Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed- P153 potx

You can add performance counters to Performance Monitor individ-ually or by creating custom Data Collector Sets.. When you open the Performance Monitor view, depending on the OS version

Using the AdventureWorks2008database, you can generate some simple activity that is

known to acquire share locks on tables Use the following T-SQL that references the

[Sales].[vSalesPersonSalesByFiscalYears]view:

Generate some lock acquiring workload

USE AdventureWorks2008;

SELECT TOP 1 * FROM [Sales].[vSalesPersonSalesByFiscalYears];

As soon as the preceding SELECTstatement is generated, the Extended Event begins doing

its job of collecting information As you can see in Figure 39.20, this fairly complex join

statement grabs the results of this Extended Event and displays them in a very nice

read-able fashion This SELECTstatement uses the dynamic management views previously

iden-tified in this chapter during the Extended Events active session

As you can see, this session isolates the table objects that have the most acquired locks on

them during execution This capability is very powerful

The T-SQL code is as follows:

- The following query turns the xml data that is accumulating -

from the Extended Event Session and displays it more clearly

TableName, TableObjectID, and number of AcquiredLocks

-SELECT name AS TableName,

FIGURE 39.20 Displaying the results of acquired locks from the Extended Events session

object_id AS TableObjectID,

LocksX AS AcquiredLocks

FROM (SELECT objstats.value(‘.’,’bigint’) AS ObjectX,

objstats.value(‘@count’, ‘bigint’) AS LocksX

FROM (SELECT CAST(xest.target_data AS XML)

LockData

FROM sys.dm_xe_session_targets xest

JOIN sys.dm_xe_sessions xes ON xes.address = xest.event_session_address

JOIN sys.server_event_sessions ses ON xes.name = ses.name

WHERE xest.target_name = ‘synchronous_bucketizer’

AND xes.name = ‘TheMostLocks’

) Locks

CROSS APPLY LockData.nodes(‘//BucketizerTarget/Slot’) AS T(objstats)

) LockedObjects

INNER JOIN sys.objects o

ON LockedObjects.ObjectX = o.object_id

WHERE o.type != ‘S’

AND o.type = ‘U’

ORDER BY LocksX desc;

To turn off the Extended Events session, you simply issue another ALTER EVENT SESSION

command with the STATEequal to stop, as shown here:

STOP EVENT SESSION

ALTER EVENT SESSION TheMostLocks

ON SERVER STATE=stop ;

Various Extended Events can be defined for monitoring purposes within the SQL Server

environment, your application environment, and at the operating system level You will

likely build up a complete library of Extended Events that represent what you are most

interested in monitoring about your environment They will then become valuable tools

for years to come We also expect forums and Microsoft to create many templates of

Extended Events to aid you in creating this extensive library of monitoring capability

Windows Performance Monitor

Windows Performance Monitor is a graphical tool that provides a visual display of built-in

Windows performance counters, either in real-time or as a way to review historical data It

is supplied as part of the installation of any Windows server or workstation (in Windows

Server 2008 it is called Reliability and Performance Monitor) Hundreds of performance

coun-ters are available These councoun-ters can be monitored on the local machine or remotely over

the network, and they can be set up to monitor any object and counter on multiple

systems at once from one session A small subset of performance information is also

avail-able via the Windows Task Manager Performance tab However, all this information and

more is available using the Performance Monitor facility

NOTE

This chapter covers the version of Performance Monitor available in Windows Server

2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 If you are running on

Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or earlier versions of Windows, the interface and

functionality of Performance Monitor are a bit more limited than the version presented

here However, many of the concepts of using Performance Monitor and performance

counters are still similar

Performance Monitor features multiple graph views that enable you to visually review

performance log data You can add performance counters to Performance Monitor

individ-ually or by creating custom Data Collector Sets The recent version of Windows

Performance Monitor combines the functionality of previous standalone tools including

