Monitoring a SharePoint 2010 Environment : Using SharePoint’s Native Reporting Capabilities

Out-of-the-box, SharePoint 2010 gives administrators access to a default set of reports, some of which are shown in Figure 1, that can analyze traffic patterns or perform diagnostics on an environment.

Figure 1. Examining SharePoint 2010 reports.

The default set of reports can also be extended by third-party utilities or with custom created reports. In addition, SharePoint administrators can customize individual reports to fit their own specific needs.

Note

SharePoint reporting can be further extended using SQL Server Reporting Services running in SharePoint Integration Mode.

Reviewing and Creating Reports

You can view and modify individual reports from the Reporting area of the Monitoring page in the SharePoint Central Admin tool, as shown in Figure 2. From this launching point, a SharePoint administrator can view and modify the settings for administrative reports, diagnostic logs, information management policy usage reports, health reports, usage and health data collection, and web analytics reports.

Figure 2. Viewing the Monitoring page in the SharePoint Central Admin tool.

Reports such as the one shown in Figure 3 can give useful information about a site and its usage and can be instrumental in troubleshooting and monitoring a SharePoint farm.

Figure 3. Viewing a SharePoint 2010 report.

Optimizing Usage Data Collection Log Settings

By default, usage data collection logs, which are used to analyze traffic patterns on SharePoint sites, are stored on the default system volume with the rest of the SharePoint data. Because these files can grow quite large, it is recommended to move them to their own volume or limit their growth. To modify these settings for the farm, click the Configure Usage and Health Data Collection link under the Monitoring section of SharePoint Central Admin, and modify the settings, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Modifying the usage data collection log location.

Note

The location for the usage collection logs must exist on all SharePoint servers in the farm. This note applies to any other log location setting defined, because these settings apply to every server within the farm.

Modifying Diagnostic Log Settings

Diagnostic logs can be used to determine if there are issues with individual services in SharePoint 2010. Logging for individual services can be turned on or off in the Diagnostic Logging dialog box, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Viewing diagnostic log settings.

Other settings for diagnostic logs, including which drive the trace files are stored on and how large they can grow, can be modified from this same page, as shown in Figure 6. It is highly recommended to control the growth of trace files, because they can grow large very quickly. In general, enable only those diagnostic files that you need to avoid growing out of control, and it is good practice to change the location that they are written to something other than the system drive where SharePoint is installed.

Figure 6. Modifying the Trace Log default location.