Using Powershell to generate eventviewer statistics and event exports

During FIM health checks we need to have a good overview of the event viewer on the FIM Servers.
In almost any case the event viewer is a good measure of the server’s health.

The more red and yellow you see, the more errors and warnings, the more work you’ll have to get your server in a healthy state.

First goal is to have a general temperature of the health.
Second goal is to have the details to fix the issues.

I’ve created a Powershell to analyse the event viewer logs.

Instead of posting the Powershell in this blog, I’ve published it on TechNet Gallery, over here:

https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Powershell-Event-log-ab0ded45

There is a companion Wiki article with some guidance and configuration manual.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/32204.powershell-event-viewer-statistics.aspx

In short, the Powerscript below is a modular script that offers following functions:

• display the event log properties
• analyse number of events per category
• analyse number of events per severity
• overview of error events with source, severity and sample message
• detailed list of last event per eventID

You can configure the script:

• choice of event logs
• history length (period of events to report on)
• enable/disable logging
• enable/disable result export to file

 

Before you start

• validate your script execution policy
• copy the script to a separate folder where you can execute the script
• validate the script parameters

Script configuration parameters

• $enableLogging
  • $TRUE = create a transcript of the script during run (does not work in ISE)
  • $FALSE = do not create a verbose log
• $ExportEnabled
  • $FALSE = do not export the result to file
  • $TRUE = export the results, statistics and event details to file
• $EventLogList
  • Default: ‘System’,’Application’,’Setup’,’Forefront Identity Manager’,’Forefront Identity Manager Management Agent’
• $startdate
  • Defines from which point in time the event logs must be analysed
  • HINT: on a system with a large size of event logs, it’s advised to limit the history to x days or x weeks. A large volume event log will impact the usage of script memory.

I’m more than happy if you would test the script and provide me feedback to improve the script.