Working with Performance Counters

Performance counters are the Windows way of collecting performance data from running processes. Microsoft Windows itself provides several hundred performance counters, each of which monitors a particular system parameter. In addition, various .NET server products, such as SQL Server, Exchange Server, and the various .NET Framework applications, also publish their own custom performance counters.

Windows organizes performance counters into categories. Each category defines a specific set of performance counters. For example, there are categories such as Memory, Processor, and PhysicalDisk. The Memory category has various counters such as Available Bytes, Cache Bytes, and Committed Bytes.

Some categories are further ...

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