weekends to Yes. If you wish to collect data during weekends too, select No.

    Note:

    The Weekend settings for a Zone Performance report will apply to this report too.

  9. In large environments, reports generated using months of data can take a long time to complete. Administrators now have the option of generating reports on-line or in the background. When a report is scheduled for background generation, administrators can proceed with their other monitoring, diagnosis, and reporting tasks, while the eG manager is processing the report. This saves the administrator valuable time. To schedule background processing of a report, select the Background Save - PDF option or the Background Save - CSV option from the Report Generation list. In this case, a Report Name text box will appear where you would have to provide the name with which the report has to be saved in the background. To process reports in the foreground, select the Foreground Generation - HTML option from this list.

    10. Note:

    • The Report Generation list will appear only if the EnableBackgroundReport flag in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file (in the {EG_INSTALL_DIR}\manager\config directory) is set to Yes.
    • The default selection in the Report Generation list will change according to the Timeline specified for the report. If the Timeline set is greater than or equal to the number of days specified against the MinDurationForReport parameter in the [BACKGROUND_PROCESS] section of the eg_report.ini file, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Background. On the other hand, if the Timeline set for the report is lesser than the value of the MinDurationForReport parameter, then the default selection in the Report Generation list will be Foreground. This is because, the MinDurationForReport setting governs when reports are to be processed in the background. By default, this parameter is set to 2 weeks - this indicates that by default, reports with a timeline of 2 weeks and above will be processed in the background.

  10. Finally, click the Run Report button to generate the report.

  11. If the Category chosen is Summary, and if the Report Generation mode is set to Foreground Generation - HTML, then, clicking on the Run Report button will lead you to the Transaction summary page.

  12. The Transaction Summary page shows the Transaction Summary of the chosen Component. For every Transaction selected, this summary will indicate the following by default:

    • the total number of requests to the transaction that were processed during the given timeline (Total Transactions);
    • the number and percentage of transaction requests that resulted in a slow response (Slow Transactions);
    • the percentage of normal transactions (Normal Transactions);
    • the average response time of slow transactions (Average Response Time);
    • the number of requests to the transaction (Number of requests);

    13. Note:

    If you wish to view or configure additional metrics that are transaction centric, then you can add those measures in the [IIS_TRANSACTION_ANALYSIS] section of the eg_report.ini file in the <EG_INSTALL_DIR>\manager\config directory. These measures have to be included in the format Default:<InternalTest>:<InternalMeasure>#<DisplayName>=^ltComma-separated list of functions>.

    For instance, if you want the report to display the average response time taken for by each transaction, then your specification would be:

    Default:SlowTransTest:avgResTime#Average ResponseTime=Avg,Min,Max

    Similarly, you can also remove one/more default measures or modify them.

    From this summary, you can quickly isolate the ‘most popular’ transactions in terms of the number of requests. Additionally, you can determine how often the transactions have been responding slowly to user requests and thus, easily identify the 'least responsive' (i.e., slow) transactions.

  13. If the Details option is chosen from the Category drop down list, and the option chosen from the Report Generation list is Foreground Generation - HTML, then, clicking on the Run Report button will invoke the Transaction Details of the chosen transactions in a detailed manner.

  14. The generated report shows the Transaction Details of the chosen transactions. While the Summary report enables you to instantly isolate the ‘slow transactions’ to the web sites on the IIS web server, the Details report enables you to accurately point to the specific transaction requests that evoked a slow response. For every transaction request, the Transaction Details report tells you when the transaction was requested, the web site to which the transaction is associated, the user who requested for the transaction, the IP address from which the request was received, the responsiveness of the transaction, and the data that was transmitted.

  15. To have a quick glance at both the Summary and Details at one shot, select the Summary & Details option from the Category drop-down list, and click Run Report.The generated report will now display both the Transaction Summary and Transaction Details sections.

  16. This way, the IIS Transaction Analysis report not only sheds light on slow transactions, but also provides you with pointers to when the slowdown occurred and why.

  17. If the Background Save - PDF option is chosen from the Report Generation list, then clicking on the Run Report button will not generate the report and display it in this page for your benefit. Instead, a message indicating that the report is being processed in the background will appear. This will be accompanied by a link, that will lead you to the page that lists all the reports that are being processed in the background, and their current status. If background report generation fails for a report, you can regenerate that report using this page, or can even delete that report if need be. On the other hand, if background processing successfully completes for your report, then, you can view a PDF of the report by clicking on the icon in that page