Considerations That Apply When You Use Multiple Log Files for Usage Analysis Processing in Windows SharePoint Services (827926)



The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services

SUMMARY

This article discusses considerations that apply when you use multiple log files for usage analysis processing in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services.

MORE INFORMATION

Usage analysis permits you to track how Web sites on your server are used. You can track how many users visit your site, the type and number of hits your site receives, and other site-usage information. You configure usage analysis processing for Windows SharePoint Services on the Configure Usage Analysis Processing page of Windows SharePoint Services Central Administration. Log files are created daily to track usage information. By default, log files for usage analysis processing are stored in the following folder, where Drive is the drive where Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is installed:

Drive:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\STS

A subfolder exists for each virtual server, and in each of these subfolders are folders that are created for each day. If you specify a different location to store log files, make sure that the STS_WPG group has Read, Write, and Update permissions to the folder.

You can specify up to 30 log files to track usage information in the Number of log files to create box in the Logging Settings area of the Configure Usage Analysis Processing page. Multiple log files are intended for use in server farm deployments of Windows SharePoint Services, where a front-end Web server may receive one million or more hits per day. Note that Windows SharePoint Services logs HTTP 2.x information to the log files, and does not log HTTP 3.x or HTTP 4.x information to the log file. When you use multiple log files, the log files are created at the same time and all hits from one Web site are contained in the same log file. Usage data for a Web site is updated one time each day.

Each hit that a front-end Web server receives uses approximately 200 bytes (B) in a log file. As a result, approximately 200 megabytes (MB) of RAM are used to memory map a log file that contains a million hits. Memory mapping occurs only for several minutes during usage processing. However, if the memory footprint is too large, you can use multiple log files. When you have several log files, a smaller memory footprint results when the log file is processed.

The number of requests that are sent to the back-end server during usage processing is proportional to the number of Web sites on the server. However, the memory footprint on the back-end server is not affected by the number of Web sites. The additional load that usage processing generates does not significantly affect the performance of the back-end servers on the server farm.

For more information about Windows SharePoint Services, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:1/9/2006
Keywords:kbnofix kbBug KB827926 kbAudITPRO