Automating "picture" of server performance

Hi all

I need to do the following using the performance monitor tool.

Im monitoring the %cpu used, transaction/sec and page/sec of a server using the perfomance monitor.

What i would need to do is to monitor all these information in a log that will reset himself once it has reached its maximum size limit. I also need to be able to take a "screenshot" of what was in the log when it became full but i cannot simply save the file because it would use too much space in the long run.

Is there a way for me to automating this information and make it so that each time the log become full i can take a screenshot (By that i mean getting a image of the information under the form of a graphic) of what was inside the log before it restart?

Ask if you need more precision

Dale

If you can't save the file, you probably can't save a graphic that would include everything and all the details in the file.

You can automate perf mon and dump it to a CSV. But if you tried to create a screenshot that shows all the details of all the info in the CSV and save all of those, it's likely not going to save space. Maybe you should look at the interval you are using in perf mon. Or save the file somewhere off the server if it's just space on the server itself. Or load the csv files into a table in a database. I just am not following the whole screenshot concept. It's not going to be that useful in analysis to have a ton of screenshots to look through.

-Sue

|||

I need those to help determine the best moment of the week to monitor the system through a server sided trace.

I think the best will be to just keep all the log and extract the information i want from it at the end of the week.

Automatically Create Statistics

What are the benefits of allowing sql server to automatically create
statistics? I know that auto update statistic can have drawbacks on
performance.
--
Regards
JTC ^..^Hi
Without up to date statistics, the query optimizer can make terrible
decisions and produce an execution plan that is not optimal. Query
performance then goes down the drain for those queries.
Updating statistics incurs a bit of an overhead and when it kicks in, causes
a delay in completing your data modification.
In SQL Server 2005, MS have added an feature of allowing statistics to be
updated as-synchronously, not as part of the data modification.
Unless you have a very specific situation, leave Auto Statistics on.
Regards
--
Mike Epprecht, Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Zurich, Switzerland
IM: mike@.epprecht.net
MVP Program: http://www.microsoft.com/mvp
Blog: http://www.msmvps.com/epprecht/
"JTC ^..^" <dave@.(nospam)JazzTheCat.co.uk> wrote in message
news:Xns96AFD050DD23daveJTC@.213.123.26.234...
> What are the benefits of allowing sql server to automatically create
> statistics? I know that auto update statistic can have drawbacks on
> performance.
> --
> Regards
> JTC ^..^|||Thanks for you reply, but my question is specific to Automatically Creating
Statistics?
--
Regards
JTC ^..^|||Here is an excellent article by Lubor that should help explaining things for
you.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnanchor/html/sqlserver2000.asp
-oj
"JTC ^..^" <dave@.(nospam)JazzTheCat.co.uk> wrote in message
news:Xns96AFD050DD23daveJTC@.213.123.26.234...
> What are the benefits of allowing sql server to automatically create
> statistics? I know that auto update statistic can have drawbacks on
> performance.
> --
> Regards
> JTC ^..^|||I think Mike responding to auto-stats...
When auto-stats is turned on you can not control WHEN it runs, and it does
lots of IO and can interfere with other production work. Additionally,
Auto-stats will automatically do a sample of rows for large tables, instead
of doing a 100% sample, which is preferred and something which you can
specify when you run stats yourself.
I agree with Mike, unless you are experiencing problems which you can
specifically trace back to auto-stats running, leave it on..
However I would still schedule complete index rebuilds and/or stats creation
during your normal maintenance.
--
Wayne Snyder, MCDBA, SQL Server MVP
Mariner, Charlotte, NC
www.mariner-usa.com
(Please respond only to the newsgroups.)
I support the Professional Association of SQL Server (PASS) and it's
community of SQL Server professionals.
www.sqlpass.org
"JTC ^..^" <dave@.(nospam)JazzTheCat.co.uk> wrote in message
news:Xns96AFD050DD23daveJTC@.213.123.26.234...
> What are the benefits of allowing sql server to automatically create
> statistics? I know that auto update statistic can have drawbacks on
> performance.
> --
> Regards
> JTC ^..^|||On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 19:27:37 +0000 (UTC), "JTC ^..^"
<dave@.(nospam)JazzTheCat.co.uk> wrote:
>What are the benefits of allowing sql server to automatically create
>statistics? I know that auto update statistic can have drawbacks on
>performance.
It's possible if you have an unusually static database with lots of
updates that don't change any keys, that turning off the auto
statistics could save you a tiny percentage. That is, the stats
computed on day one might be close enough for the next month, that you
could save a tiny bit of processing that updates them in real time.
Anybody ever do that on purpose?
J.|||Did you forget "sync topic" oj? ;-)
My guess is that you meant to post below URL:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnsql2k/html/statquery.asp?frame=true
JTC,
I see that many replied about auto-update statistics and you explicitly was asking about auto
