OneDrive Sites Usage Test

By default, each OneDrive for Business site is allocated 1 TB of storage space for its use. Some sites however may be more actively used or may contain more files than the rest; such sites may hence utilize more storage. To identify such sites, use the OneDrive Sites Usage test.

This test monitors the activities of sites and reports how this demand impacts storage usage across sites. Detailed diagnostics reveals those sites with a high level of activity. Additionally, the test also looks for sites that are using more than a configured percentage of storage space allocated to them, and reports the count of such sites (if any). Detailed metrics will point you to the exact sites that are using up storage resources excessively. With the help of the detailed metrics, you can correlate the load on the individual sites with their storage allocation and usage. In the process, you can figure out if any site requires additional storage space to handle its current demand.

Note:

This test uses the Microsoft Graph API. Tests that use Microsoft Graph API may not start reporting metrics right away. Sometimes, they may go without reporting metrics for over 48 hours. This is normal behavior, and it occurs because, Microsoft does not collect/refresh the metrics as frequently as the test executes.

Target of the test : Microsoft OneDrive for Business

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the Office 365 tenant being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test

Parameters Description

Test period

How often should the test be executed

Host

The host for which the test is to be configured. By default, this is portal.office.com

Tenant Name

This parameter applies only if you want the eG agent to use Azure AD Certificate-based Authentication for accessing and monitoring an O365 tenant and its resources.

Azure AD certificate-based authentication (CBA) enables customers to allow or require users to authenticate with X.509 certificates against their Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) for applications and browser sign-in. When monitoring highly secure Office 365 environments, you can configure the eG agent to identify itself to a tenant using a valid X.509 certificate, so that it is allowed secure access to the tenant and its resources.

By default, the value of this parameter is none. This means that, by default, the eG agent does not use certificate-based authentication to connect to an O365 tenant.

On the other hand, if you want the eG agent to use this modern authentication technique to securely access a tenant's resources, you should do the following:

  1. Enable Azure AD Certificate-based authentication for the target O365 tenant; this can be achieved manually, via the Office 365 portal, or automatically, using Powershell scripts we provide. For the manual procedure, refer to Manually Enabling Certificate-based Authentication For an Office 365 Tenantunder Microsoft Office 365. For the automatic procedure, refer to Automatically Fulfilling Pre-requisites in a Modern Authentication-Enabled Environmentunder Microsoft Office 365.

    When enabling certificate-based authentication, an X.509 certificate will be generated for the target tenant.

  2. Configure the Tenant Name parameter with the name of the tenant for which certificate-based authentication is enabled. Using the tenant name, the eG agent will be able to read the details of the X.509 certificate that is generated for that tenant, and use that certificate to access that tenant's resources. To determine the tenant name, do the following:

    • Log in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center as an administrator.

    • Under Setup, click on Domains.

    • Find a domain that ends with .onmicrosoft.com - this is your Microsoft O365 tenant name.

O365 User Name, O365 Password, and Confirm Password

These parameters need to be configured only if the Tenant Name parameter is set to none. On the other hand, if a valid Tenant Name is configured, then you should set these parameters to none .

For execution, this test requires the privileges of an O365 user who has been assigned theService support admin and SharePoint admin roles and is vested with the View-Only Audit Logs permission. Configure the credentials of such a user against O365 User Name and O365 Password text boxes. Confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.

While you can use the credentials of any existing O365 user with the afore-said privileges, it is recommended that you create a special user for monitoring purposes using the Office 365 portal and use the credentials of that user here. To know how to create a new user using the Office 365 portal and assign the required privileges to that user, refer to Creating a New User in the Office 365 Portalunder Microsoft Office 365. To know how to manually create a new user using the Office 365 portal and assign the required privileges to that user, refer to theCreating a New User in the Office 365 Portaltopic. You can also use eG's proprietary PowerShell script to automatically create a new user, or assign the required privileges to an existing user. To know how to use this script, refer to theAutomatically Fulfilling Pre-requisites in a Basic Authentication-Enabled Environmenttopic.

Domain, Domain User Name, Domain Password, and Confirm Password

These parameters are applicable only if the eG agent needs to communicate with the Office 365 portal via a Proxy server.

In this case, in the Domain text box, specify the name of the Windows domain to which the eG agent host belongs. In the Domain User Name text box, mention the name of a valid domain user with login rights to the eG agent host. Provide the password of that user in the Domain Password text box and confirm that password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.

On the other hand, if the eG agent is not behind a Proxy server, then you need not disturb the default setting of these parameters. By default, these parameters are set to none.

Proxy Host, Proxy Port, Proxy User Name, and Proxy Password

These parameters are applicable only if the eG agent needs to communicate with the Office 365 portal via a Proxy server.

In this case, provide the IP/host name and port number of the Proxy server that the eG agent should use in the Proxy Host and Proxy Port parameters, respectively.

