Microsoft offers a numbers of tools for performance tuning and testing. Some of these tools are included with Microsoft Windows 2000 and Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0, others are on the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit companion CD, and others are available on the Microsoft Web site (www.microsoft.com). For example, the System Monitor (formerly known as Performance Monitor) is built into Windows 2000 and is essential to monitoring nearly every aspect of server performance.

The following section lists brief descriptions of performance optimizing tools and how to access them.

• Microsoft Web Application Stress Tool. A simulation tool developed by Web testers to realistically reproduce multiple browsers requesting pages from a Web application. Microsoft has made the tool easy to use masking some of the complexities of Web server testing. This makes the tool useful for anyone interested in gathering performance data on a Web site. The tool is a consolidation of many of the best features developed over the years, as well as a few new features. This version covers the most needed features for stress testing three-tiered, personalized Active Server Pages (ASP) Web sites running on Microsoft Windows 2000.

  To download WAS see, http://webtool.rte.microsoft.com.

• Network Monitor. A tool that captures network traffic for display and analysis. You can use Network Monitor to perform tasks such as analyzing previously captured data in user-defined methods, extracting data from defined protocol parsers, and analyzing real-time traffic on your network. Network Monitor is useful tool for capturing packets between browsers, Web servers, and SQL Server. It provides valuable timing information as well as packet size, network utilization, and many other statistics that can be valuable for managing system performance.
  
  
• SQL Server Profiler. A tool that captures SQL Server events from a server. The events are saved in a trace file that you can analyze later or use to replay a specific series of steps when trying to diagnose a problem. You can use SQL Server Profiler to:
  • Step through problem queries to find the cause of the problem.
    
    
  • Find and diagnose slow-running queries.
    
    
  • Capture the series of SQL statements that lead to a problem. The saved trace can then be used to replicate the problem on a test server where it can be diagnosed.
    
    
  • Monitor the performance of SQL Server to tune workloads.
• System Monitor. A tool you can use to collect and view extensive data about the way in which hardware resources are used and the activity of system services. You can use System Monitor to:
  • Collect and view real-time performance data on a local computer or from several remote computers.
    
    
  • View data in a counter log that is either being collected currently or was collected previously.
    
    
  • Present data in a printable graph, histogram, or report view.
    
    
  • Incorporate System Monitor functionality into Microsoft Word or other applications in the Microsoft Office suite by means of automation.
    
    
  • Create HTML pages from performance views.
    
    
  • Create reusable monitoring configurations that can be installed on other computers using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC).
• Visual Studio Analyzer. A tool you can use to analyze performance, isolate faults, and understand the structure of your distributed applications. You can use Visual Studio Analyzer with applications and systems built with any of the Visual Studio tools. Several Microsoft technologies, such as Component Object Model (COM), Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), and COM+, are shipped with the ability to provide information to Visual Studio Analyzer. If your applications use any of these technologies, you can get detailed information about this use from Visual Studio Analyzer. In addition, you can customize your own applications to provide information to Visual Studio Analyzer.
  
  
• Process and Thread Status (Pstat.exe). A tool that shows the status of all running processes and threads. You can find this tool on the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit companion CD.
  
  
• Process Tree (Ptree.exe). A tool that allows you to query the process inheritance tree and delete processes on local or remote computers. You can find this tool on the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit companion CD.
  
  
• HTTP Monitoring Tool. A tool that monitors HTTP activity on your servers and can notify you if there are changes in the amount of activity. You can find this tool on the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit companion CD.
  
  
• NetStat. A command line tool that detects information about the current network connections of your server. You can find NetStat on the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit companion CD.

See Also

Commerce Server Performance Counters

Setting Up Performance Counters