• Article

Event and trace logs

Updated: 2009-04-30

Two kinds of logging are available in Planning Server: event logs and trace logs.

Event logging

Event logging in Planning Server is a major event that is written to the Windows Event Viewer. By default, event logging is turned on. Information that is provided by event log entries usually describes the basic event briefly. Event log entries indicate a success or failure of major Planning Server functionality, or a major degradation of functionality. Administrators may be notified of an issue through the Windows Event Viewer, at which time, they can use trace logs to investigate the issue.

Note

See the Windows Server documentation for information about how to configure the Windows Event Log. You can reduce denial of service attacks, for example, through event log configurations.

The following Windows Event Viewer log levels are available to Planning Server:

  • Error. Event errors are serious errors that IT administrators should be notified of immediately. Event errors are used to communicate significant tolerable and intolerable failures in the system that cause loss or failure of important functionality.

  • Warning. Event warnings are used to communicate tolerable failures in the system that are not immediately significant but could become critical if not addressed. A warning indicates a condition that could cause a fatal error and that requires an administrator to determine whether it is an error.

  • Information. Event information messages communicate significant successful progress and the state of the system. At the event level, these messages are very basic.

  • Audit failure. Not for financial auditing. Audit failure is intended to track logon failures and other permissions-related issues, such as failure to access resources. Example: User1 is not a valid user.

Planning Server can write to the Windows Event Viewer at one additional log level:

  • Audit success. Not for financial auditing. Audit success indicates successful transactions, such as a user successfully logging onto the system. These entries include the name of the computer that is running Planning Server and that the user accessed successfully. They also include the name and IP address of the computer that is running Planning Server from which the client request originated.

Trace logging

By default, trace logging is not on. It must be enabled by a member of the Global Administrator role. Trace logs are more specific and detailed than event logs.

Trace log levels include all the Windows Event Viewer levels that were described earlier, plus those in the following list:

  • Trace error. Trace errors occur within Planning Server and indicate user errors, operation errors, and application errors that might prevent Planning Server from functioning correctly. Trace errors can be fixed by Planning Server administrators and pose no threat to others users and systems in the data center or IT environment.

    Example: Failure to update account dimension.

  • Trace warning. Trace warnings are potential threats to Planning Server functionality, but they do not affect other users or systems in the data center. Like event log warnings, trace warnings require an administrator to determine whether the warning condition is an error.

    Example: Insufficient permissions.

  • Trace information. These entries record progress and significant events that are related to Planning Server.

    Example: Created new dimension XYZ.

  • Trace detail. The most detailed level of information that can display.

    Example: Added member A into dimension XYZ. Added member B into dimension XYZ.

Configure trace logging

Use the following procedures to enable or disable trace logging, and to configure trace logging settings. To make sure that data always writes to the active trace log file, we recommend that the trace log file not be locked by another application.

To disable trace logging

  1. On the Event and Trace Logs page of the Planning Administration Console, under Trace Log, select Disable trace logging.

  2. Click Submit.

To enable and configure trace logging

  1. On the Event and Trace Logs page of the Planning Administration Console, under Trace Log, select Enable trace logging.

  2. By default, when trace logging is enabled, all levels are logged. If you want to specify a level, on the Logging level drop-down menu, select the logging level that you want to use. Logging levels are described in the "Configuring Planning Server logging levels" section in this topic.

    Note

    Planning Server will log the level that you select and all levels that are listed below it in the Logging level drop-down list.

  3. The Log file name and location box displays the path of the trace log file and the trace log file name. If no log file name and location is specified, the trace log file is not created. This is a Read-only field. To change the name or location of the trace log file, you must run the Planning Server Configuration Manager and make the changes there.

  4. The Log writer computer name box displays the name of the server that is running Planning Server that writes logging information for the Planning Server system. This is a Read-only field. To select a different computer for this task, you must run the Planning Server Configuration Manager and make the change there. There is no default computer for this function.

  5. In the Maximum log size box, type a maximum size (in megabytes) for the trace log. When the maximum log size is reached, the trace log is renamed and saved to the location that is specified in step 3. Trace log files are saved by using the following naming convention: trace log file name.extension.1, trace log file name.extension.2, and so forth.

    For example, when you write to a trace log called trace.log and the maximum log size is reached, the file is saved as trace.log.1. Then, a new log file that uses the name that you specified in the Log file name and location box becomes the active log file. The maximum number of log files that can be renamed and saved is specified in the Maximum log backups box. If trace log file name.extension.9 is present and trace log file name.extension has reached maximum log size, trace log file name.extension.8 will overwrite trace log file name.extension.9. Therefore, we recommend that you have a backup policy in effect for trace log files.

