DFS Namespace API Requests Test

The management (eg., DFS Management UI, DFS BPA,  DFS Namespaces Windows PowerShell cmdlets, File Server Resource Manager) used by administrators to manage DFS typically employ NetDfs API functions to perform critical management tasks – eg., creating/removing namespaces, adding roots and links, viewing/configuring information about roots and links, and so on. In the process, these tools impose a significant amount of operational load on the namespace server. If the server is not sized right to handle this load, API requests may either fail frequently or may end-up being processed slowly by the server, thus increasing the DFS management challenges of administrators. This in turn will impact the user experience with DFS. If such situations are to be avoided, administrators should use the DFS Namespace API Requests test to track the number and type of API requests to the namespace server, measure how quickly the server processes requests of each type, identify request types that failed often, and accordingly, decide whether/not the server should be resized to improve its processing ability.

Target of the test : A server that hosts the DFS namespace  (this can even be a server that contains the DFS root or a replica of it)

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each type of API request to the namespace server being 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 at which the specified host listens to.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Avg response time	Indicates the average time taken by the DFS namespace server to respond to API requests of this type.	Secs	Ideally, the value of this measure should be low. A consistent increase in the value of this measure is indicative of poor responsiveness of the DFS namespace service. Compare the value of this measure across request types to know which API requests are being processed slowly by the server.
Requests processed	Indicates the number of API requests of this type processed by the server since the last measurement period.	Number
Requests failed	Indicates the number of API requests of this type that failed during the last measurement period.	Number	Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0.
Percentage of failed requests	Indicates the percentage of API requests of this type that failed.	Percent	The value 0 is desired for this measure. A high value is a cause for concern. Compare the value of this measure across types to know which type of requests is prone to failures.
Request processing rate	Indicates the rate at which the API requests of this type are processed.	Requests/Sec	A high value is desired for this measure. A steady dip in this value is indicative of a processing bottleneck. Compare the value of this measure across types to know the requests that are being serviced very slowly.