IIS Web Site Requests Test

One of the key indicators of the performance of a web site is user experience with that site. If a web site responds slowly to user requests, user experience with that site will be anything but pleasant. To ensure peak performance of the web sites on an IIS web server at all times, administrators should continuously track user requests to each web site, measure the responsiveness of the web site to the requests, identify the slow web sites, ascertain the reason for the slowness, and clear the bottleneck. This is where the IIS Web Site Requests test helps.

This test automatically discovers the web sites on an IIS web server and for each web site reports the request load on that web site and the count of requests that were processed slowly by the site. This way, the test pinpoints the slow web sites. Using the detailed diagnosis of the test, you can also identify the exact request URLs that are slow. This information helps administrators isolate and address the root-cause of the slowness .

Target of the test : An IIS web server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent;

Outputs of the test : One set of results for every web site on the target IIS web server

Configurable parameters for the test
  1. TEST PERIOD - How often should the test be executed .
  2. Host - The host for which the test is to be configured
  3. Port - The port to which the specified host listens

  4. website name - By default, this parameter is set to none. This implies that the test monitors all web sites, by default. If you want the test to monitor a specific web site alone, then specify that web site name here.

    Note:

    If this test is configured with a web site name, then all other web site-related tests of the target IIS web server will report metrics for this web site only.

  5. slow request cut off - If a request is processed for a period equal to or more than the duration (in second) specified here, then such a request is counted as a slow request. By default, the slow request cut off is 4. This means that, by default, the test will report all requests that take 4 seconds or more to be serviced as slow requests. You can override this default setting by specified a different cut-off value here.
  6. DD Frequency - Refers to the frequency with which detailed diagnosis measures are to be generated for this test. The default is 1:1. This indicates that, by default, detailed measures will be generated every time this test runs, and also every time the test detects a problem. You can modify this frequency, if you so desire. Also, if you intend to disable the detailed diagnosis capability for this test, you can do so by specifying none against DD Frequency. 
  7. DETAILED DIAGNOSIS - To make diagnosis more efficient and accurate, the eG Enterprise embeds an optional detailed diagnostic capability. With this capability, the eG agents can be configured to run detailed, more elaborate tests as and when specific problems are detected. To enable the detailed diagnosis capability of this test for a particular server, choose the On option. To disable the capability, click on the Off option.

    The option to selectively enable/disable the detailed diagnosis capability will be available only if the following conditions are fulfilled:

    • The eG manager license should allow the detailed diagnosis capability
    • Both the normal and abnormal frequencies configured for the detailed diagnosis measures should not be 0.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Requests being processed

Indicates the total number of requests to this web site that are currently being processed.

Number

This is a good indicator of the current workload of a web site.

To view the details of active requests, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure.

Slow requests

Indicates the number of requests to this web site that are slow.

Number

Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0. A non-zero value denotes that one/more requests to this web site have violated the SLOW REQUEST CUT OFF configured for this test.

Compare the value of this measure across web sites to know which web site is slow.

To know which request URLs are processed slowly by a web site, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure.

The detailed diagnosis of the Slow requests measure lists the request URLs that were processed slowly by the web site. Since the list is sorted in the descending order of the Total Elapsed time - i.e., processing time - a quick look at the list will reveal to you the slowest request. The type of request (GET or POST), the stage, and module name are also displayed as part of the diagnostics to aid effective troubleshooting.

Figure 1 : The detailed diagnosis of the Slow requests measure

The detailed diagnosis of the Requests being processed measure reveals the details of the active requests to the web site. The request URL, the type of request (Verb), the stage, module name, the web site to which the request pertains, the worker process that processed the request, the client from which the request originated, and the time taken to process the request are reported as part of the detailed diagnostics. From this information, administrators can proactively detect a potential request processing bottleneck, and can initiate preventive measures immediately.

Figure 2 : Detailed diagnosis of the Requests being processed measure