Site Availability Test

Use this test to check the availability and responsiveness of configured SharePoint sites. Unavailable/slow sites can be accurately identified in this process.

Typically, the test emulates an HTTP/S request to a configured site, and if that request results in a valid HTML response from the server, the test reports that the site is available. Sometimes however, users may not be able to login to the web site but the server may still reply back with a valid HTML page where in the error message, say, "Invalid Login". In this case, the test will report that the site is available (since we got a valid HTML response). To be able to correctly detect that the site could not be accessed, you can additionally configure this test to search the content of the site for a specific text string. Typically, this should be a text string that you will find in the web page that you have configured for monitoring, if that page had loaded properly. If the test does not find the string configured in the monitored page, it will automatically report that the content is invalid. This way, administrators can easily detect that the site is unavailable, even if one measure of the test reports that it is.

This test is disabled by default. To enable the test, go to the enable / disable tests page using the menu sequence : Agents -> Tests -> Enable/Disable, pick the Microsoft SharePoint as the desired Component type, set Performance as the Test type, choose the test from the disabled tests list, and click on the < button to move the test to the ENABLED TESTS list. Finally, click the Update button.

Target of the test : A Microsoft SharePoint Server

Agent deploying the test : An internal/remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the DisplayName of each Site URL configured for monitoring

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 host server listens.

Site URLs

Provide a comma-separated list of site URLs that you want to monitor. Your specification should be of the following format: <DisplayName>:<Site_URL>, where DisplayName is any name using which you want to uniquely identify a site, and Site_URL is the complete URL of the site to be monitored. For example, to monitor the site with URL, http://www.cscorp.com/homepage.html, your site url specification can be: Company:http://wwww.csscorp.com/homepage.html. To monitor multiple sites, your specification can be: Company:http://wwww.csscorp.com/homepage.html, Payroll:http://192.168.10.95:10818/login.html. The DisplayNames will appear as the descriptors of the test.

User name, Password, and Confirm password

If the web page to be monitored - i.e., the Site URL you have configured - does not require any authorization, then set the User Name and Password parameters to none.

On the other hand, if the Site URL configured requires authorization, then configure the test with the credentials of a user with read-only access to the target site. To specify the credentials of such a user, use the Username and Password text boxes. Then, confirm the password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box. Some servers may support NTLM (Integrated Windows) authentication. In such a case, your Username specification should be of the format: domainname\username. Moreover, if multiple Site URLs have been configured for monitoring, then you will have to provide a User name and Password for each configured URL. In this case, the multiple user names and passwords will have to be provided as a comma-separated list.

Validity String

Typically, the test emulates an HTTP/S request to a configured site; if that request results in a valid HTML response from the server, the test reports that the site is available. Sometimes however, users may not be able to login to the web site but the server may still reply back with a valid HTML page where in the error message, say, "Invalid Login". In this case, the test will report that the site is available (since we got a valid HTML response). To be able to correctly detect that the site could not be accessed, you can additionally configure this test to search the content of the site for a specific text string. Specify the text string to search for, in the Validity String text box. Typically, this should be a text string that you will find in the web page that you have configured for monitoring, if that page had loaded properly. If the test does not find the string configured in the monitored page, it will automatically report that the content is invalid. This way, administrators can easily detect that the site is unavailable, even if one measure of the test reports that it is.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Web availability

Indicates whether this site is available or not. 

Percent

Availability failures could be caused by several factors such as the server process(es) being down, the server being misconfigured, a network failure, etc. Temporary unavailability may also occur if the server is overloaded. Availability is determined based on the response code returned by the server. A response code between 200 to 300 indicates that the server is available. 

The value 100% for this measure indicates that the site is available, and the value 0 indicates that it is not.

Response code

Indicates the response code that the server returned when this site was accessed.

Number

Typically, 2xx codes indicate success. The 4xx codes are intended for cases in which the client may have erred, and the 5xx codes for the cases in which the server is aware that it has erred. 3xx codes indicate action to be taken (normally automatically) by the client in order to fulfill the request.

Response time

Indicates the time taken by the server to respond to the request it received for this site.

Secs

Response time being high denotes a problem. Poor response times may be due to the server being overloaded or misconfigured. If the URL accessed involves the generation of dynamic content by the server, backend problems (e.g., an overload at the application server or a database failure) can also result in an increase in response time.

Content validity

Indicates whether the content that was searched for was found in this site or not.

Percent

If the configured search string is found, this measure will report the value 100%. In the event that the string is not found, this measure will report 0.

If the Web availability measure reports the value 100, but the Content validity measure reports the value 0, it could indicate that the site is unavailable, and hence, could not be accessed.

Content length

Indicates the size of the content returned by the server for this site request.

Number

Typically the content length returned by the server for a specific URL should be the same across time. Any change in this metric may indicate the need for further investigation on the server side.