  6. In the Maximum log backups box, type the maximum number of backup log files that Planning Server will create for each log file.

  7. In the Maximum queue size box, type the maximum size (in kilobytes) for the TraceRecords database table. After this size is reached, Planning Server will be unable to add trace log entries to the table until prior entries are processed and space becomes available. The minimum size is 1024 kilobytes.

  8. In the Poll interval box, type the period of time (in milliseconds) before the table is checked for new log entries. The minimum poll interval is 1,000 milliseconds. Setting the poll interval too low or too high will cause denial-of-service errors on the computer that is running Planning Server.

  9. Click Submit.

To reset trace logging to default settings

  1. To reset trace logging to its default settings, click Reset Defaults. The default settings are shown in the following table.

    Field name Default setting

    Trace log

    Disabled

    Logging level

    All

    Maximum log size (megabytes)

    10

    Maximum log backups

    9

    Maximum queue size (kilobytes)

    10,240

    Poll interval (milliseconds)

    10,000

  2. Click Submit.

Enable event consolidation

On the Event and Trace Logs page of Planning Administration Console, you can enable event consolidation. Event consolidation prevents many entries of the same type from flooding the event and trace logs. When event consolidation is enabled, only ten events of the same type (the default number) are sent to the event and trace logs every 3,600 seconds (the default interval). You can modify both the interval value (in seconds) and the maximum number of log entries.

To enable event consolidation

  1. Select the Enable event consolidation check box.

  2. In the Window interval box, type a window interval value (in seconds). Within the number of seconds that you specify, only a specified number of log entries of the same type will be written to the event or trace log. Events that occur after the specified number of log entries of the same type are not recorded in event and trace logs. This means you will not know about these events. Therefore, we recommend that you not set the window interval too high. Note that the default window interval is 3,600 seconds, which is the equivalent of one hour. The minimum window interval value is one second, and the maximum interval is one week (604,800 seconds).

  3. In the Maximum log entries box, type the maximum number of entries in a log file for both the event log and the trace log (when trace logging is enabled).

  4. Click Submit.

Configuring Planning Server logging levels

The following table summarizes the logging levels in Planning Server, in descending order of system-wide severity.

Logging level (descending order of severity) Where entries are written

Error

Windows Event Viewer and trace log file

Warning

Windows Event Viewer and trace log file

Information

Windows Event Viewer and trace log file

Audit failure

Windows Event Viewer and trace log file

Audit success

Windows Event Viewer and trace log file

Trace error

Trace log file only

Trace warning

Trace log file only

Trace information

Trace log file only

Trace detail

Trace log file only

When an administrator enables trace logging on the Event and Trace Logs page of Planning Administration Console, the default logging level is All. This means that all levels are written to the trace log. To log a subset of entries, you must manually select a specific logging level.

Selecting a logging level actually selects multiple levels to log. When you enable trace logging and then select a logging level, the trace log accumulates data for the specified logging level and for every level above it in the previous table.

For example, if you enable trace logging and select TraceWarning, your trace log will include Trace warning, Trace error, Audit success, Audit failure, Information, Warning, and Error. Your trace log, in this example, will not track Trace information or Trace detail entries.

Important

When Planning Server is uninstalled, all access control lists (ACLs) that restrict access to the log files are removed.

About SQL Server auditing and logging tables

Two SQL Server tables are used for Planning Server auditing and logging. Knowing the location of these tables may be useful for troubleshooting, backing up, or restoring the system. The tables are in the PPSPlanningService database. They service the whole Planning Server system.

  • AuditRecords. This table stores audit entries until they are sent to the Audit log file.

  • TraceRecords. This table stores logging entries until they are sent to the Trace log file.

Entries are removed from the table and written to the log file by using a batch operation. The default batch size is ten records. This operation is repeated until the table is empty.

Changing the batch size to improve performance

If you receive Windows Event Viewer messages that indicate that the audit or trace queue is full, you may be able to improve performance by changing the batch size. You can use any value from one to 5,000. However, if you use values that are too large performance may decrease because new entries cannot be added to the table until the table is empty. The batch size is stored in the PPSPlanningSystem database in the Configuration table. It is the batchSize value in the XML column, as shown in the following code sample:

<listener messageFormat="Binary" highLimit="10240" lowLimit="7680" checkInterval="10" pollInterval="10000" batchSize="10" ...>

Warning

Updating the XML manually can be a difficult process and should be done only by an IT administrator. For changes to take effect, you will have to stop and then restart the computer that is running the Planning Process Service.

Download this book

This topic is included in the following downloadable book for easier reading and printing:

See the full list of available books at Downloadable content for PerformancePoint Planning Server.