PerfMon protocol management on multiple systems
I need to use PerfMon to collect data from multiple computers and I need to be able to enable / disable collection at specific times. I have all the data points configured on each machine; I just need to start / stop PerfMon and start / stop the build of a set of data points.
For reasons I won't go into, I can't just configure an entire collection from one PerfMon instance on one machine - I need to start / stop PerfMon data collection on multiple machines at the same time (roughly).
All systems involved are running Windows 2003 Server and I cannot install any additional software on the systems.
Is it possible to do this using, for example, PowerShell (or whatever is usually installed on Windows 2003 servers)?
source to share
Have a look at logman.exe . You can use it to create counters (if you already have a template definition) as well as start / stop perfmon data collection. See Performance Monitor Overview for some information about the security requirements of the account running logman.exe.
From .bat, MSBuild or Nant, you can do something like:
Logman start [username] -s [computername]
or
Logman stop [username] -s [computername]
Once you have collected all these log files, you can use relog.exe to import them into your sql instance so that you can query / report them more easily.
I know you mentioned that you cannot install any additional software, but ... depending on the setup of your lab or other environment, you may want the perfmon log to be loaded into the sql datastore. Even if his Sql Express instance is running on a server in an environment, it can make your life easier. At least it could / skip importing data to one store to make query / analysis easier.
Good luck!
Z
source to share