These “Big 3” let you gauge SQL Server health quickly
Use Performance Monitor often, and consider reviewing SQL Server:Page Life Expectancy, Physical Disk: Avg. Disk sec/Read, and Processor: % Processor Time to estimate the relative well-being of a SQL Server box. These three counters do well giving you a quick-and-dirty of what’s happening on the box. Use these to make a generalization, not a conclusion, on how the SQL Server is servicing user requests. Follow these rough guidelines for comparison purposes. And, these are “rough” guidelines. Use judgment when looking at counters, and learn to compare them with other counters to get a true picture of what is happening with SQL Server performance. Remember Keynesian economics in college, when the teacher put up several graphs on the board to show how when something went one direction, another went the opposite? Same deal here.
Lee
Page Life Expectancy (PLE)
EXCELLENT: over 5000
GOOD: 3000 - 5000
BAD: < 1000 (Microsoft recommendation here is < 300)
Avg Disk sec/Read
EXCELLENT: < .009
GOOD: .009 to .02
BAD: > .02 (You, my friend, have disk problems)
% Processor Time
EXCELLENT: < 20%
GOOD: 20% to 40%
BAD: > 80% (Sustained we’re talking here, not peaks)
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I ain’t making this stuff up, I promise.
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