Introduction

Server performance is an important issue in a mission-critical business environment. Poor performance can have a huge negative impact on the ability of workers to do their jobs, and thus on productivity and the company s bottom line. Monitoring and optimizing performance of network servers is one of the administrator s most important tasks, and it is important to continually collect and analyze performance data to ensure that any problems can be taken care of before they impact end users. Security events are another important area that the administrator must stay on top of, to protect the integrity of the organization s network and data.

Windows Server 2003 provides administrators with built-in tools for monitoring performance issues and detecting security breaches (or attempted breaches). These include both simple monitoring tools such as Task Manager, powerful monitoring tools such as the System Monitor, and a set of useful command-line utilities. For auditing security events, the security log provides vital information for tracking successful and failed breaches of security.

In this chapter, we will show you how to use these tools to monitor server performance and security and provide tips for optimizing performance of common server applications.

Monitoring Performance

EXAM 70-290: OBJECTIVE 4.6

Performance is a key factor of a successful system implementation. Windows Server 2003 provides several tools to analyze performance. Those tools include the following:

• Task Manager

• System Monitor

• A set of command-line utilities

In the following sections, we will discuss how each of these can be used to monitor and analyze...