Professional SQL Server® 2005 Performance Tuning

2.16. Analyzing Log Data

Much of the discussion to this point has been concerned with the collection of data, how you can minimize the impact of monitoring, and acquire meaningful data. The ability to import System Monitor performance data into SQL Profiler has been discussed, and this significantly reduces the time and effort required to correlate specific user activity with server performance characteristics.

This section looks at two other tools available out of the box or provided freely for performance data analysis of Windows and SQL Server. The availability and scope of these tools has improved greatly recently, and future releases promise to hold further improvements to make log data analysis more accessible and more convenient.

2.16.1. LogParser

Well-known and well-loved by web server administrators for analyzing IIS log files, LogParser can be used for examining a range of log file types, and the output can be manipulated to various forms. Once installed on a server, LogParser allows SQL-like querying of log files. This can be really useful when searching all manners of Windows event logs, IIS Logs, or performance logs. LogParser is part of the Windows Resource Kit, and is available as a standalone download from the Microsoft web site. Figure 2-6 gives some idea of the multitude of formats accepted as inputs, and output options from LogParser.

Figure 2-6. Figure 2-6

When analyzing raw Performance Log data, you'll first need to execute relog to convert the raw .BLG ...