Getting started with IIS Server Monitoring

Overview

Internet Information Services (IIS) is a flexible, secure, and extensible web server from Microsoft that helps you host anything on the web. Since it is capable of handling most demanding tasks, from media streaming to web applications, monitoring its performance and response time becomes vital.

IIS web server performance monitoring capabilities from Applications Manager helps you proactively monitor your IIS servers by providing complete visibility into the performance of your websites and web application pools that are running within. It keeps track of various key web server metrics such as response time, connection statistics, data and file transaction rate, along with the list of anonymous users that are currently using the website at regular intervals.

In this help document, you will learn how to get started with IIS web server performance monitoring using Applications Manager's IIS traffic monitor.

Creating a new IIS server monitor

Prerequisites for monitoring IIS server metrics:Click here

Using the REST API to add a new IIS server monitor:Click here

To create an IIS traffic monitor, follow the steps given below:

1. Click on the New Monitor link. Choose IIS Server.
2. Enter the Display Name of the monitor.
3. Enter the IP Address or hostname of the host on which the Monitor is running.
4. Provide the port number on which the monitor is running.
5. Choose the SSL option if SSL is enabled in IIS Server.

6. Choose the preferred Mode of Monitoring: WinRM (default) or WMI to retrieve details about websites and application pools. Agent mode monitors are added automatically (see step 10).

   Note: WinRM mode is only supported in Applications Manager versions 16820 and above.

7. If WinRM mode is being utilized, choose the WinRM protocol to be used. By default, HTTPS operates on port 5986, and HTTP operates on port 5985.
8. To utilize a custom WinRM port, select the Use custom WinRM port option and enter the desired port number in the Custom WinRM Port textbox.
9. For Agent mode, install the FSO Agent on the Windows host. Applications Manager automatically discovers and adds the IIS monitor when the agent detects IIS. After installing the agent, you can switch an existing IIS monitor between Agent and Agentless modes at any time.
10. For Agentless mode, provide IIS Server credentials if required. Under Credential Details , if you opt to use the 'Use below Credential' option, specify the IIS Server username and password details for this monitor. If you opt to fetch the details from the preconfigured credential details in Credentials Manager, choose the 'Select from Credential list' option. Agent mode does not require credentials.
11. Select View Additional Settings to access the Do not resolve DNS name and Response Header check options.
12. Enable the Do not resolve DNS name checkbox if you have multiple system IP addresses configured with a single DNS name.
13. Enable Response Header Check to check whether the IIS keyword is present in the response header. By default, it is disabled.
14. Enable Re-try URL check during data collection to retry the basic URL check during data collection if it fails. This option is disabled by default.
15. Enable Re-try basic WMI check during data collection to retry the basic WMI connectivity check during data collection if it fails intermittently. By default, Applications Manager retries the check once after 5 seconds when this option is selected.
16. Enable Response Code Check to validate the response code from the URL response. By default, this option is disabled. When disabled, the monitor will not validate the response code if any response header is received. When enabled, only response codes greater than 0 and less than 400 will be considered valid.
17. Enter the polling interval time in minutes.
18. If you are adding a new monitor from aaCentral Server, select a Probe Server.
19. Choose the Monitor Group from the combo box with which you want to associate IIS Monitor (optional). You can choose multiple groups to associate your monitor.
20. Click Add Monitor(s).  This discovers the IIS Server from the network and starts monitoring it.

Note: To collect data for Website Statistics and Application Pools, the host where the IIS Server is running should be monitored in WMI mode. (Applicable only for Applications Manager versions 15110 and below)

Monitored Parameters

Go to the Monitors Category View by clicking the Monitors tab. Click on IIS Server under the Web Server / Services category. The IIS Server monitor bulk configuration view is distributed into three tabs:

• Availability tab displays the Availability history for the past 24 hours or 30 days.
• Performance tab displays the Health Status and events for the past 24 hours or 30 days.
• List view tab enables you to perform bulk admin configurations.

Note: IIS Server monitoring is supported in Linux setup (Applicable only for Applications Manager versions 15120 and above), where you can monitor IIS URL Response time. However, IIS website statistics & Application Pool details are not available. To monitor the other metrics, use the Windows Server Agent (Agent mode). Refer here to know more.

Applications Manager's IIS traffic monitor provides complete visibility into your IIS web server environments altogether in a single window based on the following tabs:

• Overview
• Sites
• Applications
• Application Pools

Monitoring modes and metric availability

IIS Server can be monitored in WMI or WinRM mode (agentless, where Applications Manager polls the IIS host remotely) or in Agent mode (the Windows Server Agent (FSO Agent) on the IIS host collects the metrics locally and pushes them to Applications Manager). The metric tables in this document have a column for each mode. A tick () means the metric is available in that mode, and a cross () means it is not supported (no data is shown).

Note: Agent-based IIS monitoring is supported from Applications Manager version 182700 and FSO Agent version 22.4.0.

