Chapter 14: Server Monitoring and Optimization

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Chapter 14Server Monitoring and Optimization
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Learning Objectives

• Establish monitoring benchmarks
• Monitor server services, logged-on users, and
  server functions
• Use Task Manager to monitor processes and
  performance data
• Use the System Monitor to monitor page file,
  memory, processor, disk and other critical server
  performance functions and to tune these functions
  as needed

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Learning Objectives (continued)

• Set up performance logs and alerts for monitoring
• Identify key system elements to monitor for
  problems

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Benefits of Server Monitoring

• Monitoring helps you become familiar with normal
  server performance to help identify areas of
  growth, prevent problems, and troubleshoot
  problems later
• Plan to monitor a range of activities to better
  understand a server

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Server Activities to Monitor
Table 14-1 Server Activities to Monitor
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Establishing Server Benchmarks

• Plan to establish server benchmarks as an
  effective way to determine normal performance and
  distinguish it from problem situations
• Benchmarks can be established by
• Generating statistics about CPU, disk, memory,
  and I/O with no users on the system
• Using performance monitoring to establish slow,
  average, and peak use periods

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Establishing Server Benchmarks (continued)

• Gathering performance information for slow,
  average, and peak use when new software is added
• Gathering information about growth in server use,
  number of users, software use and average time
  users are on the server

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Monitoring Server Services

• Monitor server services to determine if any are
  stopped, improperly configured, or possibly hung
• Use the Computer Management tool or the Services
  tool to monitor services (both can be accessed
  from the Administrative Tools menu)

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Windows 2000 Server Default Services
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Windows 2000 Server Default Services (continued)
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Windows 2000 Server Default Services (continued)
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Windows 2000 Server Default Services (continued)
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Windows 2000 Server Default Services (continued)
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Interpreting Service Information

• When you monitor services, the default
  information that is displayed includes
• The name of each service
• A description
• Status of the service (started, paused, or
  halted/not started
• Status type (how the service was started)
• Logged on as (where the service is running)

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Services Display
Figure 14-1 Monitoring server services
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Troubleshooting Tip

• Stop a service carefully because other services
  may be dependent on it
• Check on dependencies by
• Double-clicking the service in the Services tool
• Clicking the Dependencies tab

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Viewing Service Dependencies
Figure 14-2 Service properties
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Configuring Service Properties

• Configure a services properties by
  double-clicking the service in the Services tool

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Service Properties Tabs
Table 14-3 Services Properties Tabs
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Monitoring Users

• To monitor logged on users
• Right-click My Computer and click Manage
• Double-click System Tools (if necessary)
• Double-click Shared Folders
• Click Sessions
• To monitor resource use, double-click Shares
  instead of Sessions as the last step

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Monitoring Shared Resources
Figure 14-3 Shared resources
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Using the Task Manager

• Use the Task Manager to monitor
• Applications
• Processes
• Basic performance

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Task Manager Display
Figure 14-4 Monitoring started tasks
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Starting the Task Manager

• To start Task Manager
• Press CtrlAltDel and then press Task Manager to
  start the Task Manager
• An alternative way to start Task Manager is to
  right-click an open area of the taskbar and click
  Task Manager

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Other CtrlAltDel Options

• When you press CtrlAltDel after Windows 2000
  Server is booted you have the following options
• Lock Computer
• Change Password
• Log Off
• Task Manager
• Shut Down
• Cancel

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Troubleshooting Tip

• When you monitor CPU performance, 100 percent CPU
  utilization is not a concern if it is temporary,
  but if it frequently lasts for several minutes
  instead of several seconds you should
  troubleshoot the cause

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Default Task Manager Information on Processes
Table 14-4 Task Manager Information on Processes
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Troubleshooting Tip

• If you believe a particular program is causing a
  CPU bottleneck and want to monitor CPU use for
  its associated process
• Right-click the program in the Applications tab
• Click Go To Process
• Examine the CPU and CPU Time columns for that
  process on the Processes tab

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Managing Processes

• Use the Task Manager to
• Stop a task (application) or process
• Stop the process tree (the process and the
  subprocesses it has started)
• Change the priority of a process

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Process Priority Settings

• A processs priority can be set to
• Low (-2)
• BelowNormal (-1)
• Normal (0)
• AboveNormal (1)
• High (2)
• Realtime (15)

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Configuring a Processs Priority
Figure 14-5 Resetting a process priority
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Troubleshooting Tip

• Use the Realtime priority with great caution
  because it may cause a process to completely
  dominate a servers resources

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Task Manager Performance Tab

• The Task Manager Performance tab enables you to
  monitor
• CPU performance
• Memory performance

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Monitoring Performance Data
Figure 14-6 Performance data
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Task Manager Performance Statistics
Table 14-5 Task Manager Performance Statistics
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Task Manager Performance Statistics (continued)
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Task Manager Performance Statistics (continued)
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System Monitor

• Use the System Monitor for in-depth monitoring of
  all kinds of elements on a server, called
  objects

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Default System Monitor Objects
Table 14-6 System Monitor Objects
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Default System Monitor Objects (continued)
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Default System Monitor Objects (continued)
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Default System Monitor Objects (continued)
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Counters

• Specific qualities of objects are measured by
  counters and instances
• Counter Used by the System Monitor, this is a
  measurement technique for an object, such as
  measuring the processor performance by percentage
  in use
• Instance Used by the System Monitor, when there
  are two or more types of elements to monitor,
  such as two or more threads or disk drives

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Sample Processor Counters in System Monitor
Table 14-7 Sample Processor Counters in System
Monitor
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Sample Processor Counters in System Monitor
(continued)
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System Monitor Opening Display
Figure 14-7 System Monitor
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System Monitor Modes

