Chapter 20: Monitoring and Fine-Tuning Performance

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For a network to operate at its best, you must be able to recognize bottlenecks and take action to eliminate them. This chapter covers the system and network monitoring tools in Microsoft Windows Small Business Server that enable you to detect problems and tune your system to its optimum performance level.

More Info 

Configuring and using the predefined performance and usage reports is covered in Chapter 10, “Shares, Permissions, and Group Policy.”

Selecting a Monitoring Method

If you need to observe a system event as it’s happening, use a graph in System Monitor. Graphs are helpful for real-time, short-term monitoring of a remote or local computer. Choose an update interval that best captures the data for the type of activity you are observing. Performance logs are better suited for long-term monitoring and record keeping. You can export logged data and use it to generate reports, and you can also view the information as graphs or histograms using System Monitor. Logging in this manner is also more practical when you need to monitor several computers at once.

Health Monitor can track just about everything that System Monitor and performance logs can, plus it includes a preconfigured set of alerts that are only for Windows Small Business Server.

Planning 

This is a good place to repeat the adage that just because something can be done, it doesn’t mean it should be done. Many counters, logs, and alerts are quite esoteric and of no practical use in a Windows Small Business Server environment. Keep the number of counters and logs you have to manage to a bare minimum. Reduce the number of conditions that generate alerts so that you are using only those conditions that are genuinely critical.

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