Professional SQL Server® 2005 Performance Tuning

2.1. Why Might I Need System Monitor?

In almost all application performance–related problems, a decent problem description, the Windows event logs, and System Monitor will provide sufficient data to allow you to eliminate or incriminate many components of the overall software and hardware solution. Usually, when we receive a problem report by phone, e-mail, or a trouble-ticketing tool, the scope of the problem is wide. The problem may be client side, network-related, or server-related. It also could be hardware- or software-related. Or it could have to do with the operating system, infrastructure (SQL Server, IIS, and so on), or application.

Much like a doctor arriving at the scene of an accident, your first step should be an initial assessment of the situation to get a feel for the scale of the problem, severity, and priorities. Some aspects will be implicit in the problem statement; other aspects will need more data before a proper diagnosis can be made. Essentially, in the early stages of fault-finding you should be looking to rule out software or hardware components that could have caused or contributed to the performance problem.

System Monitor can equip you with some powerful information on which you can base decisions about how and whether to proceed with troubleshooting. Accurate identification of the likely area of the problem at this stage can drastically reduce the time to resolution for your users. Naturally, there are many situations where System Monitor can't provide ...