What is good server performance monitoring software for Windows?

Question

I'm looking for some software to monitor a single server for performance alerts. Preferably free and with a reasonable default configuration.

Edit: To clarify, I would like to run this software on a Windows machine and monitor a remote Windows server for CPU/memory/etc. usage alerts (not a single application).

Edit: I suppose its not necessary that this software be run remotely, I would also settle for something that ran on the server and emailed me if there was an alert. It seems like Windows performance logs and alerts might be used for this purpose somehow but it was not immediately obvious to me.

Edit: Found a neat tool on the coding horror blog, not as useful for remote monitoring but very useful for things you would worry about as a server admin: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_ff_rmon.asp

Solution 1

For performance monitor - start it on the server (Win+R and enter "perfmon"). Select "Performance Logs and Alerts" and expand. Select "Alerts". Select "Action" & then "New Alert". Give the alert a name, click "Add" to add a counter (there are hundres of counters, for example CPU %), then give it some limits.

Select the "Action" tab, and then decide what you want to do. You may need a third party program - for example Blat to send emails - but basiaclly any script can be run.

Solution 2

I've been experimenting with munin for monitoring around 8 Windows 2003 servers.

http://munin.projects.linpro.no/

Its a free linux-based system and the Windows agent works well & is easily extensible. Setup is simple if you have some minimal linux knowledge.

Solution 3

If you want something free, try Nagios.

http://www.nagios.org/

Solution 4

You can configure you perfmon to collect specific counters to "Trace Logs" files on your hard drive. We usually keep daily logs for important counters:

• Vital signs (CPU, Memory, HDD space)
• Application specific (ASP.Net counters / SQL Counters)
• Custom counters if your applicaiton exposes such

You can add "Alerts" for specific counters / counters groups and define actions when these alerts fire.

Solution 5

A list of monitoring tools from the High Scalability blog

View more solutions

Comments

[Luke]

I'm using bmail instead of blat, but this is just the simple low-scale solution I was looking for.

[Ian Varley]

This link is dead now - can you update?