*create* statistics. In short, there are situation where the optimizer would benefit from knowing
about the distribution of the data even if you don't have an index on the column. Perhaps it would
pick different execution plans for a GROUP BY depending on uniqueness, for example. For these
scenarios, it is good to let the optimizer create statistics to aid in picking a good query plan.
--
Tibor Karaszi, SQL Server MVP
http://www.karaszi.com/sqlserver/default.asp
http://www.solidqualitylearning.com/
Blog: http://solidqualitylearning.com/blogs/tibor/
"oj" <nospam_ojngo@.home.com> wrote in message news:eTIS0HsnFHA.4028@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> Here is an excellent article by Lubor that should help explaining things for you.
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnanchor/html/sqlserver2000.asp
>
> --
> -oj
>
> "JTC ^..^" <dave@.(nospam)JazzTheCat.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:Xns96AFD050DD23daveJTC@.213.123.26.234...
>> What are the benefits of allowing sql server to automatically create
>> statistics? I know that auto update statistic can have drawbacks on
>> performance.
>> --
>> Regards
>> JTC ^..^
>|||argh...thanks for posting the correct link, Tibor. ;-)
--
-oj
"Tibor Karaszi" <tibor_please.no.email_karaszi@.hotmail.nomail.com> wrote in
message news:OzN6HOxnFHA.572@.TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> Did you forget "sync topic" oj? ;-)
> My guess is that you meant to post below URL:
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnsql2k/html/statquery.asp?frame=true
>
> JTC,
> I see that many replied about auto-update statistics and you explicitly
> was asking about auto *create* statistics. In short, there are situation
> where the optimizer would benefit from knowing about the distribution of
> the data even if you don't have an index on the column. Perhaps it would
> pick different execution plans for a GROUP BY depending on uniqueness, for
> example. For these scenarios, it is good to let the optimizer create
> statistics to aid in picking a good query plan.
> --
> Tibor Karaszi, SQL Server MVP
> http://www.karaszi.com/sqlserver/default.asp
> http://www.solidqualitylearning.com/
> Blog: http://solidqualitylearning.com/blogs/tibor/
>
> "oj" <nospam_ojngo@.home.com> wrote in message
> news:eTIS0HsnFHA.4028@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>> Here is an excellent article by Lubor that should help explaining things
>> for you.
>> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnanchor/html/sqlserver2000.asp
>>
>> --
>> -oj
>>
>> "JTC ^..^" <dave@.(nospam)JazzTheCat.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:Xns96AFD050DD23daveJTC@.213.123.26.234...
>> What are the benefits of allowing sql server to automatically create
>> statistics? I know that auto update statistic can have drawbacks on
>> performance.
>> --
>> Regards
>> JTC ^..^
>>
>|||"Tibor Karaszi" <tibor_please.no.email_karaszi@.hotmail.nomail.com> wrote
in news:OzN6HOxnFHA.572@.TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl:
> Did you forget "sync topic" oj? ;-)
> My guess is that you meant to post below URL:
> http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnsql2
> k/html/statquery.asp?frame=true
>
> JTC,
> I see that many replied about auto-update statistics and you
> explicitly was asking about auto *create* statistics. In short, there
> are situation where the optimizer would benefit from knowing about the
> distribution of the data even if you don't have an index on the
> column. Perhaps it would pick different execution plans for a GROUP BY
> depending on uniqueness, for example. For these scenarios, it is good
> to let the optimizer create statistics to aid in picking a good query
> plan.
>
Thanks Tibor. I should have made my original post even clearer.
--
Regards
JTC ^..^|||Even if you were to try this, you could leave auto-create ON and auto-update
OFF in such a case to make sure that you have not missed any cases in your
queries where statistics are needed.
In general, please just leave them on unless you have a specific scenario
where performance is specifically impacted by auto-stats. In almost all of
our user cases, leaving this on has no impact.
Thanks,
Conor Cunningham
SQL Server Query Optimization Development Lead
"jxstern" <jxstern@.nowhere.xyz> wrote in message
news:a3unf1d2d4et3ocs5um5i8i7enoirejv16@.4ax.com...
> On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 19:27:37 +0000 (UTC), "JTC ^..^"
> <dave@.(nospam)JazzTheCat.co.uk> wrote:
>>What are the benefits of allowing sql server to automatically create
>>statistics? I know that auto update statistic can have drawbacks on
>>performance.
> It's possible if you have an unusually static database with lots of
> updates that don't change any keys, that turning off the auto
> statistics could save you a tiny percentage. That is, the stats
> computed on day one might be close enough for the next month, that you
> could save a tiny bit of processing that updates them in real time.
> Anybody ever do that on purpose?
> J.
>

Autofill Date Parameters do not work when deployed to server

Good morning all,

I have a report which measures supplier performance for the previous month. It takes an age to generate so I am trying to cache a copy to a null location first thing in the morning to speed up the process. The problem I'm having is in getting the report to select the first day and last day of the month for the two parameters that the report needs to run.

In BIDS the report runs perfectly when previewed, however, when it is deployed to the report server I get the following error: 'Error during processing of ‘RP2’ report parameter. (rsReportParameterProcessingError)'

I have used the following two statements for the default values of the parameters, which work in BIDS, so I can't understand why they don't when it's deployed. I'm also sure there is an easier way of doing this, but after about an hour searching yesterday and not finding anything it only took me about half that time to use these statements:

for opening date:

=IIf(Month(Now()) = 1, CDate("01/12/" & CInt(Year(Now())-1)), IIf(Month(Now()) = 2, CDate("01/01/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 3, CDate("01/02/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(NOw()) = 4, CDate("01/03/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 5, CDate("01/04/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 6, CDate("01/05/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 7, CDate("01/06/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 8, CDate("01/07/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 9, CDate("01/08/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 10, CDate("01/09/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 11, Cdate("01/10/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 12, CDate("01/11/" & Year(Now())), CDate("01/12/1900")))))))))))))

for closing date (pretty similar really, this is the parameter with which the report server finds an error):

=IIf(Month(Now()) = 1, CDate("31/12/" & CInt(Year(Now())-1)), IIf(Month(Now()) = 2, CDate("31/01/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 3, CDate("28/02/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 4, CDate("31/03/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 5, CDate("30/04/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 6, CDate("31/05/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 7, CDate("30/06/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 8, CDate("31/07/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 9, CDate("31/08/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 10, CDate("30/09/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 11, CDate("31/10/" & Year(Now())), IIf(Month(Now()) = 12, CDate("30/11/" & Year(Now())), CDate("31/12/1900")))))))))))))

The only caviate to using these statements is that it wont recognise when a leap year occurs, other than that, if it would work when deployed to the report server it would work perfectly for the purposes of what we need.

If anyone can see the flaw, or knows of a better and easier way of doing this please let me know.

Humble thanks,

Paul

I think I've found out what is going on, just not sure how to fix it yet.

The problem is unique to me, everyone else can run the report from the report server and the auto date parameters work just fine.

When I built the report I used English United Kingdom as the default language, the report server's language is set as default to English United Kingdom, as is my machine. For some reason when I try to view the report it changes the date format to English US, or some other equivalent mm/dd/yyyy format and as there are only 12 months in a year the end date parameter falls over because it sees the day as being a month. However, no one else in our organisation has this problem and the report runs perfectly with the parameters being filled automatically as they should.

If I find the reason why my system default date format is being bypassed I'll post it on the forum in case anyone else encounters a similar problem.

Paul

|||

Okay, I've been a dumb schmuck, the language in Internet Explorer was set as English US, and as Reporting Services is a Web-based service it was using this information as the default language setting.

Since I've changed it to English UK everything works as it should.

Paul

Auto update statistics and Auto create statistics Options

According to BOL, Adding statistics improves query
performance because the SQL Server query optimizer can
better determine how to evaluate a query.
However, someone says that statistics updates will cause
locks on tables at unpredictable times and impact
performance for users.
Should we turn the options on ?
If we turn them off, how can we update the statistics ?
Can it be done in the Database Maintenance Plan ?Technically, yes... it's theoretically possible for auto update statistics
to cause performance degradation under certain performance situations. But
generally speaking... the potential performance problems associated with
turning the option off... are MUCH larger than the potential problems of
leaving them on...
I normally keep them on for databases that I help to manage for customers.
--
Brian Moran
Principal Mentor
Solid Quality Learning
SQL Server MVP
http://www.solidqualitylearning.com
"Paul" <anonymous@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:a8cd01c3eb89$eb171030$a601280a@.phx.gbl...
> According to BOL, Adding statistics improves query
> performance because the SQL Server query optimizer can
> better determine how to evaluate a query.
> However, someone says that statistics updates will cause
> locks on tables at unpredictable times and impact
> performance for users.
> Should we turn the options on ?
> If we turn them off, how can we update the statistics ?
> Can it be done in the Database Maintenance Plan ?