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How Can I Tell Whether A Dashboard Has Been Cached?

This article will explain how to tell whether a particular Dashboard has been cached by Accelerator for SPS 2001.

Although it is usually very obvious whether a Dashboard rendition has been cached, sometimes it is useful to explicitly verify whether, for whom, and for how long the Accelerator runtime has cached a rendition of a Dashboard.  The easiest way to do this is to use a debugging querystring explained here.

The Accelerator runtime will respond to an http request with a special querystring, _METCMD, appended.  For example, http://server/workspace/portal/someDashboard/?_METCMD=help.  An example response to this request is shown here:

A message from the SPS External Cache

The time is 9/8/2002 5:11:23 PM 

Usage:
   <url>?_metcmd=<command>

Where:
   <url>      is the url for the item you're requesting information (in the 
              case of global commands, it doesn't matter what url you use)

   <command>  is one of:

     DumpAll        - Dump all cache entries
     Dump           - Dump the specific cache entry identified by <url>
     DumpMarkup     - Dump all markup cache entries (and not static file cache entries).
     RemoveAll      - Remove all cache entries (same as admin flush cache operation)
     Remove         - Remove the specific cache entry identified by <url>
     SwitchLogs     - Switch the IsapiFilter log to a new log file.
     DumpInProgress - Dump all entries in the invalidateInProgress list.  Normally, there 
                      shouldn't be any unless you catch the system at just the right point
                      while it's invalidating cache entries.  But, if the system stops 
                      caching for no apparent reason, an entry may have gotten "stuck",
                      and this will allow you to see it/prove it.
     DumpBackground - Dump status of background threads
     CheckLicense   - Perform license check operations
     Help           - Display this list

You can experiment with these commands, but be careful as you are manipulating the runtime's cache directly.  Also, there may be a very large number of entries in the cache making the output infeasible.  Of particular interest for this article is ?_METCMD=dump.  When appended to a dashboard url, it will display a msg like:

A message from the SPS External Cache

The time is 9/8/2002 5:14:42 PM 

cacheKey /lab2ws/portal/someDashboard

MarkupCacheEntry - Date of birth: 9/8/2002 5:10:12 PM
Num hits: 2        Expiration timespan: 00:15:00
Init'zation state: ReadyForRequests
Completed markup:
    3///LAB2\exampleUser - 1085717249.0.html

This example indicates that the there is one cached rendition of the Dashboard /lab2ws/portal/someDashboard which is aligned to the user Lab2\exampleUser (thus, it is PerUser), with a timout of 15 minutes, and has been hit (served up)  twice.

Note:  Only an Administrator can use the ?_METCMD=<cmd> Querystring.  If a non-Administrator uses this querystring, it will simply be ignored and passed along.

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