In my previous post, I have shown the configuration of perfmon counters. Let’s talk about how to analyze it now. Before you do anything else, read the following articles…

IIS 6 Performance Counters
Suggested Performance Counters to Watch (IIS 6.0)
ASP.NET Performance Counters

I know it is a lot of stuff to go through, but then to master drawing, you must learn about the brushes! To manually monitor some counters, you must add the .blg file that got created earlier when you stopped the counters. Read on…

    Click on the 4th icon in the toolbar [System Monitor should be selected in the left pane]…

    Click on Source tab, select Log Files and click Add. Click Apply.

    You will now notice that the Time Range has become active.

    You can drag along the thumbs and change the range of data you are interested in. Click Apply.

 

    You may want to change the Graph that is drawn based on different counters. If the counter’s value is in 1000s, having a graph in 100s will not help you. Switch to the Graph tab and change the Vertical Scale value appropriately.

   

    To add the counters, you can either use the + sign on the toolbar, or go to Data tab. Click on Add button and select a counter. I have chosen Application Restarts, under the Performance Object ASP.NET

    You can now change the scale of this counter to 1.0 (by default it will be 0.1 and hence it would be hard to track the changes graphically). Click Ok.

    Let’s have a look visually. By default, if you just add this counter and don’t set the Graph and Scale, here is how it will looks for me…

    Notice the difference now after I have set the scale and graph max.

    Yes, that’s how easy it is!!! Once you know what you are looking at, and the expected values vs. the abnormal values all these lines starts making a lot of sense. Hence, I suggest again… if you haven’t read the links mentioned at start, take some time out… and just read through… slowly!

Happy Troubleshooting
Rahul

Quote of the day:
But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. - Benjamin Franklin