Chapter 10 -- Working with Performance Counters

Chapter 10

This chapter focuses on using the Microsoft Application Center 2000 (Application Center) performance monitoring feature; however, because performance monitoring and capacity planning are such complex and inter-related topics, it was necessary to provide additional background information. As a result, this chapter is divided into four major parts that:

• Provide an overview of performance tuning and capacity planning.
• Present high-level guidelines for performance testing and tuning.
• Illustrate how to work with the default Application Center performance counters and create new ones.
• Provide performance-monitoring examples by using different cluster topologies.

In This Chapter

Performance Management

An Overview of Performance Tuning

An Overview of Capacity Planning

Testing and Tuning the Infrastructure

Testing and Tuning Applications

The Web Application Stress Tool

Performance Counters

Performance Monitoring Samples

Resources

One dictionary defines performance as "a manner of functioning: the manner in which something or somebody functions, operates, or behaves," which nicely describes what computer system performance refers to. Unfortunately, because there are so many variables, monitoring and tuning performance isn't as easy as defining it.

A colleague once described a computer system as a series of bottlenecks in motion. In order to achieve high levels of performance on a cluster, you have to be able to identify and resolve bottlenecks—which are not isolated, but are inter-related and constantly shifting depending on what the individual cluster members and their applications are doing at any given time.

There are numerous elements to consider when dealing with performance, but whether you're dealing with a single server or several servers, you can divide these elements into the following broad categories:

• The hardware
• The applications (including Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.0 [IIS] and Active Server Pages [ASP] runtime)
• The database
• The network
• The operating system (as manifested through the processor, memory, and disks)

These are the parts of a cluster environment that you have to deal with when trying to achieve and maintain high levels of performance on an Application Center cluster.

NOTE

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Although the focus of this chapter isn't on system health, remember that this element can influence the overall performance picture, and in many cases, poor performance can be a good indicator of a failing system component.

Before dealing with the specifics of performance monitoring and tuning, let's examine the different aspects of performance, including an overview of performance management and the different perspectives on performance and performance goals that you have to consider when undertaking performance tuning on a system.