• Illustration: SPA Overview Report

Version 2.0 of the Server Performance Advisor (SPA), a free tool that helps administrators monitor the workload of various Windows Server 2003 services and subsystems (such as the file system, networking, or processor) and generate diagnostic reports for single or multiple servers, is available. The new version includes better data management, trend reporting, and support for additional server roles, which help isolate the root cause of performance problems. Although SPA can help analyze performance problems to discover their causes, it does not manage systems. For management of systems and alert-based reporting, customers should consider Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM).

What SPA Does

SPA typically records short periods of activity measured in seconds or minutes rather than hours. SPA then analyzes the data it collects to discover the components and requests that created high loads on the system during that period. By analyzing the interactions among performance, event data, and configuration information from the Registry, and comparing them with rules that describe known or possible problems, the SPA can advise administrators on steps that could resolve performance problems for specific server roles, such as Active Directory, Internet Information System (IIS), Terminal Services, SQL Server, and the print spooler. (For an illustration, see "SPA Overview Report").

SPA differs from the Windows Performance Monitor, an administrative tool for monitoring the performance of Windows clients and servers that's included in all versions of Windows. Both tools use a series of counters to track data, such as the number of processes waiting for disk time, but Performance Monitor can be confusing because it can monitor so many performance variables. SPA helps administrators focus on the metrics that are most likely to reveal the origin of performance problems and provides guidance for tuning and monitoring performance for specific server roles.

Data collection groups manage the collection of performance data that is relevant to a particular server role. SPA automatically detects the server roles currently configured for the computer and installs and configures the appropriate data collection groups.

What's New in Version 2.0

The second version of the Windows Server 2003 SPA includes improvements in the following areas:

Data management. Administrators can configure logs to stop collecting performance data at a preset limit, or wrap performance logs to conserve storage.

Trend reporting. Administrators can control the intervals of data collection to help spot trends over different time periods. For example, administrators can track performance trends on a weekly basis, from the oldest archived report to the newest, or over a specified time interval.

New templates. New templates that define which performance data is collected for a server role and the contents of reports are provided, including an IIS template that enables performance tracing a single URL and an IT study template that monitors a range of server roles in a single report.

New server role. A data collection group for analyzing the performance of Domain Name System (DNS) servers is now included.

Support for x64. Administrators can use SPA to monitor Windows Server 2003 x64 editions.

Availability and Resources

SPA is only supported on Windows Server 2003 to monitor Windows 2003 servers—it cannot be run on Windows XP or Windows 2000 to monitor Windows Server 2003. To run on Windows Server 2003 x64 versions, the .NET Framework version 1.1 is required. For data trend reporting, SQL 2000 or MSDE is required.

Version 2.0 of the Windows Server 2003 SPA can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=09115420-8c9d-46b9-a9a5-9bffcd237da2&DisplayLang=en.

The initial release of the Server Performance Analyzer is described in the article "Perf Tool Helps Tune Windows Server" on page 19 of the Feb. 2005 Update.

MOM is described in "More Polished Operations Manager Nearing Completion" on page 3 of the July 2004 Update and "Management Product Roadmap Expanding" on page 11 of the June 2005 Update.