All powerful engines require fine tuning to provide the best performance. In this workshop, Bocek discussed ways to configure Webtrends to get the best results possible and keep your analytics engine running smoothly.

Backup – Bocek recommended using Robocopy (or something similar) to copy the following files off the machine and back them up in an alternate location:
o \storage\config
o \storage\reports
o \storage\analysis
o \common\database or the location of your MSSQL db

Catching up data – Bocek emphasized that occasionally data needs to be rerun for an extended period of time and discussed how to do it:
o Make log files available locally or via UNC
o Have log files unzipped (to avoid copying them)
o Set Analysis Throttling to a larger time frame such as 5 or 10 days (depending on the amount of data in the logs). If the log files are on the smaller size, this can be increased. If log file data is quite extensive, this may need to be reduced.
o Within “Analysis Throttling”, enable “Rerun analysis immediately after maximum amount of data is analyzed” and “Update report data between each analysis period”

Bocek also offered the following best practices and tips:
o Only use FTP to retrieve log files within Webtrends as a last resort. It’s time consuming and ftp connections can timeout where UNC and local will be both faster and more stable.
o Date Macros: Date macro use is especially important when reading from zipped log files. Always point to the most recent 5 days (minus the current day). This will allow the profile to limit the data it’s looking at and always read the most recent 5 days of log files.
o VMWare: If needing to be utilized, we recommended using the ESX.

Q: How much memory is available for a profile to utilize while running?
A: By default, a 32Bit operating system will allocate up to 2 GB of physical memory to a process. If a profile requires more than 2 GB to process it will fail with an “out of memory” error.

Q: If I analyze both SDC logs and web server logs, are both counted against licensing?
A: No, Webtrends will take the higher of the two. It does keep track of both, but will only count the server calls against licensing for the higher of the two log file formats.

Q: How do I determine what’s being counted in licensing and general licensing information?
A: Navigate to the \common\lib directory via the command line and type “wtlicman –s” (without the quotes). You will find an entry about 1/3 the way down that states – Nonpageviewextension: Any extensions found in this list are NOT counted against licensing. Everything outside of the list will be counted against licensing.

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