Alpha Cloud - Alpha Anywhere Developer's Guide
Viewing Cloud Activity
The Cloud View Dialog
The Deployment Status Tab Page
The Server Load Tab Page
The Application Requests Tab Page
The IIS Logs Tab Page
The Alpha Anywhere Logs Tab Page
The IIS Failed Request Logs Tab Page
The Crash Dump Files Tab Page
The Cloud View Dialog
The Cloud View dialog provides access to status, activity and logs for applications you have deployed on Alpha Cloud.
- Select the application and the deployment of that application you want to look at.
- The Currently Active Servers tab page will show all servers running your deployed application along with their status.
- Select a date range to analyze and click the Update Analysis button to retrieve activity and lists of logs for that date range.
- When the analysis is complete, the Server Load, Application Requests, IIS Logs and Alpha Anywhere Logs tab pages will be populated.
Note: If your application has been deployed, you can click on the web link to open your application in a browser.
The Deployment Status Tab Page
Once you schedule your application for deployment, by publishing and deploying or using the Manage Deployments Dialog, and the scheduled deployment becomes active, a series of tasks will be triggered that result in your application being installed or updated on a running web site.
Server Status
Each windows server that is running your application deployment is displayed on the Server Status tab page. The columns displayed are:
- Instance
- A unique identifier assigned by the cloud infrastructure for the server.
- Host
- The windows host name assigned to the server. This can be used to find IIS and Alpha Anywhere logs for a specific server.
- Start Time
- The date and time the Alpha Anywhere software started running on the server. This is the time the server became available to service requests.
- Last Heartbeat
- The last date and time the Alpha Anywhere software running on the server reported that it was running.
- State
- The cloud infrastructure reported state of the server instance. An instances may be initializing, in service, terminating or terminated. After a period of time, terminated servers are removed from the list.
- Health
- The cloud infrastructure reported health of the server, based on it's ability to respond on the network. Running servers will generally be reported as "Healthy" unless there is a problem.
Deployment Events
As each deployment task starts and ends, the occurrence is logged. The Deployment Events tab page shows the history of those tasks for your scheduled deployment.
Oops! Something went wrong. What do I do?
Occasionally an error may occur during deployment. If an error occurs, the list of events will include error messages in the description column. If the message makes sense and appears to be temporary, you may want to republish (or redeploy) your application. If the error appears to be more permanent, click Copy Events to Clipboard and paste the clipboard contents into an e-mail addressed to [email protected].
The Server Load Tab Page
As your deployed application handles requests Alpha Cloud tracks activity for a number of metrics. The metrics are summarized in fifteen minute increments. The Server Load tab page displays charts for each of those metrics for the period of time you select as your analysis time frame at the top of the Cloud View dialog. Selecting the metric on the left will show the appropriate chart on the right-hand side of the tab page.
Note: The metrics are most useful as a comparison of activity over time rather than an absolute value.
The metrics available are:
- Requests
- The number of requests handled by your deployed application on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- CPU Time
- The total CPU time required to service requests on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Data Received
- The total number of bytes of data received from browsers by your deployed application on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Data Sent
- The total number of bytes of data sent to browsers by your deployed application on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Average CPU Time
- The average CPU time required to service each request on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Average Data Received
- The average number of bytes of data received from browsers for each request by your deployed application on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Average Data Sent
- The average number of bytes of data sent to browsers for each request by your deployed application on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- CPU Time In Seconds
- The total CPU time (in seconds) required to service requests on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Data Received in Megabytes
- The total number of megabytes of data received from browsers by your deployed application on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Data Sent in Megabytes
- The total number of megabytes of data sent to browsers by your deployed application on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
Saving Data and Charts You can save the data used to create the chart by clicking the button labeled "Save Data To File". To save the current chart to an image file, click the button labeled "Save Chart To File".
The Application Requests Tab Page
As your deployed application handles requests Alpha Cloud tracks activity for a number of metrics. The metrics are summarized in fifteen minute increments for each requested resource. These can include web pages, images, reports, and AJAX callbacks. The Application Requests tab page displays charts for the most active resources requested for each of the recorded metrics for the period of time you select as your analysis time frame at the top of the Cloud View dialog. Selecting the metric on the left will show the appropriate chart on the right-hand side of the tab page.
