Creating a Data Collection Set is Windows 7's new way of Performance monitoring.
While we have a huge amount of control over to what to
record, Microsoft helps us get started by providing built-in templates.
In a nutshell you use the Windows 7 Data Collector Sets when you have a
performance or a connectivity impediment and you want to gather the facts. This is an ideal technique to
diagnose problems not only on Windows 7 desktop machines, but also on Server
2008. Bear in mind that there are quick alternatives such as
Resource Monitor.
If a computer is responding slowly, then create a performance collector set
to see if the root cause is due to a CPU, RAM or a disk problem. If
you suspect a disk is about to fail, or have a driver problem then run a
diagnostic test. Remember to look in the Reports folders to see the
results of you Data Collector Set.
What a Data Collector Set does is capture multiple statistics and save them into a
permanent record. Furthermore, the Performance Monitor provides a
tailor-made report structure so that we can review these logs.
Sets can contain readings from Performance counters, Event trace data,
System configuration information and even registry values. These
Sets also combine the old Alert feature of Performance Monitor. All
you need to do is experiment with different thresholds and rules for
scheduling data collection. Another useful troubleshooting tactic is to run WMI (Windows Management
Interface) tasks after the Data Collector finishes.
If a server, or even a desktop machine, is running slowly, then you need to
find the bottleneck. Windows 7 gives you a bewildering choice of performance counters, and you can save
a lot of time by accepting the wizard's suggestion to use the big four
keywords (counters): CPU, Memory, Disk and Network. The next decision
is do you manually right click and 'Start' collecting, or do you configure
the Schedule tab in the Data Set's properties.
Once the set has finished collecting the data, navigate to the Reports
sub-folder. (You can either right click and manually stop, or just
wait for the end of the scheduled collection.) As someone who started
with perfmon in NT 3.51, I cannot emphasise enough how much easier the
Reports make it to interpret the data. At each stage the menu headings, give you a hint of whether the statistics are normal or
indicate a bottleneck. Furthermore, you can drill down for extra
details.
Guy Recommends: A Free Trial of the Network Performance Monitor
(NPM)
Solarwinds'
Orion performance monitor
will help you discover what's happening on your network. This
utility will also guide you through troubleshooting; the dashboard will
indicate whether the root cause is a broken link, faulty equipment or
resource overload.
Perhaps the NPM's best feature is the way it suggests solutions to network
problems. Its
second best feature is the ability to monitor the health of individual VMWare
virtual machines. If you are interested in troubleshooting, and creating
network maps, then I recommend that you take advantage of Solarwinds' offer.
Thanks to the wizards, and their structured menus, it's easy to get started
with Data Collector Set. My advice is to have a quick run through to
see what's going to record and then create a second set making more thoughtful
choices of items.
Assumption: The Performance Monitor is running. (Click on the Start
Orb, type Perfmon.)
Our mission is to create a Data Collector Set, which monitors
Performance counters.
Expand the Data Collector Sets folder.
Decide if you want User Defined System Diagnostics or System
Performance.
Assuming you want a User Defined Set, right-click select New point
to New, and click Data Collector Set.
Give a name to your Data Collector Set. (Guy's Wireless
Troubleshooter in screenshot)
Let us select the Create manually option. [Click Next].
Select the Performance Counter Alert option. [Click Next].
Now you are ready to Add Counters. Make your choices.
[Click Ok]
Define alerts based on the values of performance counters you have
selected.
From the list of Performance counters, select the counter to monitor
and trigger an alert.
From the Alert when drop-down, choose whether to alert when the
performance counter value is above or below the limit.
In the Limit box, enter the threshold value.
When you are finished defining alerts, click Next to continue
configuration or Finish to exit and save the current configuration.
After clicking Next, you can configure the Data Collector Set to run
as a particular user. Click the Change button to enter the user name and
password for a different user than the default listed.
Note: The minimum credentials you need are those of
a member of the Performance Log Users group, naturally, an
Administrator's credentials will also work.
