You can use the Windows NT Performance Monitor utility to monitor your Web server's performance. Performance Monitor contains counters that monitor the activity of specific objects, that is, specific services or mechanisms controlling server resources. Counters monitor activity that varies over time, such as file transfer rates, bandwidth usage, or connection rates. For detailed information about using the Performance Monitor tool itself, see the Windows NT documentation.
Windows NT includes a number of counters, and IIS installs special counters, including Web service counters, FTP service counters, Active Server Page application counters, and global counters for Internet Information Services. This topic lists and describes the global counters for Internet Information Services. Among other things, you can use these counters to monitor the behavior of your memory caching settings and bandwidth throttling settings. (If you want to view counters related to throughput and connections, use counters for the Web service or FTP service, described in Monitoring Counters for Web Sites, Monitoring Counters for FTP Sites, and Monitoring Counters for Active Server Pages.)
Note While adding counters in the Add To dialog box in Performance Monitor, you can view an explanation of the currently selected counter by clicking the Explain button.
Note To obtain and use counters related to TCP, see the Windows NT Resource Kit documentation. These counters, along with disk counters also provided by the Windows NT Resource Kit, can supplement the information obtained from the counters listed here.
Counters related to the bandwidth used by IIS as a whole are listed below. To view these counters, follow the procedure outlined in Viewing Current Performance; when selecting the performance object, select Internet Information Services Global. Note that you can also view these counters for the Web Service or for the FTP Service; for information, see Monitoring Counters for Web Sites, Monitoring Counters for FTP Sites, and Monitoring Counters for Active Server Pages.
| Counter | Description |
|---|---|
| Current Blocked Async I/O Requests | Current number of requests that are temporarily blocked by the bandwidth throttle setting. Blocked requests are held in a buffer and then unblocked if more bandwidth becomes available, unless a timeout limit is reached. |
| Measured Async I/O Bandwidth usage | The number of bytes received and sent by your Web server, averaged over one minute. This is a measure of the total amount of user traffic on your server. |
| Total Allowed Async I/O Requests | The number of user requests allowed by the Web and FTP services since service startup. When you throttle bandwidth, the number of allowed user requests will be restricted. |
| Total Blocked Async I/O Requests | The total number of requests that have been temporarily blocked by the bandwidth throttle setting since service startup. Blocked requests are held in a buffer and then unblocked if more bandwidth becomes available, unless a timeout limit is reached. |
| Total Rejected Async I/O Requests | The total number of user requests rejected (because of bandwidth settings) since service startup. When a request is rejected, it is not held in a buffer, unlike a blocked request. |
Counters related to the cache activity of IIS as a whole are listed below. To view these counters, follow the procedure outlined in Viewing Current Performance; when selecting the performance object, select Internet Information Services Global.
| Counter | Description |
|---|---|
| Cache Flushes | Total number of times since service startup that cache has been flushed. |
| Cache Hits | Total number of times since service startup a file-open, directory-listing, or service-specific object's request was found in the IIS cache. |
| Cache Hits % | Ratio of cache hits to all cache requests. |
| Cache Misses | Total number of times since service startup a file-open, directory-listing, or service-specific object's request was not found in the cache. |
| Cached File Handles | Current number of open file handles cached by all Internet Information Server services. |
| Directory Listings | Current number of cached directory listings cached by all Internet Information Server services. |
| Objects | Current number of objects cached by all of Internet Information Server services (includes file-handle tracking objects, directory-listing objects, and service-specific objects). |
Related topics: