Performance Monitor in Server 2003 Options

[telecomguy9]

Hello all. Is it possible to setup Performance Monitor so that you can save the data it produces and look at it at a later time? I'm not talking about a snapshot or point in time, which I know I can do, but instead a full historical view of what went down (of what the counters produced) through the entire use of the monitor. So let's say I run the monitor on certain objects\counters for 8 hours. Can I save that data and review it at a later date and literally see everything that occured with those objects\counters for that 8 hours?

[Temmu]

yes.

start, admin tools, perf monitor. (of course.)

expand the perf logs and alerts.

click counter logs.

action, new log settings (type in a name, in this example we'll call it cpu.) ok.

on the general tab

there are 2 buttons,
--- add objects - dumps the whole class of items to be tracked. prolly do not want that.
--- add counters - click that, please.

as we called this one cpu, choose performance object: processor.

on the right column, for now, leave the _total selected.

on the left column:
leave (o) select counters from list selected
choose these for example: - to choose, highlight the item, click add; repeat.
% dpc time
% idle time
% interrupt time
% processor time
% user time

close


on the log files tab

choose log file type, comma delimited
click on configure
type in a path to where you want the file to live
there's the file name you entered earlier, cpu
log file size, limit, 2mb

on the schedule tab

start log (o) at - whatever time is in the blanks, it will start when you are done setting up.
stop log (o) when the 2-mb log file is full

when a log file closes:
[x] start a new log file.

ok

notice in the mmc, on the right, a green icon w/ cpu. it's running!

go to the file location you specified in a few minutes and your file will be growing.
when the 2mb limit is reached, a new file, cpu00002.csv or such will be created.

you can evaluate your results in ms excel or open office.

create a counter for each of memory, hard drive, cpu, server work queues, nic, whatever...
if you do one for ras, watch out! it fills up quickly.

[telecomguy9]

Wow, thanks for the info. I'll use this to setup some logs. Thanks.

[telecomguy9]

Oh yeah, one more question. I'm assuming perfmon needs to continue running in order to log the data. In other words I shouldn't click the close button at the top right of perfmon...

[Temmu]

you're welcome.
you can close the microsoft management console (mmc) for perfmon, they will continue to run.

[telecomguy9]

Thanks again for the info. I really appreciate it.

[Temmu]

any time!
you are certainly welcome.

[jolphil]

Hi Guys,
Very interesting question and a great answer.. Thats why I like this site..Always something to learn..
I wonder if a similar thing can be done for say XP or Vista? That could be a great help in
troubleshooting a difficult problem?
jolphil

[Temmu]

for xp & vista:

r click on start
properties
start menu tab
properties button
(scroll down to the bottom)
under administrative tools, select one of:
display on the all programs menu
display on the all programs menu and start menu
ok

for xp - then follow the steps above.


for both xp and vista
start, run, perfmon

you'll have to fiddle around with vista, it looks different from xp.

[jolphil]

for xp & vista:

r click on start
properties
start menu tab
properties button
(scroll down to the bottom)
under administrative tools, select one of:
display on the all programs menu
display on the all programs menu and start menu
ok

for xp - then follow the steps above.


for both xp and vista
start, run, perfmon

you'll have to fiddle around with vista, it looks different from xp.

Thanks for the info..I will try it out...
jolphil

[Temmu]

cool!