CRM Sandbox Host Test

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 support the execution of plug-ins and custom workflow activities in an isolated environment. In this isolated environment, also known as a sandbox, a plug-in or custom activity can make use of the full power of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM SDK to access the organization web service. Access to the file system, system event log, certain network protocols, registry, and more is prevented in the sandbox. The sandbox environment can be used as a failover environment to the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 server environment.

This test monitors the sandbox environment and reports critical statistics of the following:

• The CPU, memory and handles used by all the worker processes;
• The number of active organizations;
• How well the SDK requests are received and executed and how many SDK requests failed during execution?;
• How well the incoming custom workflow activities are executed?
• How many worker processes crashed/terminated in the sandbox environment?;

This way, the administrator can clearly understand the performance of the sandbox environment using which he/she can fine-tune the real time Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 server environment.

Target of the test : A Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Server

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 server to be monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test

Parameters	Description
Test Period	This indicates how often should the test be executed.
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured.
Port	The port number at which the specified host listens to. By default, this is NULL.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Cpu usage	Indicates the total CPU percentage used by all the worker processes of this Sandbox host.	Percent	A low value is desired for this measure.
Memory usage	Indicates the amount of memory used by all the worker processes of this Sandbox host.	MB
Handles	Indicates the total number of handles that were used by all the worker processes of this Sandbox host.	Number
Active organizations	Indicates the number of organizations on which the worker process of the Sandbox host is currently active.	Number
Execute rate	Indicates the rate at which the incoming custom workflow activities are executed on this Sandbox host.	Executes/sec
SDK request rate	Indicates the rate of outgoing SDK requests.	Requests/Sec
SDK failures	Indicates the percentage of outgoing SDK requests that failed.	Percent
Execute failures	Indicates the percentage of custom workflow activities that failed to execute.	Percent
Worker processes crashed	Indicates the percentage of worker processes that crashed in the sandbox environment.	Percent
Worker processes terminated	Indicates the percentage of worker processes that were terminated in the sandbox environment.	Percent	The worker processes are mainly terminated due to excessive resource usage by the worker processes or there is no response from the worker processes.
Execute response time	Indicates the time taken to execute the incoming custom workflow activities.	Secs	A low value is desired for this measure. A gradual increase in the value of this measure is a cause of concern as this may affect the performance of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM server.
SDK response time	Indicates the response time of the outgoing SDK requests.	Secs
Assembly cache usage	Indicates the percentage of total assembly cache disk space that is in use.	Percent	The global assembly cache stores assemblies specifically designated to be shared by several applications on the server.
Concurrent plugins	Indicates the number of plugins that are executing concurrently.	Number
Assembly cache hits	Indicates the percentage of requests that were served from the assembly cache.	Percent	A high value is desired for this measure.