Note: These charts can be useful in identifying the most active or expensive resource requests in your application.
The metrics available are:
- Requests
- The number of requests for the resource on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- CPU Time
- The total CPU time required to service requests for the resource on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Data Received
- The total number of bytes of data received from browsers when requesting the resource on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Data Sent
- The total number of bytes of data sent to browsers when requesting the resource on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Average CPU Time
- The average CPU time required to service requests for the resource on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Average Data Received
- The average number of bytes of data received from browsers when requesting the resource on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Average Data Sent
- The average number of bytes of data sent to browsers for each request of the resource on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- CPU Time In Seconds
- The total CPU time (in seconds) required to service requests for the resource on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Data Received in Megabytes
- The total number of megabytes of data received from browsers when requesting the resource on all active servers during the time frame you selected.
- Data Sent in Megabytes
- The total number of megabytes of data sent to browsers on all active servers for the requested resource during the time frame you selected.
Saving Data and Charts You can save the data used to create the chart by clicking the button labeled "Save Data To File". To save the current chart to an image file, click the button labeled "Save Chart To File".
The IIS Logs Tab Page
IIS creates log files for your application to record requests for resources. These can include web pages, images, reports, and AJAX callbacks.
Alpha Cloud configures the Advanced Logging Module from Microsoft to create one log for each deployed application each hour that your application is deployed on that server. Alpha Cloud automatically copies the logs from the running server to cloud storage. The logs can be retrieved and reviewed at a later time even if the server itself is terminated.
The IIS Logs tab page lists the logs created during the time you specified as your analysis time frame and presents them in a tree view display by host name and then date and time and then displays them again by date and time and then by host name. If you open the tree view to the lowest level in the tree and double click on that entry, the log is retrieved and displayed in the text box on the right-hand pane of the dialog.
The Alpha Anywhere Logs Tab Page
When Alpha Anywhere for IIS runs on the cloud, all error logging and tracing is consolidated into a single file. There is one file for each deployed application and server and each hour that your application is deployed.
Alpha Cloud automatically copies the logs from the running server to cloud storage. The logs can be retrieved and reviewed at a later time, even if the server itself is terminated.
The Alpha Anywhere Logs tab page lists the logs created during the time you specified as your analysis time frame and presents them in a tree view display by host name and then date and time and then displays them again by date and time and then by host name.
If you open the tree view to the lowest level in the tree and double click on that entry, the log is retrieved and displayed on the right hand- pane of the dialog.
The display pane for Alpha Anywhere logs has two tabs within it.
- The Content tab displays the data from the log by column, making it easier to scan.
- The Text tab displays the raw contents of the log (a CSV formatted file) making individual entries easier to read.
The Alpha Anywhere Logs Content Tab
The Alpha Anywhere Logs Text Tab
The IIS Failed Request Logs Tab Page
When You select Diagnostic, Complete, or Debugging log level for your deployment, Alpha Anywhere for IIS enables IIS failed request logging.
Alpha Cloud automatically copies the logs from the running server to cloud storage. The logs can be retrieved and reviewed at a later time, even if the server itself is terminated.
The IIS Failed Request Logs tab page lists the logs created during the time you specified as your analysis time frame and presents them in a tree view display by host name and then date and time and then displays them again by date and time and then by host name.
If you open the tree view to the lowest level in the tree and double click on that entry, the log is retrieved and displayed on the right hand- pane of the dialog.
The display pane for failed request logs has two tabs within it.
- The Failed Request tab displays log using an XSL transform file generated by IIS that provides a rich browse-able interface..
- The XML tab displays the raw contents of the log (an XML file).
The IIS Failed Request Logs Failed Request Tab
The IIS Failed Request Logs XML Text Tab
The Crash Dump Files Tab Page
A MiniDump file will be created if you explicitly request it Xbasic or in the event of an unhandled exception.
Alpha Cloud automatically copies MiniDump files from the running server to cloud storage. The dump files can be retrieved and reviewed at a later time even if the server itself is terminated.
The Crash Dump Files tab page lists the MiniDump files created during the time you specified as your analysis time frame and presents them in a tree view display by host name and then date and time and then displays them again by date and time and then by host name. If you open the tree view to the lowest level in the tree and double click on that entry, the log is retrieved and you can click on the button "Save To File..." to store it on disk.