The number of metrics shown for each mode is as follows:

• WMI and WinRM provide the full website traffic and user metrics, URL response time, application pool Queue Length and Memory Usage %, and the website and application pool actions. WinRM provides everything WMI does except Max Processes.
• Agent adds per-application request, session, and cache metrics, along with Max Processes. It does not provide URL response time, detailed website traffic and user metrics, Maximum Connections, application pool Queue Length, or Memory Usage %.

Agent mode notes:

• When the Windows Server Agent detects IIS on its host, Applications Manager automatically adds an IIS Server monitor in Agent mode, named <hostname>_IIS-server. You cannot add an Agent mode monitor manually, and monitors added through the REST API or bulk import are always agentless. To switch an existing monitor between Agent and agentless modes, use the Agent Mode checkbox on the Edit Monitor page. To switch to Agent mode, the agent must be installed and running on the host.
• In Agent mode, the Port, SSL, Mode of Monitoring, WinRM protocol and port, credentials, Additional Settings, and Polling Interval fields are not applicable. The agent decides how often data is collected.
• If the server cannot be reached, the monitor is marked Down. If the server is up but the agent is not running, the availability remains Up and the health becomes Critical.
• Metrics that are not supported in Agent mode show no data after you switch, and any alerts already raised on those metrics are cleared automatically.
• If the license limit is exceeded, an automatically discovered monitor is added in the Unmanaged state.

Note: The ASP.NET metrics on the Overview tab, the .NET CLR tables, and the Agent mode application metrics require the ASP.NET performance counters to be available on the IIS host. If ASP.NET is not installed, these metrics show no data.

Overview

Parameter	Description	WMI	WinRM	Agent
RESPONSE TIME
Response Time	Amount of time taken to connect to the server and provide a response (in ms).
ASP.NET Requests
Request Execution Time	Time taken to execute the most recent ASP.NET request (in ms). Displayed as a graph.
Request Wait Time	Time the most recent ASP.NET request waited in the queue before it was executed (in ms). Displayed as a graph.
Current Requests	Number of ASP.NET requests that are currently being handled, including those executing and those waiting.
Queued Requests	Number of ASP.NET requests waiting in the queue to be processed.
Rejected Requests	Number of ASP.NET requests rejected because the request queue was full.
Cache Memory and Hits
File Cache Memory Usage	Memory currently used by the IIS user-mode file cache (in bytes).
File Cache Hits	Percentage of file cache lookups that were served from the cache (in %). Displayed as a graph.
Metadata Cache Hits	Percentage of metadata (configuration) cache lookups that were served from the cache (in %). Displayed as a graph.
URI Cache Hits	Percentage of URI cache lookups that were served from the cache (in %). Displayed as a graph.

Sites

Parameter	Description	WMI	WinRM	Agent
Website Statistics
Website Name	Name of the website hosted by the IIS server.
Bindings	Bindings configured for the website, such as protocol, IP address, port, and host name.
Current Connections	Number of connections that are currently established with the website.
Maximum Connections	Maximum number of simultaneous connections that have been established with the website since the IIS service started.
Bytes Sent/sec	Amount of bytes sent from the website per second.
Bytes Received/sec	Amount of bytes received by the website per second.
Bytes Transferred/sec	Total amount of bytes sent and received by the website per second.
Files Sent/sec	Number of files sent from the website per second.
Files Received/sec	Number of files received by the website per second.
Files Transferred/sec	Total number of files sent and received by the website per second.
Current Anonymous Users	Number of anonymous users that are currently connected to the website.
Anonymous Users/sec	Number of anonymous users that are connected to the website per second.
Current Non-Anonymous Users	Number of non-anonymous users that are currently connected to the website.
Non-Anonymous Users/sec	Number of non-anonymous users that are connected to the website per second.

Website availability is shown for each website. A website is Up when it is running and Down when it is stopped. In Agent mode, the table is titled IIS Website Statistics.

In addition to the above metrics, the following is a list of graphs that are shown in this tab:

Graph	Description	WMI	WinRM	Agent
Graphs
Top Websites by Current Connections	Websites that have the highest number of current connections established.
Top Websites by Bytes Transferred	Websites that have the highest number of bytes transferred per second.
Top Websites by Files transferred	Websites that have the highest number of files transferred per second.
Top Websites by Anonymous users	Websites that have the highest number of anonymous users connected per second.
Top Websites by Non-Anonymous users	Websites that have the highest number of non-anonymous users connected per second.

Applications

This tab lists every IIS application (virtual application) configured under the websites. Each application has its own availability and health. In Agent mode, the availability is based on the application state reported by the agent. In WMI and WinRM modes, an application is Up only when both its website and its application pool are Up.