Performance Logs and Alerts (PLA), Server Performance Advisor (SPA), and System Monitor

You can use Windows Performance Monitor to examine how programs you run affect your

computer’s performance, both in real-time and by collecting log data for later analysis

When you install SQL Server, additional performance counters are installed that you can

use to monitor SQL Server performance elements such as cache utilization, locking, wait

states, and I/O performance Performance Monitor can be launched from many different

points From SQL Profiler, choose the Tools menu option and choose the Performance

Monitor item Figure 39.21 shows this menu option from SQL Profiler You can also

launch it from the Administrative Toolsfolder in the Windows Start menu

Performance Monitor Views

When you first launch Performance Monitor, you are presented with the welcome screen

(in Windows 2008, the welcome screen is the Resource Overview) Click on Performance

Monitor in the Monitoring Toolsfolder to bring up the Performance Monitor main

display In the Performance Monitor main display, you can view the performance

informa-tion in one of three different modes:

Graphic chart—This view, the default, shows the selected counters as colored lines

over a timeline with the y-axis representing the value and the x-axis representing

FIGURE 39.21 Launching Performance Monitor from SQL Profiler

time You can also add gridlines (horizontal and vertical) This view lets you view

performance trends over time

Histogram chart—This view shows the selected counters as colored horizontal bars

(as in a histogram) These histogram bars change dynamically to reflect the data

sampling values With this view, you see a current snapshot of the performance

counters rather than the trend of activity over time

Report display—In this mode, you see the current values for counters collected

under their parent object in a textual display format Like the histogram view, this

view does not show you the activity trends, just the current sampling value, but it is

great for showing what counters you are collecting data with

Figure 39.22 shows the basic graphic chart view interface for Performance Monitor

displaying several useful system counters that are explained later in this chapter These

counters are added to Performance Monitor through the creation of Performance Monitor

Data Collector Sets

When you open the Performance Monitor view, depending on the OS version you are

running, you see up to three default performance counters: Memory: Pages/sec,

PhysicalDisk:Avg.Disk Queue Length, and Processor:% Processor Time These counters

provide a good start, but you really want to see many other counters that reflect the

complete picture of how your server is behaving This chapter explains the recommended

ones to use for SQL Server in the “SQL Server Performance Counters” section

FIGURE 39.22 Performance Monitor chart view, with various counters

You add a counter by clicking the large plus sign toolbar button near the top The Add

Counters dialog that appears (see Figure 39.23) allows you to select the computer to

monitor (this can be a remote server), a performance object, any specific counters, and an

instance of the counter, if applicable You can select the Show Description check box to

get a simple explanation of the currently selected counter When you are done making

your selections of counters to add, click OK to return to the Performance Monitor screen

You can customize the look of the lines in the chart view by right-clicking and selecting

Properties On the Data tab of the System Monitor Properties dialog, you can specify the

color, width, and style of line for each of your counters You can also change the scale of a

counter’s value as well so that the line appears within the graph’s scale of 1 to 100

TIP

To quickly rescale all the counters, select all the counters in the bottom panel of the

Chart view window, right-click, and select Scale Selected Counters Performance

Monitor automatically selects a scale for each counter such that all lines appear within

the display

To remove a counter, you simply highlight the line in the bottom area of the Chart view

window and press the Delete key or click on the X button in the toolbar If you just want

FIGURE 39.23 Adding a counter in Performance Monitor

to temporarily hide a counter to make the display a little less busy, you can right-click a

counter in the bottom area of the Chart view and select Hide Selected Counters

The Chart view also provides a way to make a specific counter or set of counters stand out

in the display by making the line or lines black and bold This capability can help you

focus on the trend of a specific counter To turn on highlighting, select one or more

coun-ters in the bottom area of the Chart view and click on the Highlight button on the toolbar

(the one that looks like highlighter pen just to the right of the big red X)

Adding counters like this in an ad hoc manner is fine for a quick monitoring session

