I am investigating some options for instrumenting and am looking at 
PerformanceCounter.  I am wondering how logging of the data is occurring when 
a counter is updated.  

With Perfmon, you can set up a log file and set various options to clean it 
up and where to store.  Do I have those same capablilities?  

Do I have to go to Perfmon to start logging of data? or is it unnecessary?

I have some requirements to persist data for up to a year and need to be 
able to report on the data.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Custom Performance counters are a great way to surface data from your 
appliction. Many of the apps that I personally ship come with 50+ 
performance counters each.

You will need a tool of some sort though to log and store the data. Perform 
is a low-end tool for this - there are other, much better, tools. You can 
lookup WMI tools on google, and there are quite a few.

If you have hard requirements around logging, you might want to write a 
custom tool - your tool would just monitor that perf counter, and write the 
results to a disk somewhere.

-- 
Chris Mullins, MCSD.NET, MCPD:Enterprise, Microsoft C# MVP
http://www.coversant.com/blogs/cmullins

"Webbert"  wrote in message 
news:AEDC76AF-00D3-4D93-98DF-2F247A6B927E@microsoft.com...

>I am investigating some options for instrumenting and am looking at
> PerformanceCounter.  I am wondering how logging of the data is occurring 
> when
> a counter is updated.
>
> With Perfmon, you can set up a log file and set various options to clean 
> it
> up and where to store.  Do I have those same capablilities?
>
> Do I have to go to Perfmon to start logging of data? or is it unnecessary?
>
> I have some requirements to persist data for up to a year and need to be
> able to report on the data.
>
> Any thoughts are appreciated. 

By your comments below, Perfmon is not logging by default.  Is there a way to 
start it logging automatically upon startup?  The process class will start 
the executable, but how to start the logging for the user defined data 
collector set?

You mentioned writing a custom tool for logging or finding one.  Do you have 
some suggestions on tools or what to look for?  The good, bad, and ugly?

I think eventually,  System Center Operations Manager 2007 will be used for 
some of our enterprise customers.
 
Thanks,
Dave


"Chris Mullins [MVP]" wrote:


> Custom Performance counters are a great way to surface data from your 
> appliction. Many of the apps that I personally ship come with 50+ 
> performance counters each.
> 
> You will need a tool of some sort though to log and store the data. Perform 
> is a low-end tool for this - there are other, much better, tools. You can 
> lookup WMI tools on google, and there are quite a few.
> 
> If you have hard requirements around logging, you might want to write a 
> custom tool - your tool would just monitor that perf counter, and write the 
> results to a disk somewhere.
> 
> -- 
> Chris Mullins, MCSD.NET, MCPD:Enterprise, Microsoft C# MVP
> http://www.coversant.com/blogs/cmullins
> 
> "Webbert"  wrote in message 
> news:AEDC76AF-00D3-4D93-98DF-2F247A6B927E@microsoft.com...
> >I am investigating some options for instrumenting and am looking at
> > PerformanceCounter.  I am wondering how logging of the data is occurring 
> > when
> > a counter is updated.
> >
> > With Perfmon, you can set up a log file and set various options to clean 
> > it
> > up and where to store.  Do I have those same capablilities?
> >
> > Do I have to go to Perfmon to start logging of data? or is it unnecessary?
> >
> > I have some requirements to persist data for up to a year and need to be
> > able to report on the data.
> >
> > Any thoughts are appreciated. 
> 
> 
> 

You should probably ask about that in one of the MCSE or Windows Sysadmin 
groups. I'm just a developer - once the data is surfaced out of my 
application, it's out of my hands... :)

-- 
Chris Mullins, MCSD.NET, MCPD:Enterprise, Microsoft C# MVP
http://www.coversant.com/blogs/cmullins

"Webbert"  wrote in message 
news:F13C166E-BB45-46D2-B298-92F1389593B9@microsoft.com...

> By your comments below, Perfmon is not logging by default.  Is there a way 
> to
> start it logging automatically upon startup?  The process class will start
> the executable, but how to start the logging for the user defined data
> collector set?
>
> You mentioned writing a custom tool for logging or finding one.  Do you 
> have
> some suggestions on tools or what to look for?  The good, bad, and ugly?
>
> I think eventually,  System Center Operations Manager 2007 will be used 
> for
> some of our enterprise customers.
>
> Thanks,
> Dave
>
>
> "Chris Mullins [MVP]" wrote:
>
>> Custom Performance counters are a great way to surface data from your
>> appliction. Many of the apps that I personally ship come with 50+
>> performance counters each.
>>
>> You will need a tool of some sort though to log and store the data. 
>> Perform
>> is a low-end tool for this - there are other, much better, tools. You can
>> lookup WMI tools on google, and there are quite a few.
>>
>> If you have hard requirements around logging, you might want to write a
>> custom tool - your tool would just monitor that perf counter, and write 
>> the
>> results to a disk somewhere.
>>
>> -- 
>> Chris Mullins, MCSD.NET, MCPD:Enterprise, Microsoft C# MVP
>> http://www.coversant.com/blogs/cmullins
>>
>> "Webbert"  wrote in message
>> news:AEDC76AF-00D3-4D93-98DF-2F247A6B927E@microsoft.com...
>> >I am investigating some options for instrumenting and am looking at
>> > PerformanceCounter.  I am wondering how logging of the data is 
>> > occurring
>> > when
>> > a counter is updated.
>> >
>> > With Perfmon, you can set up a log file and set various options to 
>> > clean
>> > it
>> > up and where to store.  Do I have those same capablilities?
>> >
>> > Do I have to go to Perfmon to start logging of data? or is it 
>> > unnecessary?
>> >
>> > I have some requirements to persist data for up to a year and need to 
>> > be
>> > able to report on the data.
>> >
>> > Any thoughts are appreciated.
>>
>>
>>