Parameter	Description	WMI	WinRM	Agent
Application Configuration Details
Application Name	Name of the IIS application.
Pool Name	Name of the application pool in which the application runs.
Site Name	Name of the website to which the application belongs.
Protocol	Protocols enabled for the application, for example, http, https and net.tcp.
Path	Virtual path of the application within the website.
Active Application Details
Requests/sec	Number of ASP.NET requests executed by the application per second.
Total Failed Requests	Total number of requests to the application that failed, for example, due to errors, timeouts, or unauthorized access.
Queued Requests	Number of requests waiting in the application's queue to be processed.
Total Bytes Received	Total size of the requests received by the application (in KB).
Total Bytes Sent	Total size of the responses sent by the application (in KB).
Concurrent Requests	Number of requests being processed by the application at the same time.
Application Request Details
Total Number of Requests	Total number of requests received by the application since it started.
Request Success	Number of requests that the application completed successfully.
Request Timed Out (500)	Number of requests that timed out or ended with an HTTP 500 (internal server error) response.
Request Not Found (404)	Number of requests that failed because the requested resource was not found (HTTP 404).
Request Not Authorized (401)	Number of requests that failed because of missing or invalid authorization (HTTP 401).
Request Rejected (503)	Number of requests rejected because the server or queue was too busy (HTTP 503).
Requests Disconnected	Number of requests dropped because the client disconnected or communication failed.
Anonymous Requests	Number of requests made by anonymous (unauthenticated) users.
Application Session and Cache Details
Active Sessions	Number of ASP.NET sessions that are currently active in the application.
SQL Connections	Number of connections the application has made to a SQL Server session-state store.
State Connections	Number of connections the application has made to an ASP.NET State Server session-state store.
Connection Timeout	Number of sessions that timed out because they were inactive.
Total Entries	Total number of entries in the application's ASP.NET cache.
API Hit Ratio	Percentage of cache API lookups that were served from the cache (in %).
Output Hits Ratio	Percentage of output cache requests that were served from the cache (in %).
Memory Limit	Percentage of the cache memory limit that is currently used (in %).
Turnover Rate/sec	Number of items added to or removed from the cache per second.

Note: Request, session, and cache metrics for individual IIS applications are collected only in Agent mode. In WMI and WinRM modes, only the application configuration details are available.

Application Pools

The process metrics (CPU, memory, I/O, and threads) are totals across all IIS worker processes (w3wp.exe) that belong to the application pool. Each application pool has its own availability. A pool is Up when it is started or starting and Down when it is stopped or stopping. In Agent mode, the table is titled IIS Application Pools.

Parameter	Description	WMI	WinRM	Agent
Application Pools
Application Pool Name	Name of the application pool.
Runtime	.NET CLR version configured for the application pool, for example, v4.0. This is empty when the pool is set to No Managed Code.
No. of Worker Process	The number of worker processes (different programs) assigned to a pool.
Max Processes	Maximum number of worker processes allowed for the application pool (the web garden setting).
Queue Length	Length of the HTTP. sys request queue of an application pool.
Active Application Pool Details
CPU Usage	Amount of CPU utilized by the worker processes of the application pool, as a share of the total CPU across all logical processors (in %).
Memory Usage	Amount of memory (working set) utilized by the worker processes of the application pool, as a share of the total physical memory of the server (in %).
Shared/Physical Memory	Physical memory (working set) currently used by the worker processes of the application pool, including memory shared with other processes (in MB).
Private/Virtual Memory	Physical memory used only by the worker processes of the application pool and not shared with other processes; that is, the private working set (in MB).
Private Bytes	Memory committed by the worker processes of the application pool that cannot be shared with other processes (in MB).
I/O Operations/sec	Number of read and write operations performed by the worker processes of the application pool per second.
Thread Count	Number of threads that are currently active in the worker processes of the application pool.
Common Language Runtime (CLR) Data
Loader Heap	Memory committed by the .NET class loader for the worker process (in MB).
Assemblies	Number of .NET assemblies that are currently loaded.
App Domains	Number of .NET application domains that are currently loaded.
Exceptions/sec	Number of .NET exceptions thrown per second.
Common Language Runtime (CLR) Memory Data
Garbage Collection Time	Share of time spent on garbage collection since the last collection cycle (in %).
Total Heap	Total memory used by all managed (.NET) heaps (in MB).
Gen 0 Heap	Size of the Generation 0 heap, which holds short-lived objects (in MB).
Gen 1 Heap	Size of the Generation 1 heap (in MB).
Gen 2 Heap	Size of the Generation 2 heap, which holds long-lived objects (in MB).
Large Object Heap	Size of the Large Object Heap, which holds objects of 85 KB or more (in MB).
Common Language Runtime (CLR) Thread Data
Physical Threads	Number of operating-system threads created and owned by the CLR.
Logical Threads	Number of managed (.NET) thread objects that are currently in the process.
Queued Threads	Number of threads waiting to acquire a managed lock.

Note: The Start, Stop, and Restart actions for websites and the Start, Stop, and Recycle actions for application pools are available only in WMI and WinRM modes, and only to Admin and Enterprise Admin users. The Agent mode tables do not show these actions.