However, after you close the Performance Monitor tool, you lose the counters you have

selected, so they are not available the next time you open Performance Monitor Typically,

you need to set up those counters you want to reuse or to have running continuously or

on a schedule that captures the performance counters to a log file To do this, you create

one or more Data Collector Sets

Creating Data Collector Sets in Performance Monitor

A Data Collector Set is the building block of performance monitoring and reporting in

Windows Performance Monitor It organizes multiple data collection points into a single

component that can be used for review or to log performance counters A Data Collector

Set can be created and then recorded individually, grouped with other Data Collector Sets

and incorporated into logs, viewed in Performance Monitor, or configured to generate

alerts when thresholds are reached You can set up schedules on your Data Collector Sets

to have them run the data collection at specific times

Data collector sets can contain the following types of Data Collectors:

Performance counters

Event trace data

System configuration information (Registry key values)

Performance counters are measurements of system state or activity They can be included

in the operating system or can be part of individual applications When you install SQL

Server, a number of SQL Server–specific performance counters are installed (a number of

the more useful ones are described later in this chapter) Windows Performance Monitor

requests the current value of performance counters at specified time intervals

Event trace data is collected from trace providers, which are components of the operating

system or of individual applications that report actions or events Output from multiple

trace providers can be combined into a trace session

Configuration information is collected from key values in the Windows Registry Windows

Performance Monitor can record the value of a Registry key at a specified time or interval

as part of a log file

The easiest way to created a Data Collector Set is to create a custom view of counters in

Performance Monitor (similar to what was shown in the previous section) When you are

satisfied with the counters and settings you have configured, right-click on the

Performance Monitornode in the Monitoring Toolsfolder, select New, and then select

Data Collector Set This starts the Create Data Collector Set Wizard, which walks you

through the following steps:

1 The wizard prompts for a name for the Data Collector Set Enter a name and click

Next

2 Specify the root directory where the Performance Monitor log files will be written

and click Next

3 Specify if you want the Data Collector to run under a different user ID and if you

want to start the Data Collector immediately or to just save the Data Collector Set

Click Finish to return to Performance Monitor

The newly created Data Collector Set is listed under the User Definedfolder in the Data

Collector Setsnode in Performance Monitor

You can also create a Data Collector Set manually or from a template by right-clicking on

theUser Definedfolder in the Data Collector Setsnode and selecting New, Data

Collector Set This launches a modified version of the Create New Data Collector Set

Wizard, as shown in Figure 39.24

You first specify a name for the collector set and then choose whether to create it from a

template or manually Then you click Next

If you choose to create from a template, the next screen displays the built-in templates

provided with Windows; these standard templates focus on general system performance

or diagnostics You can also choose to import your own templates by clicking on the

Browse button

FIGURE 39.24 The Create New Data Collector Set Wizard

NOTE

Creating your own Data Collector Set templates in Performance Monitor is relatively

easy If you have a Data Collector Set that you’ve set up with the performance

coun-ters and settings that you would like to reuse, simply right-click the Data Collector Set

you want to export and click Save Template Select a directory in which to store the

collector set as an XML file and click Save You can now copy this template for use on

other computers

After selecting the template, navigate to the next screen to specify the root directory for

the log files On the final screen, you have the option again to start the collector

immedi-ately, save it, or open the properties for the Data Collector Set so you can make further

modifications to it, such as specifying a schedule or how it should handle

If you choose to create a new Data Collector Set manually instead of using a template, you

are presented with the screen shown in Figure 39.25 You have the option to create a Data

Collector Set that generates data logs or to create a Performance Counter Alert If you are

creating data logs, you can specify what sort of information you want to include in the

collector set (in this example, we’re logging performance counters only)

Depending on the Data Collector types you select, you are presented with dialogs to add

Data Collectors to your Data Collector Set In this example, you are presented with the

dialog to add performance counters, as shown in Figure 39.25

After defining the counters, and so on, you are presented with the familiar options to

specify the root directory and whether to save, run, or edit the properties of the Data

