Monitoring Support
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Topic Last Modified: 2015-03-09
This section describes what is required to enable Quality of Experience (QoE) and Call Detail Record (CDR) data collection and reporting in an Office Communications Server deployment, including components, supported topologies, recommended deployment sequence, prerequisites for deployment, and the deployment process.
Feature Components
To enable QoE and CDR data collection and reporting, deploy Monitoring Server, which is a server role in Office Communications Server. To do so, run the Office Communications Server deployment tool on one or more servers, choosing the role of Monitoring Server during setup.
Monitoring Server also requires Monitoring Server databases that use Microsoft SQL Server. The databases can be collocated on the same computer as Monitoring Server, or on a different computer.
Supported Topologies
The Monitoring Server feature includes the following components:
The Monitoring Server, which is the server role that captures usage data and media quality data. This includes two parts: The CDR service for capturing CDRs (usage data), and the QoE service for capturing media quality data.
The Monitoring Server databases, which run on SQL Server and store the captured data. There are separate databases for CDR and QoE information, but both always run on the same server in the same instance.
The Data Collection Agents, which are installed automatically on every Front End Server and Standard Edition server. Although agents are activated automatically, no data is actually captured unless a Monitoring Server is deployed and associated with that Enterprise pool or Standard Edition server.
The Systems Center Operation Management (SCOM) pack is an optional component. This component can perform server monitoring for your entire deployment, and it can use Monitoring Server data to generate near real-time alerts showing the health of the A/V Conferencing Server component on your Front End Servers, as well as the health of Mediation Servers and network locations.
The Monitoring Server Report Pack is an optional component. You can use this component with SQL Server Reporting Services to generate detailed reports using Monitoring Server data. These reports provide trend, summary, and call list information to help you understand media quality on your network. Additionally, it includes CDR reports to help you understand overall peer-to-peer and conferencing usage of your deployment.
For details, including a list of hardware and software requirements for Monitoring Server and the server running the Monitoring Server database, see Internal Office Communications Server Component Requirements in the Supported Topologies and Infrastructure Requirements documentation.
Each Monitoring Server can capture data from one or more Enterprise pools, Standard Edition servers, and Mediation Servers. When you deploy a Monitoring Server, you associate it with the pools or servers that it is to monitor. Figure 1 illustrates two possible Monitoring Server topologies.
Figure 1. Monitoring Server topologies
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Note
You can associate multiple Monitoring Servers with a single Monitoring database that runs on a different computer. In this topology, it is important to configure the purge time for the Monitoring Servers to avoid potential database lockouts that can occur when purges run simultaneously. For details about configuring the purge time, see Configuring Retention of QoE and CDR Data in the Administering Office Communications Server 2007 R2 documentation.
Supported Collocation
Office Communications Server 2007 R2 supports a variety of collocation scenarios, allowing you flexibility to save hardware costs by running multiple components on one physical server, if you have a small organization, or to separate components onto different servers, if you have a larger organization that needs scalability and performance. Scalability factors should certainly be considered before you decide to collocate Monitoring Server or its databases with other server roles or databases.
Monitoring Server can be collocated with a Standard Edition server. If your deployment is a single Standard Edition Server, collocating Monitoring Server with it can save you from needing a separate computer for Monitoring Server.
Monitoring Server can also be collocated with other Office Communications Server roles, such as Archiving Server. If Monitoring Server and Archiving Server are collocated, their databases can be hosted on that same server as well, or located together on another server, or separated onto different database servers.
Note
If you collocate Monitoring Server with a Standard Edition server, you must install a full edition of SQL Server on the server, instead of using the SQL Server Express Edition normally used with a Standard Edition server.
The Monitoring Server and the Monitoring Server databases can be collocated on the same server or installed on separate servers, as illustrated in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Monitoring Server database collocation
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The server hosting the Monitoring Server databases can also host other databases. The following scenarios are supported:
Monitoring Server databases collocated with one or more other Office Communications Server databases, (including the back-end database, Archiving database, and Response Group Service database, for example).
Monitoring Server databases collocated with databases of third-party products.
Scaling
When you deploy Monitoring Server, you associate it with one or more Front End Servers, Standard Edition servers, and/or Mediation Servers. Monitoring Server then collects data from the servers you have associated it with. It is recommended, but not required, to have all Front End Servers in the same Enterprise pool associated with a single Monitoring Server.
For best scalability, do not collocate the Monitoring Server with another server role or collocate the Monitoring Server databases with any other databases. Hosting the Monitoring Server databases on a separate computer from the Monitoring Server itself does not significantly improve performance.
