Using Performance Tools to Obtain a Baseline

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 with SP1

Using the appropriate tools, you can monitor your application server to collect data on performance, make specific changes in order to tune your server and its Web applications, evaluate the results of changes, and plan additional changes to help your application server run optimally. Which tools you should use, and when you should use them, depends on the data you need and your purpose in collecting it.

The Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003, Standard Edition; Windows® Server 2003, Enterprise Edition; Windows® Server 2003, Datacenter Edition; or Windows® Server 2003, Web Edition operating system provides the Performance console, which includes System Monitor, Performance Logs and Alerts, and Task Manager. System Monitor and Performance Logs and Alerts are Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-ins. In addition, you can access these tools through the Run dialog box by using the perfmon command.

From the Performance console, you can examine the output of performance counters, which monitor the activity of performance objects. Each performance counter is named based on the object from which it collects data (for example, a processor, process, or thread) and the type of data that it collects (for example, the Processor\% Processor Time performance counter reports the average percentage of processor time in use for the Processor performance object).

Windows Server 2003 provides several command-line tools that you can use to monitor performance. This section cites two command-line tools for performing event tracing. For more information about using command-line tools to monitor performance, see "Monitoring performance from the command line" in Help and Support Center for Windows Server 2003.