How to Configure Usage and Health Data Collection SharePoint 2013

Diagnostic logging can help identify and isolate issues as they occur in our server farm. We can go with default settings when we configure diagnostic logging on new installations. When issues occur in our server farm, we can return to these settings and adjust the levels accordingly. This will help to identify the cause and isolate the issues. Usage and health reporting can be used to show where diagnostic logging settings deviate from the default values.

Configure usage and health data collection by using Central Administration

As you know, the usage and health data settings are farm-wide and cannot be set for individual servers in the farm. Please use the following procedure to configure usage and health data collection using Central Administration.

1. Verify that we have the following administrative credentials:
   
   The user account that performs this procedure must be a member of the Farm Administrators group.
   
   
2. In Central Administration, on the Home page, click Monitoring.
3. On the Monitoring page, in the Reporting section, click Configure usage and health data collection.
4. On the Configure usage and health data collection page, in the Usage Data Collection section, select the Enable usage data collection check box.
5. In the Event Selection section, select the check boxes of the events that we want to log.
   Logging uses system resources and can affect performance and disk usage. Only log those events for which we want regular reports. For impromptu reports or investigations, enable logging for specific events and then disable logging for the events after the report or investigation completes.

6. In the Usage data collection settings section, type the path of the folder to which we want usage and health information written in the Log file location box. The path that we specify must exist on each server in the farm. These settings are applied to all events. To set event collection settings for individual event types, we must use Windows PowerShell.

7. Type the maximum disk space (between 1 and 20 GB) for the logs in the Maximum log file size box.

8. In the Health data collection section, select the Enable health data collection check box. To change the collection schedules, click Health Logging Schedule. A list of timer jobs that collect health data is listed. Click any of the timer jobs to change its schedule, or disable that timer job.

9. In the Logging Database Server section, to change the authentication method, select either the Windows authentication or SQL authentication option.

To change the Database Server and Database Name values, we must use Windows PowerShell.

Configure usage data collection using Windows PowerShell

1. Verify that we meet the following minimum requirements: See Add-SPShellAdmin (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607596.aspx).
2. On the Start menu, click All Programs.
3. Click Microsoft SharePoint 15 Products.
4. Click SharePoint 15 Management Shell.
5. At the Windows PowerShell command prompt (that is, PS C:\>), type the following command and then press Enter:
   
   Set-SPUsageService [-LoggingEnabled {1 | 0}] [-UsageLogLocation <Path>] [-UsageLogMaxSpaceGB <1-20>] [-Verbose]
   
   For UsageLogLocation, specify a path that exists on each computer in the farm.

Enable usage data logging by typing: LoggingEnabled 1. Specify the maximum amount of drive space used for logging with the UsageLogMaxSpaceGB parameter.