Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) is a complex and powerful tool. For SMS, as with most complex systems, performance monitoring and tuning is an important part of system maintenance to ensure optimum system performance. This chapter discusses methods for identifying and fixing tuning problems—problems that occur when the system is performing properly, but not efficiently.
To help you find and eliminate tuning problems, this chapter provides information about the following:
"Tuning and Bottlenecks" A single component can degrade system performance. When this happens, the limiting component is called a bottleneck. This section discusses bottlenecks and how to find them.
"Performance Monitor" Performance Monitor is a Windows NT administrative tool for monitoring the performance of computers running Windows NT. This section describes Performance Monitor and how to use it to find bottlenecks in an SMS system.
"Task Manager" Task Manager is a new tool introduced with Windows NT 4.0. It lets you start, stop, and monitor applications and processes on your computer. It also provides basic performance-monitoring capabilities. This section describes how to use Task Manager to find bottlenecks.
"Tuning Tips" This section describes ways to tune your SMS system once you have found bottlenecks that are impairing system performance.