Monitoring a SharePoint 2010 Environment : Understanding Timer Jobs for SharePoint 2010

Timer jobs, as shown in Figure 1, are critical components in SharePoint jobs. They are used to fire off tasks on a schedule basis and are critical to the smooth operation of a farm. It is critical to understand which timer jobs are configured and how to modify them to understand how to administer a SharePoint environment.

Figure 1. Viewing timer jobs.

Modifying Timer Jobs

The schedule for individual timer jobs can be modified by clicking on the name of the timer job from within the Timer Job page, located within the Monitoring area of the SharePoint Central Admin Tool. Jobs can be modified to occur as often as every minute or as seldom as monthly. In addition, individual timer jobs can be kicked off by clicking the Run Now button, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Modifying the schedule for individual timer jobs.

Monitoring Timer Jobs

The status for any one timer job can also be easily monitored, this time by clicking the Check Job Status link within the Monitoring page of SharePoint Central Admin. The job schedule is shown at the top of the page, and job status is shown as the bottom, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Monitoring timer job status.

In addition to the SharePoint Central Admin tool, the PowerShell scripting interface can be used to administer timer jobs. Type Get-Command *SPTimerJob from PowerShell to get a list of commands that can be used to administer timer jobs from the command line.