A single Monitoring Server can serve up to 200,000 users. If you have multiple pools that total less than 200,000 users, we recommend that you associate all these pools with a single Monitoring Server, to simplify administration. Alternatively, if you have pools at different physical locations, it may make more sense to deploy a Monitoring Server at each location.
Monitoring Database Performance
For optimal performance, we recommend putting these files on four physical disks:
System file and Message Queuing (MSMQ) file on the same physical disk
QoE database data file and CDR database data file on the same physical disk
QoE database log file
CDR database log file
If you collocate the Monitoring Server databases with other databases on the same server, you should run the Monitoring Server databases in a separate instance from other databases. Additionally, you should put the Monitoring Server database data files and log files on separate physical disks, for optimal performance. You should carefully evaluate performance impacts before deciding to collocate the Monitoring Server databases with other databases.
Monitoring Database Size
Based on the Office Communications Server user model (for details about the user model, see Capacity Planning), the CDR database grows 8.8 KB per user per day, and the QoE database grows 16.8 KB per user per day. To get an estimate of your database size, use this formula:
Database size = (DB growth per user per day) * (Number of users) * (Number of days)
For example, 60 days of data in the CDR database for 50,000 users would be 8.8*50000*60 for a total of 25 GB. If your organization’s Office Communications Server differs significantly from the user model, adjust the daily database growth estimate.
You can use this formula, along with the knowledge of your available database disk space, to help decide how many days of data to keep on your database (the default is 60 days).
Report Performance
Reporting is another factor affected by performance. The provided Monitoring Server Report Pack includes a standard set of reports that are designed to work in most scenarios, but if you need reports on very large data, such as a QoE report on 10 million calls, an offline reporting solution may be more appropriate. The Report Pack uses the tempdb database in SQL Server as an internal cache, so we recommend that you put tempbd on a separate physical disk, with at least 10 GB available space. One additional thing to consider is that if your Monitoring database size is larger than the database server’s physical memory, Monitoring Server report performance can be affected.
Monitoring Server Prerequisites
Before deploying Monitoring Server, you must install the following software:
Message Queuing, with Active Directory Integration enabled, on the server running Monitoring Server.
Message Queuing, with Active Directory Integration enabled, on each Front End Server and Standard Edition server from which a Monitoring Server will collect data. (It is not necessary to install Message Queuing on Mediation Servers that are being monitored.)
Recommended: If you install SQL Server Reporting Services on the computer with the Monitoring Server database, you can generate detailed reports with the data that Monitoring Server collects. If you do not install this, the only way you can view Monitoring Server data is to write your own SQL queries against the Monitoring Server database.
If your database server runs SQL Server 2008, you must use SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services. If the server runs SQL Server 2005, use SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services with SP2.
Load Balancer Port Requirement
To enable QoE data to be sent and received, you must open port 5069 on your Front End pool load balancers.
Deployment Sequence
Deploy Monitoring Server after you have deployed at least one Enterprise pool or Standard Edition server. Be sure to associate a pool or Standard Edition server with a deployed Monitoring Server when you enable QoE and CDR data collection on that pool or server, so that the data will be collected and stored.
Deploying Monitoring Server relatively early in your deployment process can be useful so that you can collect QoE data and see the media quality of your network during your planning and predeployment phases.
Monitoring Server Deployment Process
Before you deploy Monitoring Server, you need to verify that your system infrastructure and the server on which you will install Monitoring Server meet the hardware and software requirements previously described in this section. When the environment is ready, you install the Monitoring Server files, activate the server, start the services, and associate the Monitoring Server with the servers that it will monitor. Table 1 provides an overview of the required steps. The Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Monitoring Server Deployment Guide documentation provides detailed instructions.
Table 1. Monitoring Server Deployment Process
| Phase | Steps | Permissions | Documentation |
|---|---|---|---|
Install prerequisite software. |
Do the following:
|
Domain user who is a member of the local Administrators group |
Install Monitoring Server Prerequisites in the Deploying Monitoring Server documentation |
Install and activate Monitoring Server. |
|
Administrators group Domain Admins or RTCUniversalServerAdmins group |
Install Files for Monitoring Server Activate Monitoring Server |
Start the services. |
Start the Monitoring service. |
Administrators group |
Start Monitoring Service in the Deploying Monitoring Server documentation |
Deploy Monitoring Server reports. |
If you installed SQL Server Reporting Services on the server hosting the database server, you can deploy the Monitoring Server Report Pack to use a set of standard reports included with Monitoring Server. |
Administrators group |
Deploy Monitoring Server Reports (Recommended) in the Deploying Monitoring Server documentation |
Configure users and servers for monitoring. |
Do the following:
|
Domain Admins Group Administrators Group |
Configure Servers to be Monitored in the Deploying Monitoring Server documentation |