Using Performance Logs and Alerts
Consistently monitoring performance requires the use of performance logs and alerts. Performance logs collect data from performance counters at regular intervals, enabling you to analyze performance data at your convenience with robust reporting tools, such as Microsoft Excel. Performance alerts enable you to define limits for counters, and then receive alerts when the counter values are above or below the limits.
Creating a Performance Log
Create a performance log using Performance Logs and Alerts, a feature of the Microsoft Windows Performance tool. For more information, see How to: Create a Performance Log and the Windows Performance Logs and Alerts documentation.
Analyzing Data from the Performance Log
One benefit of collecting counter data in a log file is that you can import the data to an application like Microsoft Excel and then create charts that illustrate performance over time.
Setting Counter Alerts
Some counter values indicate an application problem. For example, you might want to know whether the generator is more than 25 quanta behind or whether the number of failed delivery requests exceeds 5.
Using the alerts available in the Performance Logs and Alerts part of the Microsoft Windows Performance tool, you can write a message to the event log, run an application, or send a network message in response to counters above or below a specified limit.
For more information about configuring performance alerts, see the Performance Logs and Alerts documentation.
See Also
Concepts
Notification Services Performance Objects