Reliability and Performance Monitor

One of the Windows tools administrators should be skilled at using is the Reliability and Performance Monitor. Administrators who used perfmon in Windows Server 2003 may find the Reliability and Performance Monitor in Windows Server 2008 (the tool is called just Performance Monitor in Windows Server 2008 R2) a bit confusing when they first explore it. However, in addition to all the features included in previous versions, it now presents some new functionality that can make performance troubleshooting much easier and powerful because it provides a more detailed view of Windows server performance and per-instance SQL Server-specific counters.

The Reliability and Performance Monitor can monitor resource usage for the server and provide information specific to SQL Server either locally or for a remote server. It provides a massive set of counters that can be used to capture a baseline of server resource usage, and it can monitor over longer periods to help discover trends. It can also detect abnormal values at a glance for key performance counters on critical SQL Server instances. Additionally, administrators can configure it to produce alerts when preset thresholds are surpassed.

After opening the Reliability and Performance Monitor, as shown in Figure 9.4, the % Processor Time counter from the Processor object is automatically monitored in real time with a 1-second refresh interval. Additional counters can be appended to the graph by clicking the green plus icon on the toolbar and navigating through objects, which classify the counters into groups. When a SQL Server instance is installed on a server, it adds more than 1,000 new performance counters to the Performance Monitor section of the Reliability and Performance Monitor. Of the many performance counters that can be selected when troubleshooting a SQL Server instance, choosing the appropriate key indicators can significantly help administrators quickly isolate bottlenecks and direct their investigation to the appropriate resources for corrective actions.

Figure 9.4. Reliability and Performance Monitor.

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Additionally, administrators can capture performance counters to log files for long-term analysis by creating Data Collector Sets. Creating Data Collector Sets is beyond the scope of this chapter.

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