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Configure the Event Collection Service

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A default instance of the Event Collection service is installed and configured with the AppFabric installation. The Event Collection service collects Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) events emitted by WCF and WF services and stores them into the AppFabric monitoring store. The default settings for the Event Collection service are stored in the root Web.config file. The Event Collection service must be able to read the application’s Web.config file for the application to be monitored. For more information, refer to Event Collection Security.

This section documents the Web.config file elements related to the Event Collection service.

Configuring the Event Collection Service

The default settings are stored in the root Web.config file as follows.

<microsoft.applicationServer>
   <monitoring lockElements="bulkCopyProviders, collectors">
       <collectors>
            <collector name="" session="0">
                 <settings retryCount="10" eventBufferSize="10000" retryWait="00:00:15" maxWriteDelay="00:00:05" aggregationEnabled="true"/>
            </collector>
       </collectors>
       <bulkCopyProviders>
            <bulkCopyProvider providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" type="Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Monitoring.EventCollector.SqlServerBulkCopy, Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Monitoring, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />
        </bulkCopyProviders>
        <default enabled="true" connectionStringName="ApplicationServerMonitoringDatabase" monitoringLevel="HealthMonitoring" />
    </monitoring>
</microsoft.applicationServer>

Event Collection service settings are specified as follows.

<collectors>
   <collector name="" session="0">
        <settings retryCount="10" eventBufferSize="10000" retryWait="00:00:15" maxWriteDelay="00:00:05" aggregationEnabled="true" />
    </collector>
</collectors>

The collector element is defined as follows.

Element/Attribute Name Description

Collector

Top-level element for the Event Collection service instance

Name

Name of the collector. The default is “”, which is the name of the default instance.

Session

Session ID this collector refers to. The default instance refers to “0”. For a computer, 10 sessions are available (“0” to “9”).

retryCount

Number of times to retry when a database operation fails

eventBufferSize

Maximum number of events the collector buffers before writing them to the store

retryWait

Time between retry attempts to write to the store

maxWriteDelay

If no event has arrived in this time period then events are written to the store. The collector may choose to write events even if events have arrived during this time period.

aggregationEnabled

Enables or disables the aggregation of analytic event 214.

Bulk copy settings are specified as follows.

<bulkCopyProviders>
    <bulkCopyProvider providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" type="Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Monitoring.EventCollector.SqlServerBulkCopy, Microsoft.ApplicationServer.Monitoring, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />
</bulkCopyProviders>

The bulkCopyProvider element is defined as follows.

Element/Attribute Name Description

bulkCopyProvider

Top-level element that configures a bulk copy provider

providerName

ADO.NET provider name for a database

Type

Fully qualified type for the bulk copy class

Collection settings for installed WCF and WF services are specified as follows.

<default enabled="true" connectionStringName="ApplicationServerMonitoringDatabase" monitoringLevel="HealthMonitoring" />

A Web.config file below the root Web.config file in the IIS hierarchy can override the following settings.

Element/Attribute Name Description

Default

Top-level element that controls collection setting for installed WCF and WF service applications

Enabled

Specifies if the Event Collection service should collect events for services. Valid values are “true” or “false”.

connectionStringName

Name of the connection string for the monitoring store

monitoringLevel

The monitoring level controls the verbosity of event collection.

  • Off

  • ErrorsOnly

  • HealthMonitoring

  • EndToEndMonitoring

  • Troubleshooting

You can configure and run up to 10 instances of the Event Collection service. The steps to start a new Event Collection service instance are:

  1. Define a collector configuration element for the new instance.

    <collector name="SecondCollector" session="1">
    <settings retryCount="5" eventBufferSize="50000" retryWait="00:00:50" maxWriteDelay="00:00:50" />
        <scopes>
            <add path="My Website” />"
        </scopes>
 </collector>

    Note

    You can specify an optional scopes element. This defines the scopes within the IIS hierarchy for the collector instance to search for installed applications. In the preceding example, the SecondCollector instance collects events only for applications installed under “My WebSite”.

  2. Start a Windows service for the second Event Collection service instance by using the name specified in the collector element.

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