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The Microsoft PFE Performance Guide (PerfGuide): Table of Contents

This is the table of contents (TOC) for the Microsoft Premier Field Engineer (PFE) Performance Guide (PerfGuide). Use this TOC to help you navigate to a specific article or to view the hieretical view of the perfguide. We will link articles to this TOC as they are written.

Performance Monitor

Basic Usage

  1. Starting Performance Monitor
  2. Adding/Removing counters
  3. Network considerations of remote counters
  4. Graph types
  5. Highlighting counters
  6. Show/hide console tree

Performance counters

  1. Counter paths
  2. Counter descriptions
  3. Overhead of viewing counters
  4. Special counter instances
  5. PID in process instances
  6. Understanding the fields
  7. Scaling counters
  8. Changing the scale of the chart
  9. Pattern matching

Creating a data collector

  1. Using the wizard
  2. From a template
  3. Using the command line
  4. Remotely
  5. Using PowerShell

Modifying data collector sets

  1. Starting and stopping data collector sets
  2. Data Collector Set properties
  3. Data Collector properties
  4. Saving a template
  5. Creating a data collector set from a template
  6. Contents of a template
  7. SQL Server named instances
  8. Using the PAL tool to create data collector templates.
  9. Sample counter log templates provided at [HTTP address] for various products.
  10. Viewing a counter log

Logman

  1. Security considerations
  2. Common parameters
  3. Querying data collectors
  4. Creating a data collector on another computer
  5. Creating a data collector using a counter list file
  6. Creating a binary circular data collector
  7. Deleting a data collector
  8. Managing data collectors on remote computers
  9. Starting and stopping data collectors
  10. PowerShell

LODCTR

  1. Detecting corrupt counters
  2. Performance counters are in a linked list.
  3. Repairing operating system counters.
  4. Rebuilding application counters

Relog

  1. Log merging
  2. Filtering
  3. Converting log format

PowerShell

  1. Get-Counter
  2. Import-Counter
  3. Export-Counter
  4. Get-OdbcPerfCounter
  5. Enable-OdbcPerfCounter
  6. Disable-OdbcPerfCounter

Storage Media

  1. Initial indicators of storage media conditions
  2. Disk in Depth
  3. What's new in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
  4. Storage concepts
  5. Terminology
  6. I/O operations per second (IOPS)
  7. Dedicated spindles compared to shared spindles
  8. Physical disks compared to logical disks
  9. Choosing a RAID type
  10. Software RAID compared to hardware RAID
  11. Partition alignment
  12. Strip size
  13. I/O request packes (IRPs) and disk queues
  14. I/O priorities
  15. Processor conditions that can lead to poor storage performance
  16. How storage counter data is gathered
  17. PhysicalDisk and LogicalDisk counter objects
  18. How free space conditions can lead to poor storage performance
  19. The disk queue and idle time
  20. Disk transfers
  21. Measuring I/O sizes and split I/O
  22. How I/O size effects response times
  23. How to measure storage response times
  24. Storage related process counters
  25. Hyper-V storage counters and considerations
  26. Identifying storage performance conditions
  27. Analyzing storage performance
  28. Disk fragmentation and storage performance
  29. Identifying storage media failures
  30. Balancing power and storage performance
  31. Storport tracing
  32. How to look at Storport ETW Trace logs?

Virtual Memory

  1. Initial indicators of virtual memory conditions
  2. What’s new in Windows 8 and Windows Server 8
  3. Supplementary counters and thresholds
  4. The 32-bit x86 Virtual address space
  5. The 64-bit IA64 virtual address space
  6. The 64-bit x64 virtual address space
  7. Why is x64 at 16 TB instead of 16 EB?
  8. Many processes. One kernel
  9. The advantages of virtual memory
  10. Virtual memory and paging files
  11. Understanding the "Virtual memory minimum too low" error message
  12. Understanding process virtual address space
  13. How to determine the maximum virtual address space of a process
  14. Identifying application out of memory conditions
  15. Troubleshooting application out of memory conditions
  16. Working around application out of memory conditions
  17. Understanding reserved, committed, and free process memory
  18. Dynamic and static kernel virtual memory
  19. How to determine the maximum size of kernel virtual memory pools using LiveKD or WinDBG
  20. How to determine the maximum size of kernel virtual memory pools Using Process Explorer
  21. Troubleshooting Pool Paged and Pool NonPaged kernel memory
  22. Understanding the PFN database, RAM, and virtual memory
  23. Troubleshooting lack of System Page Table Entry (PTE) conditions
  24. Altering the 32-bit virtual address space
  25. Setting IncreaseUserVa with BCDEdit
  26. How to identify if an executable is large address aware
  27. Adjusting UserVA
  28. Understanding Address Width Extensions (AWE)
  29. How RAM impacts virtual address space
  30. Balancing power and performance
  31. Case studies

