2.2.13 Performance Counter

It is important to note that the PLA protocol is used only to collect performance counter values, using the IPerformanceCounterDataCollecter interface, from a particular server. The protocol does not have special knowledge of the performance counters that are registered on a machine nor can it be used to register performance counters on a particular machine.

A performance counter provider refers to an application, driver, or operating system component that surfaces numerical data used for performance analysis. A performance counter consumer refers to an application that queries for performance data from performance counter providers in order to perform performance analysis. The performance counter subsystem acts as a broker between performance counter providers and performance counter consumers. The PLA protocol is used by clients such as a performance counter consumers as one mechanism to call into the performance counter subsystem and collect performance counters exposed by such a performance counter provider. An example using pseudo-code is available in section 4.2.

For more information on performance counters see [MSDN-PC/W2K8].