Setup Instructions - Windows Performance Monitor
Overview
Windows Performance Monitor (or PerfMon as it is commonly called), provides system
administrators the ability to monitor system counters to help analyze overall server
performance and to help troubleshoot performance and hardware bottlenecks. The following
instructions will guide you through the process of setting up a performance trace
that will record counter information to disk - which can then be sent to SQLServer
Audits for analysis.
Before You Begin
Before you begin, make sure that you have access to the Trace Template file that
was provided to you by SQLServer Audits (this will either have been emailed to you,
or a link to download the template will have been provided). If you don't have access
to the template file, please contact SQLServer audits before continuing.
Instructions
Once you have logged in to the server you will be monitoring (and have access to the template file provided by SQLServer Audits), use the following instructions to setup a new Counter Log.
1. Start Windows Performance Monitor by selecting Start > Run and typing in perfmon. Then click OK as shown in the following screenshot.
2. In the Performance MMC, expand the Peformance Logs and Alerts node, right click on the Counter Logs node and select the New Log Settings From... menu option as shown below:
3. From the Open dialog, browse to where ever you have stored the .htm template file provided by SQLServer Audits and click Open.
4. You will be prompted to name the new Counter Log profile - either just accept the provided name or supply one of your own, then click OK to continue.
5. After clicking OK, you should be presented with a window that looks similar to the following:
6. If you encounter any errors informing you that specific counters could not be located or found, please make note of these exceptions, and report them back to SQLServer Audits.
7. Ensure that data is set to be sampled every second, as specified in the following screen shot:
8. Switch to the Log Files tab and ensure that the Log file type is set as Text File (Tab delimited). Click the Configure button if you'd like to change the path to where the log files should be stored. You may be prompted to create an output directory if it doesn't already exist.
9. Now switch to the Schedule tab, and make sure that the Start log and Stop log options are both set to manual as highlighted below:
10. Click OK to continue. (NOTE: You may be prompted to create a directory at this stage...) A new Counter Log profile will now be added to the Counter Logs node in the Performance MMC.
11. To collect data with this counter log, simply right-click on it and select the Start menu option.
12. The log will generate (typically) a few KB of data every minute or so - but you may wish to keep an eye on it to ensure that it doesn't get too large. Running Performance Monitor will typically also add a small overhead, so do not run this if your server is getting 'buried' with traffic unless otherwise instructed.
13. When you are done collecting data, simply restart Perfmon (if necessary) and right click on the Counter Log you created and select the Stop menu option.
14. Once you have collected data, use Windows Explorer to find the logged results which you can then zip and send to SQLServer Audits by following the Upload Instructions.