A scheduled task named W3svcUsageCollection runs daily on each hosting server used for the Windows Web Hosting service, and collects disk usage data for all organizations hosted on that server.
Since disk usage calculation is a time-consuming process depending upon the number of organizations on a hosting server, each scheduled task stores this data on its hosting server, ready to be used for the usage collection report. This greatly reduces the time required to display the usage collection report in the control panel at run time, thereby increasing the performance for usage report generation.
Important: During the hosting server installation, the W3svcUsageCollection scheduled task is created with the domain administrator's password. If you change the domain administrator's password later, you must also update the scheduled task with the new password; otherwise the scheduled task will fail.
The disk usage data is stored in a file named Usage-<date>-<time>.dat on the hosting server in the <system_drive>\Program Files\Ensim\Ensim Unify\Services\WebHosting\UsageData directory. Every time the W3svcUsageCollection scheduled task runs, a new file is created in this directory.
The latest disk usage data is copied automatically from all hosting servers to the Windows Web Hosting service's database, once a day. The bandwidth usage for all hosting servers is also collected automatically, every 15 minutes, and stored in the same database.
The disk usage data is copied from the latest Usage-<date>-<time>.dat file on all hosting servers to the Windows Web Hosting service's database. Since bandwidth usage collection for Web and FTP traffic takes relatively lesser time than disk usage calculation, it does not require a scheduled task to calculate it on each hosting server.
When you update the usage data in the control panel, the disk usage and bandwidth usage data is copied from the Windows Web Hosting service's database to the platform's database. This data is then displayed in the control panel along with the usage data for all other resource types that is calculated at run time.
Since the usage data for disk space and bandwidth is not collected at run time, this data displayed in the control panel is cached data. Therefore, when you view the usage data in the control panel, the disk usage data can be 24 hours old (maximum), and the bandwidth usage data can be 15 minutes old (maximum). The usage data for all other resource types, that is, Number of Sub-Domains, Number of Installations, Number of Users, Number of MyODBC, Access and SQL DSNs is calculated at run time, and therefore this usage data displayed in the control panel always contains the latest values.
About usage reports
Ensim Unify enables you to view reports that show how your resellers and organizations are using the Windows Web Hosting service. Use these reports to monitor service usage and ensure proper billing for services.
Scheduled tasks collect usage data on hosting servers.
Data is copied to the Windows Web Hosting database.
During updates, data is copied to the platform database.
You can also change the usage data collection schedule to any time as needed.
For more information about usage collection, see these general Help topics:
Updating usage information