Windows 2003's performance monitor utility (which is now called System Monitor) is an under-appreciated work of inspired genius. You will come to rely on this outstanding tool to help you with all types of troubleshooting.

When you first launch System Monitor (Start --> Administrative Tools --> Performance), it presents readings from three default counters. With a little work and planning, System Monitor can offer a broad range of useful information about the performance of your computer system and network.

You use the primary display of System Monitor to monitor either real-time or recorded measurements. Depending on which toolbar button you click, the display area can show measurements in graph form (such as an EKG), in histogram form (like a thermometer), or in report form (like a budget).

Countin' yer objects

Performance is measured on a counter and object basis. Note that everything in the Windows 2003 environment is an object, and each object has its own specific counters that measure certain aspects of the performance or activities of that object. The full context of performance is based on the following:

• Computer: The source system of the object

• Object: The subsystem of interest

• Counter: The aspect of performance of interest

• Instance: The specific object to be measured when multiple objects of the same type exist on a single system

Counters are added to the display area by clicking the big plus sign button on the System Monitor toolbar. This reveals the Add Counters dialog box, where you can select the context of the counters you want displayed. If you click the Explain button in this dialog box, details about the selected counter are revealed.

Here are some of the more important object and counter pairs to watch (in the following list, the object name appears to the left, followed by a backward slash, followed by the counter name):

• Server\Bytes Total/sec: Shows how much data your server is handling over time (for a basic measurement of how busy your system is). Other counters for the server object, such as Sessions Errored Out, Work Item Shortages, Errors System, and Blocking Requests Rejected, can all indicate potential system bottlenecks.

• Memory\Pages/sec: Shows how frequently the server is moving data from memory to disk, and vice versa. If this number gets large (more than 2,500 pages per second on an average server), it can indicate a shortage of RAM on your server.

• PhysicalDisk\Avg. Disk Queue Length: Indicates how many disk requests are pending service. If this number stays over 2.0 for long, it can indicate a disk drive that's too slow to handle its load or one that's overwhelmed by current disk activity. Sometimes, this indicates a need for a faster drive or disk controller, or even a faster disk subsystem............................... For More Information Go here>>
  

* Windows Server Monitoring
* Windows Server Monitoring Benefits