CAS Interface Availability Test

Remote Procedure Call (RPC) is an inter-process communication technique to allow client and server software to communicate on a network. The RPC protocol is based on a client/server model. The client makes a procedure call that appears to be local but is actually run on a remote computer. During this process, the procedure call arguments are bundled and passed through the network to the server. The arguments are then unpacked and run on the server. The result is again bundled and passed back to the client, where it is converted to a return value for the client's procedure call.

RPC is used by several components in Windows Server, such as the File Replication Service (FRS), Active Directory Replication, Certificate services, DCOM, domain join, DCPromo and RDP, NLB and Cluster, Microsoft Operations Master, Exchange and SQL.

Whenever a user requests to access a virtual environment, the front end servers contact the Active Directory Certificate Service (ADCS) in the environment. The ADCS, in conjunction with Microsoft Certification Authority, grants a ticket that allows a single session to authenticate with a certificate for that session. If the user interface of the ADCS ( RPC server) is not available, then the certificate request could not be processed until the time the ADCS interface is up and running. This would unnecessarily cause delays in issuing the certificate to the user and would eventually lead to poor user experience. To avoid such unnecessary delays, it is necessary for the administrators to proactively determine the availability of the RPC server. The CAS Interface Availability test helps administrators in this regard!

This test continuously monitors whether/not the user interface of the RPC server and admin interface of the RPC server is available. This test also reports the time taken by the RPC server to respond to user requests. Using this test, administrators can figure out abnormal time delay experienced by the RPC server while responding to requests.

Target of the test : Microsoft Certificate Authority Server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the target Microsoft Certificate Authority Server being monitored

Configurable parameters for the test

Parameter	Description
Test period	How often should the test be executed
Host	The IP address of the host for which this test is to be configured.
Port	The port at which the specified Host listens to. By default, this is 443.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
RPC user interface availability	Indicates whether/not the Active Directory Certificate Services Request interface is available.	Percent	A value of 100 indicates that the Active Directory Certificate Services Request interface is available and a value of 0 indicates that the Active Directory Certificate Services Request interface is not available.
RPC user interface response time	Indicates the time taken by the Active Directory Certificate Services to respond to requests.	Seconds	A high value for this measure is a cause of concern. By closely monitoring this measure over a period of time, administrators can figure out abnormal time delay experienced by the Active Directory Certificate Services in responding to requests.
RPC admin interface availability	Indicates whether/not the Active Directory Certificate Services admin interface is available.		A value of 100 indicates that the Active Directory Certificate Services admin interface is available and a value of 0 indicates that the Active Directory Certificate Services admin interface is not available.