FASTSearchMonitoring service and log servers

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Applies to: FAST Search Server 2010

The FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint monitoring windows service (FASTSearchMonitoring) runs on all search nodes. The service is not started or stopped by the FAST Node Controller, because the monitoring service should run regardless of the state of the remaining FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint processes in order to monitor the correct state of the search system at all times.

The output of the monitoring service can be consumed by System Center Operations Manager 2007 (SCOM), built-in Windows tools like Performance Monitor and Event Viewer, scripts and third party monitoring tools.

The monitoring service contains three sub-modules:

  • Metrics services – publishes monitoring data to performance counters and WMI

  • Local log server – publishes logs to the Windows event log and SharePoint ULS

  • Main log server – publishes logs to the Windows event log (farm mode) and log files (syslog)

Metrics services

This module polls statistics-, performance- and other health information from the FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint processes and publishes them into performance counters and WMI. It reads its main configuration from etc\MonitoringService.xml. MonitoringServiceConfig.exe is used to install the performance counters and WMI objects in the operation system.

This service also reads data from NodeConf.xml, Node.xml and LogServerConfig.xml, all found in the “etc” folder. The FASTSearchMonitoring service must be manually restarted if any of these files change.

Local log server

The local log server receives log messages from individual FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint processes on the same machine. This module runs on all nodes, and it forwards logs to the main log server running on the administration server. It also publishes the local logs to the Windows event log “FAST Search” folder and the SharePoint ULS (Unified Logging Service) trace log.

Main log server

The main log server is only active on the FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint administration server. It receives log messages from all local log servers and outputs aggregated logs for the whole system into the ” FAST Search Farm” event log folder and individual log files in the <FASTSearchFolder>\var\log\syslog folder. WCF communication parameters used for server to server communication can be tuned in the standard .NET configuration file MonitoringService.exe.config.

See the article Read FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint logs for more information regarding the various log outputs of the log servers, and logserverconfig.xml reference for configuration information.

See Also

Reference

monitoringserviceconfig.exe reference

Concepts

Configure the FASTSearchMonitoring service
monitoringservice.xml reference