How to create a Performance Monitor counter set for Altiris support

Products

• IT Management Suite
• Client Management Suite

Issue/Introduction

How do I collect performance trending data, commonly used by Altiris Support Services, in a format that can be sent to Altiris Support Services?

Resolution

Often in trying to troubleshoot performance issues, it is very helpful to have a basic set of performance counters. Microsoft has a performance monitor tool that does real-time monitoring of a system. In addition to a real-time display of these counters in a grid, a perfmon counter can be created to collect this data in the background over time. The counters are saved to a Binary log file (.blg) which can sent to Altiris Support Services.

The counters below are broken down into three groupings.

• Counters that should be collected on any Altiris related servers (Notification Server, SQL Server, Deployment Server, and so on)
• Additional counters that should be collected on SQL Servers
• Additional counters that should be collected on Notification Servers

Creating counters to be collected in the background using a prebuilt settings file:

 

1. Copy the attached "Altiris Counters.htm" to your server(s) that you are going to run counters on
2. Run "perfmon.msc"
3. In the tree Select Performance Logs and Alerts > Counter Logs.
4. Right-click on Counter Logs and select New Log Settings From
5. Browse to the Atiris Counters.htm that you downloaded in step 1
6. Click Open
7. Keep the Name "Altiris Counters"
8. Click OK
9. Review the settings of the counter and make changes that you need to(ie the path of the .blg file)
10. Click OK

Manualy creating counters to be collected in the background:

1. Do steps 1-3 from above.
2. Right-click on Counter Logs and select New Log Settings.
3. Give the new counter the name "Altiris Counters".
4. Click OK.
5. This will open a Window to setup Altiris Counters.
6. For each Tab listed below follow each steps
    

General Tab

1. Using the counters below as a reference, add the appropriate counters that apply to the server:
   1. Click Add Counters.
   2. Select the specific object from the dropdown box.
   3. Multi-select the instances (if applicable, they will be listed next to the object name).
   4. Multi-select the requested counters (listed under the object name).
   5. Click Add.
   6. Click Close.
2. Set the Interval to 10 seconds.
3. Keep Run As set to "<Default>".

Log Files Tab

1. Log file type: select Binary File.
2. Select End File Names with  with nnnnnn selected with Start numbering at set to "1".
3. Look at the example to know where the file will be saved.
4. Click Configure
5. If needed change the location path to store the log files.
6. Change the Log file size to a limit of 10 MB
7. Click OK 

Schedule Tab

1. Set the Start log to Manual or set a specific time and date.
2. Set the Stop log to When the 10-MB log file is full. or set a specific time and date.
3. Select Start a new log file which will cause the counter to keep creating additional logs until it is manually stopped.

When you're done creating the counter, click OK.

To Manually Start Collecting Metric Data

1. Select Performance Logs and Alerts > Counter Logs.
2. Right-click Altiris Counters and select Start.

Once the counter is started, it will continue to run even after the Performance window is closed.

To Manually Stop Collecting Metric Data

1. Select Performance Logs and Alerts > Counter Logs.
2. Right-click Altiris Counters and select Stop.

Each time the log is started again, the log number will increment.
 

Common Counters for All Servers	Additional Counters for SQL Servers	Additional Counters for Notification Servers
Object: Memory Free System Page Table Entries Pages/sec   Object: Physical Disk(_Total) Avg. Disk Queue Length   Object: Process(_Total) %Processor Time Private Bytes Virtual Bytes Working Set Object: Processor(_Total) % Processor Time Object: System  Context Switches/sec	Object: Physical Disk(All Instances)  Avg. Disk Read Queue Length Avg. Disk Write Queue Length Object: Process(sqlservr) %Processor Time Private Bytes Virtual Bytes Working Set Object: SQLServer:Buffer Manager Buffer Cache hit ratio Free Pages Page Life Expectancy	Object: .Net CLR Memory(_Global_) #bytes in all Heaps % Time in GC Object: Process(AeXSvc,W3WP, and W3WP#1) %Processor Time Private Bytes Virtual Bytes Working Set Object: Web Service(All Instances) Current Connections