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Configuring Usage Analysis (Windows SharePoint Services 2.0)

  • Article

Usage analysis allows you to track how Web sites on your server are being used. You configure the settings for processing the usage log by using commands in HTML Administration pages. From the SharePoint Central Administration page, you can control:

  • Whether or not to log usage data.

    Usage analysis is not enabled by default. If you want to use the usage analysis features for your server, you must enable the usage analysis logging process. Log files are created daily to track usage information. When the log file is processed, a flag is added to indicate that is has been processed. If you do not want to track usage analysis data and you want to conserve disk space, you can turn off data logging for usage analysis.

  • Where the log files are stored and how many log files to create.

    By default, the log files are in %windir%\system32\LogFiles\STS. Inside this folder is a folder for every virtual server, and under those folders, folders for each day. You can specify any other location you prefer. You can specify that up to 30 log files are created.

    Note

    If you choose a different log file location, you must be sure to give the STS_WPG user group Read, Write, and Update permissions to the directory. Without these permissions, the usage log files cannot be created or updated. For more information about setting permissions for a directory, see the Microsoft Windows Help system.

  • Whether or not to process the usage logs and when to do so.

    By default, the log files are set to be processed every day at 1:00 A.M. You can schedule the usage log to be processed at a more convenient downtime for your Web sites. If your Web sites are primarily used by internal employees, for example, you might schedule the log to be processed at night, when demand on the sites is lower than during working hours. If you have multiple servers, you can stagger the processing. For example, you can configure the processing to start at midnight, and stagger it by 15 minutes, so that server1 starts at 12:00, server2 starts at 12:15, server3 at 12:30, and so on.

In Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, usage analysis data is gathered from the front-end Web servers and collected into temporary files. When the daily log processing takes place, the data is merged into the content databases on the back-end servers. Usage data is collected for an entire site collection on a server at a time. Even though the data is logged and stored for an entire site collection, when you view the data in HTML Administration pages, you can see only the data for a particular Web site or subsites, not for the entire site collection.

Note

Although you can see the total number of hits for a site collection on the Site Collection Usage Summary page, for detailed information you must use the Site Usage Report page for the individual site or subsite.

For more information about the type of data gathered in the usage analysis logs and how to view the usage analysis reports, see Analyzing Web Site Usage (Windows SharePoint Services 2.0).

Usage data is stored for 31 months. Daily information is stored for 31 days. The log files will not be deleted, even after processing. Note that usage analysis processes rely on the Microsoft SharePoint Timer service to manage the timing of log processing. For more information about the SharePoint Timer service, see Scheduling Timed Jobs (Windows SharePoint Services 2.0).

Note

Because usage analysis processing runs only once a day, when you enable usage analysis processing, you will not see any data until the next day. Log processing is only done for a single day's worth of data. If you turn off the log processing for a week but leave the data logging turned on, the next time you turn on processing, it will only process one day's worth of log files. The log files for all of the days before that will remain unprocessed.

You control settings for usage analysis processing from the SharePoint Central Administration page. You must be an administrator of the local server computer or a member of the SharePoint administrators group to configure usage analysis settings.

Note

When you configure usage analysis processing for a server, it takes effect for any existing virtual servers. If you later add a virtual server, you must configure usage analysis processing again to enable usage analysis for the new virtual server.

Configure usage analysis processing for a server

  1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click SharePoint Central Administration.

  2. Under Component Configuration, click Configure usage analysis processing.

  3. In the Logging Settings section, select the Enable logging check box.

  4. In the Log file location box, type the location to store the log file. The default location for the log file is c:\Windows\system32\LogFiles\STS.

  5. In the Number of log files to create box, type a number between 1 and 30.

    In general, you should use a number that is one to three times the number of database servers in your server farm, with a maximum number of 30 log files.

  6. In the Processing Settings section, select the Enable usage analysis processing check box.

  7. Under Run processing between these times daily, specify the range of times to start the usage analysis log processing. In the Start box, select the earliest time of day to begin running log processing. In the End box, select the latest time to begin running log processing.

  8. Click OK.

For more information about viewing usage reports, see Analyzing Web Site Usage (Windows SharePoint Services 2.0).

For more information about configuring and viewing quota information, see Configuring Site Collection Quotas and Locks (Windows SharePoint Services 2.0).