71.4 Measuring Agent Performance

To test the performance of the agents in your GroupWise system, you can send performance test messages from a specially configured Monitor domain to target domains anywhere in your GroupWise system. The Monitor Agent measures the amount of time it takes for replies to return from the target domains, which lets you ascertain the speed at which messages flow through your GroupWise system.

71.4.1 Setting Up an External Monitor Domain

Before you can use the GroupWise Performance Testing feature to configure and enable GroupWise performance testing, you must create a specially configured Monitor domain and select an MTA to receive performance test messages from the Monitor Agent. The Monitor Agent uses an external GroupWise domain as part of measuring GroupWise agent performance.

By creating an external domain, you enable the Monitor Agent to approximate the round-trip time for email messages to travel to recipients and for status messages to travel back to senders. If you also plan to set up gateway accounting reports, as described in Section 71.5, Collecting Gateway Accounting Data, you can use this same external domain for collecting accounting data.

In ConsoleOne:

  1. Connect to a domain where the MTA will communicate with the Monitor Agent for the purpose of sending accounting data to the Monitor Agent.

  2. Create an external GroupWise domain.

    Create External GroupWise Domain dialog box

    For information about external GroupWise domains, see Creating an External Domain in Connecting to Other GroupWise Systems in the GroupWise 2012 Multi-System Administration Guide.

  3. Name the external domain to reflect its role in your GroupWise system.

    For example, you could name it ExternalMonitorDomain.

  4. Continue with Configuring the Link for the External Monitor Domain.

71.4.2 Configuring the Link for the External Monitor Domain

The Monitor Agent needs to send its performance testing messages to a specific MTA in your GroupWise system. It does not matter which MTA you decide to use. It could be the MTA for the domain to which the external Monitor domain is linked.

In ConsoleOne:

  1. Click Tools > GroupWise Utilities > Link Configuration.

  2. In the Outbound Links From box, double-click the domain whose MTA you want the Monitor Agent to communicate with.

  3. Configure the outbound link from the selected MTA to the external Monitor domain to be a TCP/IP link.

    Edit Domain Link dialog box

    1. Click the pencil icon to provide the IP address of the server where the Monitor Agent runs.

    2. Specify a unique port number for the MTA to use to communicate with the Monitor Agent.

    3. Click OK.

  4. Click OK to save your changes to the link.

  5. Exit the Link Configuration Tool to save the new link configuration information.

  6. Continue with Configuring the Monitor Agent for Agent Performance Testing.

71.4.3 Configuring the Monitor Agent for Agent Performance Testing

After you have created an external Monitor domain and configured a link from it to an MTA, you are ready to configure the Monitor Agent for performance testing.

  1. On Windows, at the Monitor Agent server console, click Configuration > Performance Testing.

    GroupWise System Performance dialog box

    or

    On Linux, at the Monitor Agent Web console, click Preferences > Setup, then scroll down to the Performance Testing section.

    Performance Testing section of the Setup page

  2. Fill in the fields:

    Domain to send messages to: Select the external Monitor domain that you configured for system performance testing.

    You might need to restart the Monitor Agent in order to see the new Monitor domain in the drop-down list.

    Send performance messages every: Specify in minutes the time interval for the Monitor Agent to send performance test messages.

    Enable GroupWise Performance Testing: Select this option to turn on performance testing. Deselect this option when you have finished your performance testing.

    Send performance messages to: Select All Agents to send performance test messages to all domains in your GroupWise system. Select Monitored Agents to send performance test messages only to the agents currently listed at the Monitor Agent console.

  3. Click OK to put the performance testing settings into effect.

  4. Continue with Section 71.4.4, Viewing Agent Performance Data.

    or

    Continue with Section 71.4.6, Receiving Notification of Agent Performance Problems.

71.4.4 Viewing Agent Performance Data

The information gathered by the Monitor Agent through performance test messages is recorded in the Monitor history log.

At the Windows Monitor Agent server console or the Monitor Agent Web console:

  1. Click Log > View History Files.

  2. Select a history log file, then click View.

71.4.5 Viewing an Agent Performance Report

A performance testing report enables you to measure how long it takes messages to travel through your GroupWise system. The performance testing report lists each domain that a performance test message was sent to, when it was sent by the Monitor Agent, and the number of seconds between when it was sent and when the Monitor Agent received a response from the tested agent.

At the Windows Monitor Agent server console or the Monitor Agent Web console:

  1. Click Reports > Performance Testing.

  2. Select All Domains to generate a performance testing report for all domains in your GroupWise system.

    or

    Select one domain to generate a performance testing report for it.

  3. Click Run to generate the performance testing report.

71.4.6 Receiving Notification of Agent Performance Problems

If you want the Monitor Agent to notify you if system performance drops to an unacceptable level, you can create a threshold to check the mtaLastResponseTime and mtaAvgResponseTime MIB variables. The average response time is a daily average that is reset at midnight. See Section 69.5.2, Customizing Notification Thresholds for setup instructions.