Search Transport Agent Test

Content indexing is a built-in feature which enables fast searches and lookups through mailboxes and public folders stored in the Exchange Server. To assure Exchange users of a high-quality search experience, administrators should make sure that all documents are indexed quickly and in an error-free manner. For this, administrators can use the Search Transport Agent test. This test, at periodic intervals, runs quality checks on the indexing process, reports   the count of documents that were skipped when indexing or failed, and reveals bottlenecks in indexing.

Target of the test : A Microsoft Exchange 2013/2016 server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the Exchange server monitored

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 at which the host listens.
Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Document processing rate:

Indicates the rate at which the pipeline has processed documents. 

Processing/Sec

A consistent and marked drop in this value is indicative of an indexing bottleneck.

Document failure rate:

Indicates the rate at which the documents failed processing.

Failure/Sec

A steady and significant increase in this value could indicate serious issues in indexing that need to be looked into.

Document skip rate:

Indicates the rate at which processing was skipped for documents.

Skips/Sec