• Article

How to Configure Grooming Settings for .NET Application Performance Monitoring Events

 

Updated: May 13, 2016

Applies To: System Center 2012 R2 Operations Manager, System Center 2012 - Operations Manager, System Center 2012 SP1 - Operations Manager

When you have been monitoring applications using .NET Application Performance Monitoring (APM), a new data type, APM events, will begin to take up space. Eventually, you will want to groom your database for APM events. Changing the grooming settings for your database for APM events requires the following procedures. You can groom APM events in three locations:

  • In Application Diagnostics you can configure grooming settings for APM events in the Operations Manager Database

  • In Application Advisor you can configure grooming settings for APM events in the Data Warehouse

  • Using the Data Transfer rule, you can override parameters related to time-based APM event grooming in the Data Warehouse

Using Application Diagnostics to configure grooming settings for APM events in the Operations database

In Application Diagnostics you can select how many APM events you want in the Operations database and how long you want to keep them.

Application Diagnostics Operations Database page

To use Application Diagnostics to configure grooming settings for APM events in the Operations database

  1. Application Diagnostics is installed along with the Operations Manager web console. To find the web address of the Operations Manager web console, open the Operations console. In the navigation pane, click the Administration button, click Settings, and then double-click Web Addresses. The Operations Manager web console URL will be specified as: http(s)://<web host>/OperationsManager. Using this URL format and the same web host, the Application Diagnostics console address is: http(s)://<web host>/AppDiagnostics

    To open Application Diagnostics, paste the Application Diagnostics URL into your browser. Application Diagnostics opens in the web browser window.

    Note

    If you are running Operations Manager on a server rather than a client computer, you can access Application Diagnostics from the Start menu in All Programs.

    Access to Application Diagnostics is controlled through the Application Monitoring Operator and Administrator roles. You must be a member of one of these roles to have rights to the console. For more information, see User Roles for Application Performance Monitoring

  2. In Application Diagnostics, click Tools, select Options, and then click the Data tab.

  3. Change the Event data options to define how you want to groom the database, and then click OK.

Using Application Advisor to configure grooming settings for “Deleted” or “By Design” APM events in Data Warehouse

In Application Advisor you can choose the how long you want to keep APM events that have a Deleted or By Design status in Data Warehouse.

Application Advisor Operations Database page

To use Application Advisor to configure grooming settings for APM events in Data Warehouse

  1. Application Advisor is installed along with the Operations Manager web console. To find the web address of the Operations Manager web console, open the Operations console. In the navigation pane, click the Administration button, click Settings, and then double-click Web Addresses. The Operations Manager web console URL will be specified as: http(s)://<web host>/OperationsManager. Using this URL format and the same web host, the Application Advisor console address is: http(s)://<web host>/AppAdvisor

    To open Application Advisor, paste the Application Advisor URL into your browser. Application Advisor opens in the web browser window. Different application monitoring reports display in the context of the application features and services you configured when you created application groups to monitor.

    Access to Application Advisor is controlled through the Application Monitoring Operator, Report Operator and Administrator roles. You must be a member of Application Monitoring Operator and Report Operator roles or the Administrator role. For more information, see User Roles for Application Performance Monitoring

    Note

    Application Advisor requires SQL Server Report Services (SSRS). You must have Operations Manager reporting installed before using Application Advisor.

  2. In Application Advisor, click Tools, select Options, and then click the Data tab.

  3. Change the Event data options to define how you want to groom the database, and then click OK.

Using the Data Transfer rule to configure grooming settings for APM events and performance data from the Data Warehouse

The Data Transfer rule lets you override time-based grooming for the Data Warehouse. This rule triggers the Data Transfer, Aggregation, and Grooming activities related to APM events on the Operations or Data Warehouse databases. It provides overrides control to the retention settings for APM events in the Data Warehouse database.

Warning

Disabling this rule or overriding any other setting will have an adverse negative impact on the overall health, functionality, and consistency of the APM feature, the Data Warehouse, and Application Advisor reports, among other things.

The Operations Manager APM Data Transfer Rule is targeted to the Operations Manager APM Data Transfer Service object and has two overrides for those settings: for events and for counters. The setting for Events applies to events that had not been previously marked as “Deleted” or “By Design”, for which grooming is controlled by Advisor, as described in the previous paragraph. If events have been left in status “New”, then they will be retained in the Data Warehouse for as many days as this setting indicates.

The Performance Counter setting is intended for hourly performance aggregations, which potentially can take a lot of space. There is no configurable setting for daily performance aggregations. The default for this is 182. Typically, daily aggregations consume a lot less disk space.

Override Properties page

To use the Data Transfer Rule to configure grooming settings for APM events in the Data Warehouse

  1. In the Operations Manager console, in the navigation pane, click the Authoring button, click Management Pack Objects.

  2. Click Rules, click Change Scope, click View All Targets, search for Operations Manager APM Data Transfer Service, and then click OK.

  3. Right-click and select Overrides, select Override the Rule, and then select For all objects of class. You see the Override Properties page.

  4. On the Override Properties page, make your changes to Store Event Period and Store Performance Counters Interval, and then click OK.

    Store Event Period lets you determine how many days you want to keep APM events. Store Performance Counters Interval lets you determine how many days of performance counters you want to keep in Data Warehouse.