Collector Set

FIGURE 39.25 Creating a new Data Collector Set manually to capture performance counters

After you create a Data Collector Set, you can add additional Data Collectors to it as

desired They can be additional performance counter event traces, configuration Data

Collectors, or performance counter alerts

Running a Data Collector Set in Performance Monitor

The easiest way to run a Data Collector Set is to right-click on it and choose Start When

you are done capturing, right-click again and choose Stop However, this is probably not

the most effective way to execute your Data Collector Sets A more effective approach is to

set up a schedule for data collection

During Data Collector Set creation, you can configure the schedule by selecting Open

Properties for this Data Collector Set at the end of the Create New Data Collector Set

Wizard After a Data Collector Set is created, you can access the schedule options by

right-clicking the Data Collector Set name in the Microsoft Management Console (MMC)

navi-gation pane and selecting Properties When the Properties dialog is displayed, click the

Schedule tab to specify the schedule when you want the Data Collector to run You can

specify the start date, time, or day for data collection If you do not want to collect new

data after a certain date, select Expiration Date and choose a date from the calendar You

can create multiple schedules for a single Data Collector Set

The Data Collector runs continuously unless you specify a Stop condition for a Data

Collector Set The Stop condition can be set in the Stop Condition tab To stop collecting

data after a period of time, select Overall Duration and choose the quantity and units On

the Stop Condition tab, you can also specify limits to segment data collection into

sepa-rate logs Select the Restart the Data Collector Set at Limits option to continue running

the Data Collector after the limit is reached You can select Duration to configure a time

period for data collection to write to a single log file, or select Maximum Size to restart the

Data Collector Set or to stop collecting data when the log file reaches a specific size If you

select both limits, data collection stops or restarts when the first limit is reached

TIP

If you are running a Data Collector continuously, you should set a limit so that the Data

Collector breaks the log file into multiple segments In addition to preventing the file

from becoming exceedingly large, breaking up the log file also enables you to view the

log file segments prior to the current one while the Data Collector Set is running

Unfortunately, you cannot directly open the currently active log file for a Data Collector

Set to view the live data collection However, if you have a previous report available,

you can open the report in the Performance Monitor window When this report is open,

click the View Current Activity button (or press Ctrl+T) and you can view the current

activity in real-time as it’s being captured

Viewing Data Collector Set Results in Performance Monitor

To view a Data Collector Set report in Windows Performance Monitor, expand Reports and

click User Defined or System Then expand the Data Collector Set that you want to view

as a report Simply click the report that you want to view from the list of available reports

The report opens in the console pane

If you want to open one or more log files in Performance Monitor (perhaps you have a set

of log files copied from another server), in the Windows Performance Monitor navigation

pane, expand Monitoring Tools and click Performance Monitor In the console pane

toolbar, click the Add Log Data button (or press Ctrl+L) The Performance Monitor

Properties page opens with the Source tab active (see Figure 39.26) In the Data Source

section, follow these steps:

FIGURE 39.26 Importing log files into Performance Monitor

1 Select Log Files and click Add

2 Browse to the log file you want to view and click Open

3 To add multiple log files to the Performance Monitor view, click Add again

4 Click Time Range to see times included in the log or logs you selected

5 When you are finished selecting log files, click OK

6 Right-click in the Performance Monitor display and click Add Counters to select the

counters you want to display in Performance Monitor Only the counters included in

the log file or files you selected in step 4 are made available

For a single log file, you can move the beginning and ending time sliders to view only a

portion of the log file in Performance Monitor

For multiple log files, you can move the beginning and ending time sliders to choose the

time period (from all the selected log files) to view in Performance Monitor If a log has

data from the time period you select, it is available in the display

Why Use Performance Monitor?

You might be asking, “With all the new performance monitoring tools provided with SQL

Server, is there a need to continue to use Performance Monitor?”