1. 70-290: MCSE Guide to Managing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment, Enhanced Chapter 11: Monitoring Server Performance

2. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced2 Objectives Identify the importance of monitoring server performance Use Task Manager to monitor server performance and resource usage Use Event Viewer to identify and troubleshoot problems Use the Performance console to monitor server performance using both System Monitor and Performance Logs and Alerts Optimize server performance through the configuration of service settings

3. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced3 Introduction to Monitoring Server Performance Server performance can deteriorate over time Monitoring helps alert you to problems before they become serious Normal behavior is called baseline performance Built-in tools for monitoring: Task Manager Event Viewer Performance console

4. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced4 Task Manager Fastest way to obtain a system performance snapshot Provides high-level information Can be accessed through Windows taskbar or Ctrl+Alt+Delete key combination Has five main tabs Applications Processes Performance Networking Users

5. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced5 Monitoring and Managing Applications From Task Manager, the Applications tab displays a list of all foreground software applications To manage a particular application, select it from the list and choose a menu option: End Task, Switch To, New Tasks Or, right-click an application and choose from shortcut menu: Switch To, Bring to Front, Minimize, Maximize, End Task, Go To Process

6. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced6 Monitoring and Managing Processes From Task Manager, the Processes tab displays a list of all processes in use by applications and services Displays information about each running process Right-click a process to end it Can change process priority from default of Normal Priority

7. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced7 Monitoring and Managing Processes (continued)

8. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced8 Monitoring Real-Time Performance From Task Manager, the Performance tab displays CPU and memory performance charts, graphs, and statistics Gives a snapshot of system performance at the moment Often used in conjunction with a more detailed tool as a first pass look at performance

9. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced9 Monitoring Real-Time Performance (continued)

10. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced10 Monitoring Real-Time Performance (continued)

11. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced11 Monitoring Network Performance From Task Manager, the Networking tab displays network utilization information Roughly the percentage of the network bandwidth in use Also displays network performance data for each installed network card Name of adapter, network utilization detected by the adapter, speed of network link, and operational state of adapter

12. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced12 Monitoring Network Performance (continued)

13. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced13 Monitoring Users From Task Manager, the Users tab displays a listing of users currently logged on, including network clients Can log off or disconnect a user Can send messages to connected users Can connect to another user’s session

14. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced14 Monitoring Users (continued)

15. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced15 Event Viewer Used to gather information and troubleshoot software, hardware, and system problems Events are recorded in logs Event Viewer allows you to view contents of logs Log entries denote warnings and errors Often include an event ID that helps to identify problem Three main logs: Application log Security log System log

16. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced16 Event Viewer (continued)

17. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced17 Event Viewer (continued) Domain controller has two additional logs: Directory service log File replication service log Any user can view contents of application and system log Administrators and those with special permission can view security log Event types include: information, warning, error

18. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced18 Interpreting Events Click a log file within Event Viewer to get details Details pane lists all events with information including: Type of event Data and time of event Source of event Category and event ID Computer on which event occurred

19. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced19 Interpreting Events (continued)

20. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced20 Activity 11-3 (continued)

21. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced21 Performance Console Supports gathering more detailed information than Task Manager Consists of two different tools: System Monitor View data gathered from counter objects Performance Logs and Alerts Periodically logs samples to a data file to be imported into other applications Generates alerts when certain configured thresholds are met

22. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced22 System Monitor Particularly useful for collecting data on real-time server performance Tasks that can be performed using System Monitor: Understanding server performance Problem diagnosis Capacity planning Testing You can specify a type of data to monitor, the source or computer from which to capture data, and performance objects to monitor

23. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced23 Using System Monitor Displays information when Performance tool is first opened Data display related to memory, processor, and physical disk objects on local computer Three possible views Graphs Histogram Report System Monitor toolbar used to control various functions

24. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced24 Using System Monitor (continued)

25. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced25 Performance Objects and Counters Performance monitoring is a regular maintenance task Performance counters: % processor time % interrupt time Pages/second Page faults/second % disk time Avg. disk queue length

26. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced26 Using System Monitor (continued) Collecting data is easy, interpreting data is harder Often there are causal relationships that aren’t obvious Several alternatives for saving and viewing historical data Html files Log files Databases

27. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced27 Performance Logs and Alerts A second tool available within Performance console Allows you to automatically collect data (locally or remotely) and view it using another program Tasks: collect data in different formats, view data, configure parameters, configure and manage logging sessions, set up alerts Three options available in tool: counter logs, trace logs, and alerts

28. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced28 Configuring Alerts Logging increases overhead on a server Set up a regular schedule for collecting and reviewing data Since logging should not run constantly, alerts can notify you of a potential problem

29. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced29 Configuring Alerts (continued)

30. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced30 Configuring and Managing Services Don’t want to run unnecessary services, adds overhead to a system Before disabling a service, check dependencies Services MMC allows you to configure various settings under the properties of a service with following tabs General Log On Recovery Dependencies

31. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced31 Summary Goal is to ensure servers meet performance expectations and to minimize server downtime Task Manager utility provides snapshots of CPU, memory, and network performance and utilization – Used as an initial point of reference Task Manager can also be used for management – to end, switch, start, etc. new applications and processes and to log off and disconnect users

32. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced32 Summary (continued) Event Viewer utility used to view logged information about errors, cautions, and events in processes and applications – helps to identify issues before they become larger problems Performance console contains the System Monitor utility and the Performance Logs and Alerts utility System Monitor allows you to track many different performance measures locally and remotely and provides different views of the measures

33. Guide to MCSE 70-290, Enhanced33 Summary Performance Logs and Alerts allows you to automatically log performance information based on start and stop times or on alert configurations Information can be saved in different formats including SQL database, comma-separated, tab-separated, etc. To optimize server performance, unnecessary services and applications should be disabled – some run by default when server is installed Check Dependencies before disabling a service