Appendix D: Tools for Measuring Performance
This topic describes several tools that can be used to monitor and evaluate the performance of a BizTalk Server environment.
Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) tool
The PAL tool is used to generate an HTML-based report that graphically charts important performance monitor counters and generates alerts when thresholds for these counters are exceeded. PAL is an excellent tool for identifying bottlenecks in a BizTalk Server solution to facilitate the appropriate allocation of resources when optimizing the performance of the solution.
Note
Use of this tool is not supported by Microsoft, and Microsoft makes no guarantees about the suitability of this programs. Use of this program is entirely at your own risk.
Performance Monitor
Performance Monitor provides a visual display of built-in Windows performance counters, either in real time or as a way to review historical data.
Log Parser
Log parser is a powerful, versatile tool that provides universal query access to text-based data such as log files, XML files and CSV files, as well as key data sources on the Windows® operating system such as the Event Log, the Registry, the file system, and Active Directory®. Download Log Parser.
Relog
The Relog utility is used to extract performance counters from logs created by Performance Monitor and convert the data into other formats, such as tab-delimited text files (text-TSV), comma-delimited text files (text-CSV), binary files, and SQL databases. This data can then be analyzed and queried using other tools, such as Log Parser, to generate statistics for key performance indicators (KPIs).
LoadGen
BizTalk LoadGen 2007 is a load generation tool used to run performance and stress tests against BizTalk Server. Download BizTalk LoadGen 2007 Tools.
Visual Studio Team System Load Testing
The Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) provides a tool for creating and running load tests. See Testing the Application.
BizUnit
BizUnit is a framework designed for automated testing of BizTalk Server solutions. BizUnit is an excellent tool for testing end-to-end BizTalk Server scenarios. See BizUnit.
Note
Use of this tool is not supported by Microsoft, and Microsoft makes no guarantees about the suitability of this programs. Use of this program is entirely at your own risk.
IOMeter
IOMeter is an open source tool used for measuring disk I/O performance. See http://www.iometer.org.
Note
Use of this tool is not supported by Microsoft, and Microsoft makes no guarantees about the suitability of this programs. Use of this program is entirely at your own risk.
Pathping
Pathping provides information about possible data loss at one or more router hops on the way to a target host. To do so, pathping sends Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) packets to each router in the path.
SQL Server Tools for Performance Monitoring and Tuning
SQL Server provides several tools for monitoring events in SQL Server and for tuning the physical database design. See Performance Monitoring and Tuning Tools.
SQL Profiler
Microsoft SQL Server Profiler can be used to capture Transact-SQL statements that are sent to SQL Server and the SQL Server result sets from these statements. Because SQL Server is tightly integrated with SQL Server, the analysis of a SQL Server Profile trace can be a useful tool for analyzing problems that may occur in BizTalk Server when reading from and writing to SQL Server databases. See Using SQL Server Profiler.
Important
There is considerable overhead associated with running SQL Profiler. Therefore SQL Profiler is best suited for use in test or development environments. If using SQL Profiler to troubleshoot a production environment, be aware of the associated overhead costs and limit the use of SQL Profiler accordingly.
When using SQL Profiler to capture Transact-SQL statements, configure SQL Profiler to generate output to a local drive rather than a drive located on a remote network share or other slow device, for example, a local USB memory stick.
SQL Trace
SQL Server provides Transact-SQL system stored procedures to create traces on an instance of the SQL Server Database Engine. These system stored procedures can be used from within your own applications to create traces manually, instead of using SQL Server Profiler. This allows you to write custom applications specific to the needs of your enterprise. See SQL Trace.
Note
When using SQL Trace to capture Transact-SQL statements, configure SQL Trace to generate output to a local drive rather than a drive located on a remote network share or other slow device, such as a USB flash drive.
SQL Activity Monitor
SQL Server Activity Monitor provides information about SQL Server processes and how these processes affect the current instance of SQL Server. For more information, go to Activity Monitor and How to: Open Activity Monitor (SQL Server Management Studio.
SQL Server Data Collection
SQL Server provides a data collector that you can use to obtain and save data that is gathered from several sources. The data collector enables you to use data collection containers, which enable you to determine the scope and frequency of data collection on a computer that is running SQL Server. See Data Collection.
SQLIO
The SQLIO tool was developed by Microsoft to evaluate the I/O capacity of a given configuration. As the name of the tool implies, SQLIO is a valuable tool for measuring the impact of file system I/O on SQL Server performance. For more information, go to Use the SQLIOSim utility to simulate SQL Server activity on a disk subsystem.