Physical Memory, Paging Files, and System Committed Memory

  1. Initial indicators
  2. What’s new in Windows 8 and Windows Server 8
  3. Physical memory limits in Windows 8 and Windows Server 8
  4. Monitoring the system commit limit
  5. Monitoring the system commit charge
  6. When the system commit limit is reached
  7. Hot-plug memory
  8. Free space and paging file considerations
  9. Page file sizing and monitoring
  10. The maximum number of page files
  11. Paging files and Crash dumps
  12. Dedicated dump files
  13. Accommodating the system commit charge peak
  14. What is written to a paging file?
  15. Monitoring modified memory
  16. Working Set trimming
  17. Pages/sec can be misleading
  18. The maximum size of a paging file
  19. Page file fragmentation
  20. Does having more than one page file help with performance?
  21. How physical memory is managed
  22. Page Frame Number (PFN) database
  23. The page file writer and the lazy writer
  24. Identifying a low physical memory condition
  25. Using Process Monitor to monitor reads and writes to a paging file
  26. Where did all of the physical memory go?
  27. Monitoring the kernel memory usage
  28. Pages locked in memory
  29. Hard page faults and hard drive performance
  30. Hard page faults and paging files
  31. Sizing RAM for new or used systems
  32. Available versus free memory
  33. Monioring Ready Boost performance
  34. Prefetch and Superfetch performance
  35. How process memory allocations effect physical resources
  36. What is a process working set?
  37. Monitoring process working sets
  38. Soft page faults and hard page faults
  39. Sharable and shared memory
  40. When working sets trim and a paging file increases
  41. When working sets trim, but no paging file has increased
  42. Identifying a process working set leak
  43. The effects of setting a minimum or maximum process working set size
  44. Managing large working sets
  45. Pages locked in memory
  46. Memory profiling an application
  47. Do EXE and DLL sizes affect the working set?
  48. Comparing process committed memory and process working sets
  49. How much process memory is on the page file?
  50. Monioring the performance of the .NET Garbage Collector
  51. Identifying a memory leak using Performance Monitor
  52. Identifying a memory leak using Process Explorer
  53. Troubleshooting a memory leak using VMMap
  54. Troubleshooting a memory leak using DebugDiag
  55. Troubleshooting a memory leak using Server Performance Advisor 3.0
  56. Troubleshooting a memory leak using UMDH
  57. Troubleshooting a memory leak using WinDBG
  58. Troubleshooting physical memory conditions on a Hyper-V host
  59. Balancing power and performance
  60. Case studies

Network

  1. Initial indicators
  2. What’s new in Windows 8 and Windows Server 8
  3. Monitoring bandwidth and utilization
  4. Queuing and other considerations
  5. Identifying high network usage
  6. Analyzing high network usage using Resource Monitor
  7. Analyzing high network usage using Process Monitor
  8. Analyzing high network usage using Microsoft xperf
  9. Identifying network conditions on Hyper-V
  10. Case studies

Startup and Shutdown

  1. Initial indicators
  2. What’s new in Windows 8 and Windows Server 8
  3. ReadyBoot
  4. Capturing boot performance using bootmgr.exe.
  5. Analyzing the ETL trace.
  6. Capturing boot performance using Process Monitor
  7. Capturing shutdown performance
  8. Example: Disk drive set to “quiet” mode.
  9. Hyper-V considerations
  10. Balancing power and performance
  11. Case studies

Processor

  1. Initial indicators
  2. What’s new in Windows 8 and Windows Server 8
  3. Terminology
  4. The Idle processIdentifying high processor usage using Task Manager
  5. Identifying high processor usage using Performance Monitor
  6. Identifying high processor usage using Resource Monitor
  7. Identifying high processor usage using Process Explorer
  8. Identifying high processor usage on Hyper-V
  9. Identifying user mode or privileged mode processor usage
  10. Identifying high DPC or interrupt processor usage
  11. Identifying high processor usage by process
  12. Identifying low processor usage
  13. Analyzing high privileged mode processor usage using Microsoft xperf
  14. Analyzing high privileged mode processor usage using the Microsoft Visual Studio Profiler
  15. Analyzing high privileged mode processor usage using the Debugging Tools for Windows
  16. Processor affinity and thread priority
  17. Context switching and transitions
  18. NUMA computer systems
  19. Balancing power and performance
  20. Case studies

Startup and Shutdown

  1. Initial indicators
  2. What’s new in Windows 8 and Windows Server 8
  3. ReadyBoot
  4. Capturing boot performance using bootmgr.exe.
  5. Analyzing the ETL trace.
  6. Capturing boot performance using Process Monitor
  7. Capturing shutdown performance
  8. Example: Disk drive set to “quiet” mode.
  9. Hyper-V considerations
  10. Balancing power and performance
  11. Case studies

Hyper-V

  1. Initial indicators
  2. What’s new in Windows 8 and Windows Server 8
  3. Terminology
  4. Hyper-V Architecture
  5. Hardware selection
  6. Analyzing physical memory and paging file performance
  7. Analyzing storage performance
  8. Virtual hard drive considerations
  9. Analyzing network performance
  10. Balancing power and performance
    Case studies

Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) Tool

  1. Choosing a threshold file
  2. Collecting counter log data
  3. Analyzing the counter log
  4. Interpreting the report

Microsoft xperf

  1. What is ETW?
  2. ETW versus performance counters
  3. Collecting an Event Tracing for Windows log (ETL)
  4. Analyzing the ETL file
  5. An end-to-end tracing with ETW example

Microsoft Semantic Logging Application Block

  1. EventSource tutorial
  2. Overview of Semantic Logging
  3. Video walkthrough
  4. Get it via NuGet

Microsoft Server Performance Advisor (SPA) 3.0

  1. Collecting data
  2. Analyzing the report

Process dumps

  1. Using operating system tools
  2. Using ProcDump
  3. Using the Debugging Tools for Windows
  4. Checking the dump file

Debug symbols

  1. What are debug symbols?
  2. The symbol path
  3. Using the Microsoft symbol server
  4. Creating and maintaining a symbol server
  5. When internet access is not available