Click Finish this will return you to Windows Performance Monitor.
I often check the properties of the Data Collector Set and fine-tune
my choices.
Mostly, especially when I am learning or testing, I decide to start
the Data Collector Set immediately.
Alternatively, you can exit without starting the collection set.
[Save and close.]
Find Your Results
Once you have collected your data, then head for the 'Reports folder and
work thought the structured menus to find resources that are in short
supply.
The great thing is that you can delete experiments that did not work out,
and with each new Data Collector Set you get more
proficient at Performance Monitoring and diagnosing the root cause of a
problem.
Lower down in the Performance Monitor interface is a Reports section,
this is where to find the result of your earlier work in creating a Data
Collection Set. A reminder that there are two distinct roles, firstly
performance monitoring for bottlenecks (e.g. CPU memory), secondly
diagnosing faults such as driver or disk.
Tip: When you are in troubleshooting mode you can run
this command (note the singular report): perfmon /report
What this does is run the System Diagnostics for 60 seconds and then you
see a report to help you track down problems on your Windows 7 machine.
Here are possible sources of
bottlenecks, which data collector sets draw to your attention.
A program monopolizes a particular resource. E.g. Malware
hogs the CPU.
Insufficient resources are available. E.g. a database
program consumes most of the memory.
A program, device, or service fails. E.g. the scanner
times-out.
Software is incorrectly installed or configured. E.g.
missing DLL or wrong version of a driver.
The system is incorrectly configured for the workload.
E.g. not enough memory is a common problem.
Guy
Recommends: The Free Config Generator
Solarwinds' Config Generator is a free tool, which puts you in charge of
controlling changes to network routers and other SNMP devices.
Boost your network performance by activating network device features
you've already paid for.
Guy says that for newbies the biggest benefit of this free tool is that
it will provide the impetus for you to learn more about configuring the SNMP
service with its 'Traps' and 'Communities'.
It helps problem solving if you review the range of solution at
regular stages. At one extreme you could buy new faster hardware,
or complete system. Yet at the other extreme, a cost nothing solution
such as load balancing could
fix the problem at least temporarily.
If you say to yourself, OK, I'll splash out and by a new system.
Your brain may say, 'but there is nothing wrong with the disk
subsystem', followed by, 'Hang on, those quad-processors are already
overkill'. Then a better solution emerges, 'How about if I just
add more memory?'
However, an alternative thought process could be, 'Let's just by new memory,
hmmm... than means that single processor will be the bottleneck.
And 80GB disks looked big 5 years ago, but they are full and these days
we can get much bigger disks for the price we paid. Also, isn't
that fan a bit noisy? Conclusion, why don't we buy a balanced
system with new components.'
Specific Advice
Add more resource, e.g. buy another memory SIMM / DIMM stick.
Load-balancing, move some of the processes, or users files, to another disk.
Upgrade, buy a faster disk system.
Baselines, creating baselines separates the professionals from
the amateurs. It's just so much easier to solve a problem that
arose this week if you know what 'Normal' looked like. When
you have baselines from last week, last month and last weekend, then
the patterns provide the clues for a speedy resolution.
The simplest, and most useful technique is to use Windows 7 to capture
data from servers. This removes the accusation of bias that people
always bring up when you collect data from the machine where performance
monitor is running. Another reason for using a Windows 7 laptop to
collect data remotely is that it may be more convenient then working in that
noisy server room.
When the wizard asks which performance counters would you like to
collect? You click on the Browse button and select the network
computers that you wish to monitor. Naturally, you must select the
counters for your project.
»
Summary of Windows 7 Data Collector Set
There are two related reasons to create a Data Collector Set, firstly, to
diagnose a fault urgently, and secondly, to collect performance data on
your CPU, memory and disk so that you can detect the bottleneck. For
those with previous knowledge of perfmon they will be impressed with
Window's 7 structured approach to collecting and analyzing statistics about
the operating system.
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