• System Monitor offers three tracking modes
• Chart
• Histogram
• Report

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Using the System Monitor Chart Mode
Figure 14-8 System Monitor chart mode
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System Monitor Running Inside Microsoft Word

• You can run System Monitor inside Microsoft Word
  to easily capture and print specific charts and
  information

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System Monitor Running Inside Microsoft Word
(continued)
Figure 14-9 Running System Monitor inside
Microsoft Word
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Monitoring Page File and Memory Performance

• Use the System Monitor Memory and Paging File
  objects to monitor memory and page file
  performance

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Setting a Memory Counter in System Monitor
Figure 14-10 Selecting an object and its counter
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Monitoring Paging and Memory in System Monitor
Figure 14-11 Monitoring page file performance
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Using System Monitor Objects and Counters to
Monitor Memory and Paging
Table 14-8 Using System Monitor Objects and
Counters to Monitor Memory and Paging
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Monitoring Memory and Paging (continued)
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Monitoring Memory and Paging (continued)
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Troubleshooting Tip

• A page fault can occur in a kernel process when a
  page location in virtual memory is lost or
  corrupted. If this happens, Windows 2000 may
  crash with a Stop message. Try rebooting to
  determine if the problem recurs. If it does not,
  then the problem was simply transient. If it
  does, employ memory diagnostics to look for a
  defective memory module.

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Interaction Between Software and Memory Use

• Monitor the effect of software on memory use,
  such as looking for leaking memory
• Leaking memory Failing to return memory for
  general use after a process is finished using a
  specific memory block

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Monitoring for an Inefficient Program
Figure 14-12 Using System Monitor to find an
inefficient program process
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Using System Monitor Objects and Counters to
Monitor Software Use
Table 14-9 Using System Monitor Objects and
Counters to Monitor Software Use of Memory
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Studying Processor Load

• Look at three important components when you
  monitor processor load
• Percent of time the processor is in use
• Length of the queue continuing processes waiting
  to run
• Frequency of hardware interrupt requests

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Troubleshooting Tip

• Plan to gather benchmarks on the frequency of
  hardware interrupts to have comparative data for
  troubleshooting hardware problems later on

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Using Objects and Counters to Monitor a Processor
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Using Objects and Counters to Monitor a Processor
(continued)
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Using Objects and Counters to Monitor a Processor
(continued)
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Enabling Disk Monitoring

• The Disk Performance Statistics Driver (Diskperf)
  must be set up to enable disk monitoring
• Run Diskperf from the Start button Run option (or
  from the Command Prompt window) and specify the
  desired switch, such as Diskperf -y which
  installs the driver and System Monitor counters
  for physical and logical drives

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Running Diskperf
Figure 14-13 Running Diskperf
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Using System Monitor Objects and Counters
Table 14-11 Using System Monitor Objects and
Counters to Monitor Disk Performance
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Using System Monitor Objects and Counters
(continued)
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Using System Monitor Objects and Counters
(continued)
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Using System Monitor Objects and Counters
(continued)
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Using System Monitor Objects and Counters
(continued)
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Monitoring Terminal Services

• Use the Terminal Services object in System
  Monitor to monitor
• Active sessions
• Inactive sessions
• Total sessions
• Use the Terminal Service Session object to
  monitor selected sessions or all sessions for
  their affect on the server load

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Setting Terminal Service Objects, Counters, and
Instances
Figure 14-14 Monitoring terminal services
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File System Caching

• Monitor file system caching so that you can add
  memory or adjust the memory allocation as needed
• File system cache performance is monitored in
  terms of cache hits and misses
• Cache hit A situation in which the data needed
  by an application is found in cache
• Cache miss Occurs when the desired data is not
  found in cache

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Using System Monitor Objects and Counters to
Monitor File System Cache
Table 14-2 Using System Monitor Objects and
Counters to Monitor File System Cache
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Tuning Cache

• Use the Network and Dial-up Connection tool to
  tune system cache

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Tuning Cache (continued)
Figure 14-15 Tuning file system cache
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Performance Logs and Alerts

• Performance log Tracks system and network
  performance information in a log that can be
  viewed later or imported into a spreadsheet, such
  as Microsoft Excel
• Alert Provides a warning of a specific Windows
  2000 Server system or network event the warning
  is sent to designated users

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Types of Performance Logs

• There are two types of performance logs
• Counter log Traces information on specific
  System Monitor objects in selected intervals
• Trace log Traces specified events when they occur

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Counter Log File Formats
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Configuring a Counter Log
Figure 14-16 Configuring a counter log
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Counter Log Configuration Tip

• Counter logs can use large amounts of disk space
  and slow performance, thus set the snapshot
  intervals relatively high, such as at 15 seconds
  or higher when you monitor for 4 hours or less

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Trace Log Elements That Can be Monitored
Table 14-14 Trace log elements that can be
monitored
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Using Alerts

• Use an alert to provide a warning each time a
  particular event occurs, such as when the CPU is
  at 100

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Monitoring Caution

• Run the Task Manger, System Monitor, performance
  logging, and alert monitoring sparingly because
  these all can place an extra load on a server

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Chapter Summary

• Create a set of benchmarks so that you have
  comparative information that helps you prevent
  problems and solve problems after they occur
• Monitor server services to make sure that all
  services are properly configured and started
• Use the Task Manager to monitor applications,
  processes, and performance

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Chapter Summary

• The Task Manager also enables you to tune a
  server by tuning process priority
• System Monitor is a versatile tool that can be
  used to monitor all kinds of objects, counters,
  and instances
• Performance logs use System Monitor capabilities
  to track information for later reference while
  alerts give you instant notification about a
  server condition