Timer Jobs Test

A timer job runs in a specific Windows service for SharePoint 2013. Timer jobs perform infrastructure tasks for the Timer service, such as clearing the timer job history and recycling the Timer service. Timer jobs also perform tasks for web applications, such as sending email alerts. A timer job contains a definition of the service to run and specifies how frequently the service is started. The SharePoint Timer service (SPTimerv4) runs timer jobs. 

By tracking timer jobs run for web applications, administrators can quickly detect job failures. This is exactly what the Timer Jobs test does! For each web application, this test reports the count of successful and failed timer jobs. Administrators are proactively alerted if even a single timer job fails! Deeps diagnostics reported by the test also provides details about the failed jobs, thereby enabling you to troubleshoot better.

Target of the test : A Microsoft SharePoint Server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for each web application on the SharePoint 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 host server listens.

Fetch Farm Measures

Typically, farm-level metrics – eg., metrics on farm status, site collections, usage analytics – will not vary from one SharePoint server in the farm to another. If these metrics are collected and stored in the eG database for each monitored server in the SharePoint farm, it is bound to unnecessarily consume space in the database and increase processing overheads. To avoid this, farm-level metrics collection is by default switched off for the member servers in the SharePoint farm, and enabled only if the server being monitored is provisioned as the Central Administration site. Accordingly, this parameter is set to If Central Administration by default. This default setting ensures that farm-level metrics are collected from and stored in the database for only a single SharePoint server in the farm.  

If you want to completely switch-off farm-level metrics collection for a SharePoint farm, then set this parameter to No.

Some high-security environments may not allow an eG agent to be deployed on the Central Administration site. Administrators of such environments may however require farm-level insights into status and performance. To provide these insights for such environments, you can optionally enable farm-level metrics collection from any monitored member server in the farm, even if that server is not provisioned as the Central Administration site. For this, set this parameter to Yes when configuring this test for that member server.   

Domain, Domain User, Password, and Confirm Password

If the Fetch Farm Measures flag of these tests is set to No or to If Central Administration Site, then this test should be configured with the credentials of a user with the following privileges:

On the other hand, if the Fetch Farm Measures flag of these tests is set to Yes, then the user configured for the tests not only requires the four privileges discussed above, but should also be part of the following groups on the eG agent host:

  • Administrators

  • WSS_ADMIN_WPG

  • IIS_USRS

  • Performance Monitor Users

  • WSS_WPG

  • Users

It is recommended that you create a special user for this purpose and assign the aforesaid privileges to him/her. Once such a user is created, specify the domain to which that user belongs in the Domain text box, and then, enter the credentials of the user in the Domain User and Password text boxes. To confirm the password, retype it in the Confirm Password text box.

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 enable/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

Successful jobs

Indicates the number of timer jobs for this web application that were successful.

Number

 

Failed jobs

Indicates the number of jobs run for this web application that failed.

Number

Ideally, the value of this measure should be 0.

If a non-zero value is reported, use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to know which jobs failed, on which server, and when the failure occurred.