IIS Log HTTP Traffic Volumes

  • Article

The IIS Log HTTP Traffic Volumes view Layout for Charts enables you to obtain a high-level summary view of specific data from an IIS log file that depicts the relative distribution of HTTP traffic volume in bytes, from the highest to the lowest volume, for the cumulative IIS server responses to each client query that the server received. The Layout uses a Bar element visualizer component that provides a Y-axis label next to each bar element to display the IP address of an IIS server and the uniform resource identifier (URI) query made to the server from an HTTP client. Each horizontal graphic bar element in this Layout shows the cumulative HTTP traffic volume in bytes for all server responses associated with a particular query made by a client browser or other query source. The volume values in this Layout are based on the sc_bytes field for server responses, the values for which you can view in the Details Tool Window after selecting a log entry in the Analysis Grid viewer.

Note

An IIS.log file will be parsed only if you select the IIS configuration file in the Text Log Configuration drop-down list of the New Session dialog for a Data Retrieval Session prior to loading the data into Message Analyzer. Otherwise, no data will display in the IIS Log HTTP Traffic Volumes view Layout.

More Information
To learn more about working with text-based .log files, see Opening Text Log Files.

Using the IIS Log HTTP Traffic Volumes Layout

This Layout provides a quick summary of the total server response volumes in bytes that are associated with client queries requesting access to IIS server resources and services. It enables you to see at-a-glance which client queries are driving high byte volume responses from an IIS server, which may point to areas that need further investigation. For example, very high byte volume server responses could be an indication of the potential overload of an IIS server, especially if a higher than expected number of server responses are needed to service client queries.

Interactive Analysis
This Layout for the Chart viewer is intended to work with the IIS Layout for the Analysis Grid viewer and the IIS Layout for the Grouping viewer to create an integrated and interactive analysis environment. You will be able to correlate the data most effectively if you have these viewers and Layouts displayed. Note that these viewers and Layouts are configured in the IIS Logs Profile and will display after you load data from an IIS.log file, provided that you enabled this Profile on the Profiles tab of the Options dialog (accessible from the global Message Analyzer Tools menu).

As an example of interactively driving the display of messages, if you select any c_ip group in the Grouping viewer, you can display all the messages associated with a particular client IP address in the Analysis Grid viewer for further analysis and message Details. In addition, each Group selection that you make in the Grouping viewer filters the display of messages in the IIS Log HTTP Traffic Volumes view Layout for Charts to create a focused context for analysis.

More Information
To learn more about interactively analyzing IIS log data with the indicated viewing and Layout configurations, see the following topics:
Applying and Managing Analysis Grid Viewer Layouts — see the IIS Layout in this topic.
Grouping Viewer — see the IIS Layout in this topic.
Working With Message Analyzer Profiles — see the IIS Logs Profile in the table of this topic to review a related usage scenario and analysis example and to learn how to manually display the Grouping and Chart viewers with the Layouts defined in this Profile.