If the Proxy server requires authentication, then specify the credentials of a valid Proxy user against the Proxy User Name and Proxy Password text boxes. Confirm that password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box. If the Proxy server does not require authentication, then specify none against the Proxy User Name, Proxy Password, and Confirm Password text boxes.

On the other hand, if the eG agent is not behind a Proxy server, then you need not disturb the default setting of any of the Proxy-related parameters. By default, these parameters are set to none.

Storage Limit

This test reports the count of sites that are consuming more storage than the rest. If the percentage of storage space utilized by a site is higher than the percentage specified here, then such a site will be counted as a site consuming more storage.

Inactive Days

By default, the value specified against this parameter is 180 days. This implies that the sites in the OneDrive for Business will be counted as inactive sites after a period of 180 days.

Report Top N DD

By default, this parameter is set to 10, indicating that the detailed diagnostics will report the details of top-10 file operations. You can change the 'N' in Top N by specifying any number of your choice in this text box.

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 at the end of every second test execution cycle during normal operations, 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.

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 enabled/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

Total sites

Indicates the total number of sites for this tenant on OneDrive for Business.

Number

Active sites

Indicates the number of active sites.

Number

An active site is a OneDrive for Business site that has seen some activity in terms of page views, page visits, or any file activity (eg., creation, modification, deletion).

To view the sites that were active recently, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure.

Active sites percent

Indicates what percentage of total sites is active.

Percent

A high value of this measure indicates that the tenant is accessing or working with OneDrive files very frequently.

Inactive sites

Indicates the number of sites that are inactive beyond the number of days configured against the Inactive Days parameter.

Number

A high value for this measure indicates that many sites are inactive. Administrators can drill down the detailed diagnosis of this measure to identify the active sites and remove them as and when, necessary.

Orphaned sites

Indicates the total number of orphaned sites.

Orphaned sites are those sites that are deleted from the authentication provider (such as removed from Active users page in the Microsoft 365 admin center when user leaves the organization), and still continue to exist in OneDrive for Business! These sites should be identified and cleaned up (if exists) to avoid a highly risky situation for the security of sensitive data. Use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to know the list of orphaned sites on this tenant.

A high value for this measure is a cause for concern.

Sites nearing allocated storage

Indicates the number of sites that are utilizing the allocated storage resources excessively.

Number

The value of this measure will be incremented by 1 if the percent storage usage of any site is more than the percentage configured against the Storage Limit parameter.

Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0. A non-zero value indicates that one/more web sites are over-utilizing the storage space allocated to them. To know which sites they are, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure.

Storage used across sites

Indicates the amount of storage currently used across sites.

GB

Storage allocated across sites

Indicates the total amount of storage space allocated across sites.

GB

Storage used

Indicates the percentage of allocated storage that is currently in use across sites.

Percent

A value close to 100% indicates a probable storage space crunch, owing to excessive space usage by one/more sites. In such a situation, use the detailed diagnosis of the Sites nearing allocated storage measure to know which sites are hogging storage resources.

The detailed diagnosis of the Inactive sites measure reports the sites that are currently inactive. The URL of the sites, who owns each site, the date of last activity, and the level of activity on each site - i.e., the count of total and active files, the amount of storage space used and total amount of storage allocated to every site - are reported as part of the detailed metrics.

Figure 1 : The detailed diagnosis of the Inactive sites measure

Use the detailed diagnosis of the Storage used across sites measure to know which sites used maximum amount of storage on OneDrive for Business. In the event of a storage space crunch on OneDrive for Business, you can use these details to know exactly which sites are probably consuming a large amount of storage space.

Figure 2 : The detailed diagnosis of the Storage used across sites measure reported by the OneDrive Site Usage test

The detailed diagnosis of the Storage allocated across sites measure reports the URL of top-20 sites, who owns each site, the date of last activity, the amount of storage space used and total amount of storage allocated to every site.

Figure 3 : The detailed diagnosis of the Storage allocated across sites measure reported by the OneDrive Site Usage test

To know which sites used maximum percentage of storage space, use the detailed diagnosis of the Storage used measure.

Figure 4 : The detailed diagnosis of the Storage used measure reported by the OneDrive Site Usage test

Use the detailed diagnosis of the Sites nearing allocated storage measure to know top-20 sites which are rapidly consuming the allocated storage . In the event of a storage crunch, these detailed metrics will point you to the exact sites that are responsible for the contention.

Figure 5 : The detailed diagnosis of the Sites nearing allocated storage measure reported by the OneDrive Site Usage test

To know which sites are orphaned, use the detailed diagnosis of the Orphaned Sites measure. This reveals the URL of the sites that are removed from the Office 365 admin center, but the corresponding account still exists in SharePoint as Site User.

Figure 6 : The detailed diagnosis of the Sites consuming more storage measure reported by the OneDrive Site Usage test