In the past I have discussed the Citrix Resource manager and Windows Performance monitor as ways of troubleshooting your environment.
There is another tool that’s free from Microsoft that might aid you in future monitoring and troubleshooting, it has certainly helped me. It’s called the Server Performance Advisor.
The Server Performance Advisor is a little known tool (at least i’d never come across it before) available from Microsoft for free. The current version can be downloaded here.
It makes the collation of performace monitor information much easier and provides in-depth reports making documentation easier should you need to present your findings.
It also allows you to set trend analysis over a period of time (requires SQL database). It is currently only available for Windows 2003 (including 64 bit version).
Once downloaded and installed, from within the Server Performance Advisor console simply right click and create a New Data Collector Group, then right click and add in your new Counter Collector.
This alows you to specify what performance monitor counters you want. In my case I am using a Citrix server so as well as the standard processor, memory etc I also add in some Terminal Server and Citrix performance counters.
Then you simply schedule when you want it to run.
As descibed in performance monitoring it’s still best to create a baseline when your systems are running at their best so you have something to compare it to. With this tool you can set it so your servers are monitored regularly each week or as required.
There also a circular logging feature that automatically stops logging when the disk reaches a pre-set limit of remaining free space. Of course this tool isn’t limited to Terminal servers, it can be used for any Windows 2003 server whatever it’s running.
Server Performance Advisor can be downloaded here.
Why not give it a try?
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John Kellett is a UK based Citrix and Windows consultant.
http://www.johnkellett.co.uk
